We just got back home from Hawaii yesterday afternoon after an amazing time with family on the Big Island of Hawaii! I didn't end up keeping a journal or anything while I was over there of all that we did, so hopefully I can remember everything to tell you about it on here! I'll just start from the beginning and tell as much as I can right now before Scott gets home from his softball game. :o) Just to warn you now, this will probably be VERY long and might take me awhile to finish it...
Monday, May 30th
This was our 2nd anniversary and we spent it flying to Hawaii! The destination was awesome, but the day was VERY long! We left our house that morning at 7:40, waking Daniel up and feeding him in the car on the way over to Amanda's to pick up her and Vienna. We met Mom, Dad, Nanny, Lelia, and Wayne at the airport by 8:30 and spent most of our time before boarding getting tickets, checking in luggage, going through security, and getting last things done before boarding our first plane. That was the quick 45 min. flight to Denver, and Daniel sat back in another row with Scott while I sat with Nanny and enjoyed my only super relaxing flight of the day. :o) (Amazing how it is to travel with kids!) We spent three hours in Denver where we had lunch, rested, and watched as Vienna used up all her energy by strolling Daniel around and around our chairs. (He LOVED that!) We were a little late getting out of Denver for some reason (I think it was because of the wind, but I can't remember for sure), which meant that although the 2 1/2 hour flight to San Francisco went pretty well overall (Daniel didn't really sleep at all that flight, but Scott, Vienna, and I just kept him entertained as much as possible...), we were all a little worried because we knew that our 45 min. layover in San Francisco was getting shorter and shorter... They told us on the plane before we landed that there were 23 of us on that flight that were supposed to be on the flight to Kona, also, so they said that they were going to hold the plane for us. YAY! That was very nice to hear! Scott, Daniel, and I had to wait to get his stroller and car seat that we had gate checked while everyone else rushed over to our other flight, and after we finally got the stuff (after almost leaving the stroller there because it was taking so long), we ran over to our other gate just as they were about to close the door. SO glad we didn't get stuck there by ourselves! It was then time for our 5 hour flight to Kona. Daniel slept maybe 30 min. total on that flight near the very end, and needless to say that was just a LONG flight for us all, especially not being able to move around much for me and trying to keep Daniel entertained and not crying as much as possible! We were SO glad to get to Hawaii finally around 7:15 their time, which was 11:15 CO time. We were EXHAUSTED!
*Our sleepy Daniel*
The airport was so cool there! It was a bunch of hut type buildings with the security / gates / check-in areas / etc. underneath them in the open air. It was sweet! We stocked up on brochures while the guys got our luggage, and then headed over to a shuttle to our rental cars. Oh, yeah, we also found out that our handle had COMPLETELY come out of our luggage which meant we had a BIG hole in the top of it. So far I haven't noticed anything that was missing, though, so I'm hoping that nothing fell out. (And, yes, we just bought new luggage in Hawaii! Good ol' Costco!) Anyway, we ended up having to wait at the rental car place at least an hour before getting the keys to our Dodge Caravan and Dodge Caliber. We were sooooo tired by the time we finally got into our cars and headed the 25 minutes to the Hilton Grand Vacations Club in the Waikoloa area. Then it was to bed after looking around our awesome suite that we were sharing with Mom and Dad. (The others were in a suite upstairs from us.)
Tuesday, May 31
Tuesday was our day to just look around the area as much as we could... I'll try to remember as much as I can about what all we did. :o) First of all, that morning after waking up at 4 or so with Daniel (he slept with us in our big bed for awhile after that), we spent some time outside our room enjoying the beauty around us!
*Pictures of the scenery from our room...*
Then we all went to the golf course restaurant nearby to have a delicious breakfast of pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, and OJ (at least that's what I had). Then we went back to the room real fast before packing up in the cars again and heading to Kona to go grocery shopping. We went to a Natural Grocers, Safeway, and then Costco to stock up on food for the week and then us girls all headed home with Daniel to rest and have lunch while Dad, Scott, and Wayne went to check out some stuff for Dad and Wayne's scuba diving the next day. Once they got back we took a nap with Daniel before joining everyone else down at the pool for swimming! Daniel had SO much fun with that, especially with all the people to swim around with him! We also enjoyed Mai Tais (my virgin one was amazing - just fruit juices mixed, but yummy) and enjoyed the beautiful scenery while we swam!
We ate pizza for dinner before we put Daniel down early to bed and we all hung out on our back patio enjoying the amazing weather and the beautiful palm trees! It was a great and relaxing first day in Hawaii! :o)
------ (okay, this is going to take me awhile to write if I only get a few days written about each time... oh, well, here I go again!)
