Maui {Sunglass Pros}

When I first moved to Lahaina I didn't have any money to speak of, I didn't have a job, a place to live or a plan and I only knew one person on the island. I got a job right away (at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.), I found a place to live and I ate a lot of rice. After a couple months I got a job working with that one person I knew on the island- my Melanie. We worked at Sunglass Pros for a guy named Steve. He's crazy and anyone who has met him can back me up on that.

Working for Steve opened a lot of doors from me. I ended up moving from Maui to Park City to run his store there for the year before I left on my mission. Steve would come into town and feed me, motivate me and brainstorm some of the most off the wall business ideas imaginable. During that year I also worked for short amounts of time in his Boston and Boulder stores and helped him open the Santa Barbara store. I got very good at living out of my two suitcases for a few years there.

When I returned from my mission Steve gave me the opportunity to work for him back in Santa Barbara. I jumped at the chance! From there I met and married my husband and made some of my most treasured friends. I don't think that when I first walked into Sunglass Pros I could have ever imagined how this little shop would change my life.

Above and below were both taken from the same spot. Not a bad view from the store, eh?

As we drove out of Lahaina on our way to the airport I was brimming with gratitude for this place I called home for a while. It may not have seemed like the most wise decision to move there but it's one of the very best decisions I have ever made.

You'll have to excuse the car door in these pictures. I was trying to get a shot of one of the views that is solidly set in my memory. I was sitting in the back of a Jeep Liberty stuffed full of everything Melanie, Shayne and I owned as we drove to the airport and moved off the island. It was October 2006. The sun was going down and the waves were all wind-blown and glowy. I remember thinking that I may never see that view again. Everything was changing and I honestly had no idea where my life was going.

Maui, you're the greatest, you'll always be my little slice of heaven.