Cindy and I are celebrating tonight because we’ve just booked our Maui ’08 trip, and it’s two months sooner than we had hoped. Okay, we’re not celebrating too much because (1) it’s still only December and (2) here in Chicago we’re about 3 inches into a snowstorm that could add up to 6 inches by morning. Still, I had to break out the Maui Ocean Vodka for a small little toast.

This trip is going to be fun and special for numerous reasons. First, we’re hoping to cross of a few of the items on our yet to do list, one of which is to spend my birthday in Maui. We’re also taking my mom on her first trip to Hawaii to celebrate one of her milestone birthdays next year (I’ll spare the number), so that’s going to be fun playing a little tour guide while we’re there.

We now get to start planning some of our activities and tours for this trip, which has us reaching Maui on April 13th and staying for 12 nights. I’ll have more details closer to the date and as reservations are made (as we will likely be bursting with anticipation by then), but this does get us one trip closer, schedule wise, to our whale watching trip to be planned for February ’09. We know there might be an off chance of seeing a few whales next April (which would be absolutely incredible), but we’ve read and heard that February is a prime time to see them everywhere.

That’s it for now, as I still have a good number of things to finish up for the site here and for photos and scrapbooks from our ’07 trip just a few months ago (which seems like forever). Plus, I have to get some rest so I can shovel out my car in the morning with all the snow that’s coming down.

Aloha and mahalo.