Wednesday, June 1
Dad and Wayne left early this morning to go scuba diving for most of the day, while us girls, Scott, and Daniel all rested at the rooms that morning until we left around 10 or so to head into Kona for shopping. Yes, Scott wasn't too excited about this, but I'm glad he went because we were actually able to get quite a lot of our shopping done this day at the market! :o) And, it's always good to have my husband's opinion on souvenirs! We went to the outdoor market area, first, and shopped around there for awhile in the super hot, humid air! We got some amazing pineapples (goodness, they grow the good pineapples over there!), and Amanda bought passion fruit, mango, papaya, and guava for us all to try. (I liked the guava alright, but the others I could pass on. I could definitely just live on the pineapple over there! The passion fruit was DISGUSTING! That was the sourest thing I think I might have ever tasted!) Then, we shopped around and bought an "Aloha Hawaii" sign for our house with a pretty picture on it, some amazing wooden, painted wind chimes for our backyard (just put those up today and I LOVE them, although if it was only a bit greener around here it would look a little bit more like Hawaii), a musical instrument thing for Daniel (which he LOVED playing there - we checked all the ones out to see what was his favorite), and a fan with a painting of a sunset on it for Lydia. We also bought all of Scott's families some small gifts and then just looked around for awhile at all the booths while we waited for the others to finish shopping. After the market, we spent a little bit of time at the rocky beach nearby, which was Daniel's first really good view of the ocean. He LOVED it! Scott took him down to the water and put his feet in it and boy did he ever not want to leave! He also sat down in the rocks for awhile and played with the sand until we left for a bit more shopping. I got a coffee milkshake (amazing!) to help me cool down before Amanda and I each bought a necklace / earrings set at a jewelry place. Mine are SO cute! :o)
We headed home after that because Scott and I had an appointment for a massage and spa time at the nearby Waikoloa Village Resort! Mom dropped us off there and we hurried to the spa area, looking at the amazing resort on the way! (It was crazy big and SO beautiful!) We had a couple's massage, and it was SO relaxing, although my hips had been killing me from sleeping on a new bed (they didn't have memory foam on the bed, and I think that's why I'm doing so well during this pregnancy so far at home) and from walking so much more than normal (not to even mention the long plane ride...). After enjoying that, we stayed in the spa area for awhile and hot-tubbed and relaxed before joining back up and walking around the resort. We walked down to the ocean and saw all the dolphins in their 'pool' area and watched all the swimmers swimming in the pools. The ocean was beautiful and it was so much fun to just walk and talk with my hubby. We got on their tram after walking awhile and road that til the very end and back so we could see what all else was in the resort. Then, we took the shuttle back to our room in time for an amazing hamburger dinner that Dad had grilled up for us! We ate out on the back patio again and didn't see Daniel that evening because he had been asleep since 4 and didn't want to wake up again until morning! (Tired little guy!) We all tried to go to bed a bit earlier that night because the next day Nanny, Amanda, Scott, and I were flying over to Oahu for a long day of touring!
Thursday, June 2
Dad drove us over to the airport in Kona at 5 am so we could make our 6:15 flight out to Oahu. After a quick 40 min. flight, we arrived in Honolulu and met up with our tour guide and bus to begin our Discover Hawaii tour of that island. We drove over to Pearl Harbor first. We had about 20 minutes or so to walk through a small museum about the actual battle there which was really cool. I love museums anyway, so reading different eyewitness accounts from kids who watched Pearl Harbor being attacked and all was really cool, although sad at the same time. Then we watched a 25 min. program about the entire battle and afterward of Pearl Harbor which was good to touch up my history on the entire event. After watching that, we went with a big group on a boat out to the USS Arizona Memorial which is the one that was built over the sunken ship in which over 1,000 men died. It was so crazy seeing that some oil was still leaking out of the ship over sixty years later! We were also able to see the various markers for the other ships that were attacked that day, showing where they were all at in the harbor. We didn't get the chance to go anywhere else or see any of the other memorials, which was sad, but we could have easily spent a day or two there and just didn't have the time!
We drove up to the north side of the island next, and stopped off for a quick visit to Dole Pineapple Plantation. That was where most of us stood in line to get some soft serve pineapple ice cream which they are very much known for around there! We ate our ice cream outside looking at all the beautiful plants and seeing how pineapple grew. (Both Amanda and I were pretty certain that they grew on trees, so we were quite shocked seeing how they grow from the ground! Always learning new things, I guess!) After a short time there we drove on and stopped for like ten minutes at Sunset Beach where we were able to take a few pictures, walk barefoot in the white sand, and enjoy the scenery a bit! Then, it was off again to make it to the Polynesian Cultural Center in time for lunch!
The Cultural Center was AMAZING! We walked past some amazing waterfalls, water, plants, flowers, etc. as we walked to the lunch area and then enjoyed the most delicious lunch of BBQd chicken, rice, salad, veggies, various fruits, corn on the cob, and dessert. It was amazing! :o) Especially since we were very hungry! Then we moved along with most of our group from culture area to culture area to watch short programs on each culture. It was so cool to see all the different cultures that make up Hawaii! No wonder it's such a diverse place! We watched a guy take a coconut, break it open, drink the water, and then make the coconut milk come out. Oh! and we also saw another guy climb up a coconut tree which was super cool and FAST! Then we watched a group sing and dance to different songs that showed how music had changed over the years. The third program we each had a bamboo stick and the guy from Fiji taught us some different rhythms and then sung while we did the beat with our sticks. That was a lot of fun! We had a few minutes to shop and get something for Vienna and Daniel before we sat down by the water area and watched a canoe performance in which there was a canoe of people dressed up for each culture, dancing. That was really cool and just made the entire time even more enjoyable!
We left there by 3:15 and began our slow drive back to Honolulu, making various stops around the way. We stopped off at a Japanese Buddhist Temple which was extremely fancy and beautiful and drove by a very pretty cemetery and learned about how the Hawaiian people will drop off food and drinks (we saw McDonalds, chips, sodas, Starbucks coffees, etc.) at their families' graves so that they have food to eat and something to drink wherever they are! Our tour guide, who was telling us stories the whole time, said that as a boy he used to go with his friends to the Chinese cemetery because they always knew they could have a free Chinese meal there! Lol. ;o) We also drove by some different neighborhoods to see what the houses looked like and were shocked by how expensive some of these small houses were! (Some towns everything was selling for more than $700,000!) Our final stop before Honolulu was a look-out point to see some beautiful scenery where the last battle was fought that brought all the Hawaiian islands under one king and to see Gilligan's Island. That was the very first time it had rained on us all day, though, and it was POURING! So we waited in the bus for awhile while the brave ones went out to see the look-out (one of who was Scott) and then once it stopped raining the rest of us joined them.
We made it back to Honolulu by 6 and then jumped on another shuttle to take us to the airport. After getting stuck in bad traffic because of an accident and getting the airport late, we tried to rush through everything as fast as we could and made it to the gate just as they were boarding the plane. It was a great day although very tiring at the same time! I'm so glad we did it, though, because just seeing all the beautiful scenery and how green it was over there was well worth it!! We made it home, tried to eat something but I was so tired I didn't eat much, and then went to bed!
(Okay, so we have now been home for five days and I'm still trying to get this finished... Only four more days to write about - I can do this!)
Friday, June 3
Let's see... Friday was so much fun because we were able to go to the beach for the first time to just hang out, play in the water, and enjoy sitting in the sand! :o) We got changed into swimsuits and made lots of sandwiches for lunch and then loaded up in the cars for a short drive over to a beautiful beach just north of where we were staying. After hiking down to the beach and finding a place amongst all the people to put all our stuff, some of us took Daniel down to the water and he spent awhile just standing (while Dad, Wayne, Lelia, Scott, or I was holding onto him, of course) while the water rushed up on him again and again. He only got a face-full of water once or twice, but goodness did he ever love that! I think he probably just thought it was the biggest bath he had ever seen! :o) Lol. He stayed in the water and played with it for quite awhile while I took pictures, watched, and then sat down with Amanda, Nanny, and Mom for awhile before they brought Daniel back up because he was getting tired. We then sat him down in the sand and he played with that for quite awhile until he was SOOOO dirty and COVERED head to feet in sand! He didn't even mind that until he began really getting tired and rubbed his eyes before we could stop him, getting the sand all in his eyes. :o( Poor little guy! We took him over to the outdoor shower-off area nearby and washed him off as best as we could before drying him off with towels and letting him eat some lunch. After that, I ate my sandwich while Daniel played in the sand with Pappy, Scott, and Vienna, filling up a paper cup with sand again and again. He had so much fun! :o) Dad and Scott ended up burying him in the sand as he was sitting there and he didn't even realize what they were doing until he tried to move near the end. We hung out there for awhile until we had to head back to the rooms for the next thing of the day!
Vienna had hula dance lessons at 2:30 and Dad and Wayne left to go on a night scuba diving thing. I went and watched Vienna with the other girls while Scott stayed at the room with napping Daniel and was very impressed by how well Vienna did! I'm amazed again and again with how good her memory is... she can see or hear something and remember it SO well! She was super cute and even did a dance by herself! :o)
After Daniel's nap, all of us went to Kona for dinner. I had been wanting to eat at a nicer restaurant on the beach somewhere so I could see a sunset over the ocean (not knowing that the best sunset would be the next evening at the luau), but we were so hungry and most of the ones we knew about were very expensive for us all. So, we ended up just going to a seafood / burgers / sandwiches / chicken place at the harbor near the boat docks. It was beautiful, there, though, and we did get a pretty good sunset even though there were lots of clouds. I had yummy chicken fingers, fries, and a salad, and kept very busy feeding Daniel his children's meal of mac n' cheese and chicken nuggets. :o) He LOVED those!
We went to Costco to get a few more groceries after dinner and got back in time for relaxing on the back patio after putting Daniel to bed and then heading to bed ourselves! It was a great day yet again!
Saturday, June 4
Saturday morning, Wayne, Lelia, and Amanda all went ziplining up north on the island (they had a wonderful time!) while the rest of us hung out around Waikoloa where we ended up shopping around one of the shopping areas nearby and then Dad, Vienna, Nanny, and I went down to the Waikoloa Village Resort again and watched Vienna swim for a little while before we showed Nanny around that place. We all met back at the rooms by 3 so we could get dressed and ready for the luau that night!
The luau was AMAZING! Definitely one of the top times of the entire trip! We took a shuttle over to where it was held, and then got in line where we all had professional pictures of us taken. We had a big group picture of the entire family taken and then individual family pics. (Later on we got the chance to buy some prints and get the digital copy of it, which we did for ours and Mom and Dad did for the whole family picture. They all turned out so great although I wish Daniel had been smiling!) We had a cocktail hour until 5 or 5:30 when we were allowed to be seated at the round tables by the stage. It was so beautiful out! We were right by the ocean. We got a table two rows from the stage and hung out for awhile drinking drinks (it was nice having an open bar... I got all the juice that I wanted - lol) and Vienna learned a hula dance with all the other kids because it was family / kid luau night. A group of guys sang and played Hawaiian music for us which was sweet and right before we started eating, we went over to watch our smoked pig being uncovered from it's 'pit'. (They smoke a whole pig all day which had been wrapped in sheets and plants of some sort and then covered with dirt. It was quite disgusting but interesting at the same time. And, yes, I did try the pig even after seeing it like that...) We went through a gigantic buffet line of amazing food (I got SO much food!) and ate while watching a beautiful sunset. Scott took a lot of pictures of the sunset for me and they are AMAZING! I want to blow up one or two of them because they are so awesome! :o) After dinner and dessert the program began and we were entertained by a lot of Hawaiian dancers and singers and flame throwers, etc. For one dance they asked any of the young men to come up on stage and join them so we convinced Scott and Wayne to go up and they were taught some dance moves. It was hilarious to watch them and we were quite proud of our men! :o) Then, later on near the end of the program, some of the dancers came down to pick out partners from the crowd and Lelia was chosen to go up and do a hula dance with one of the guys up on stage. She did awesome, and I'm just really glad that I wasn't chosen considering I was sitting right next to her and it was dark at that point so they wouldn't have known I was pregnant. Lol. I'm NOT a dancer and it wouldn't have been a pretty sight at all! ;o) There is so much I could say about the luau but I should probably stop for now because I still have two more days to write about!
Sunday, June 5
Sunday was our day to drive up north and see more of the Big Island. We drove up through some beautiful scenery on the way to a black sands beach up at the very north of the island. We were able to see it from up at the parking lot, but knew how much cooler it would be to be right on the beach, so we all hiked down to the beach where we played in the water some more and took lots of pictures - you know us, we LOVE the pictures! :o) It was a slow hike for me because of all my lovely hip pains with the pregnancy and all, but Dad helped me take it slow while Scott held Daniel on his shoulders almost the entire way down and back up again. (Daniel LOVED his hike!) I was EXHAUSTED on the hike back up, though, so had to rest a lot more but finally made it back to the cars!
We then drove further and were able to see a lot of the pastureland part of the island where the big cattle ranches are. That was SO beautiful, especially seeing all the rolling hills of grass and trees with the ocean in the distance. We stopped for lunch in a small town at a Mexican food restaurant and had some amazing food there before heading on. The last place we stopped (other than to fill up the cars with gas in Hilo) was at the Akaka Waterfall. That was a short quarter of a mile hike up and down a lot of stairs to take us by an overlook for another waterfall and then by a great place to see the big Akaka waterfall. That was an amazing walk among some awesome flowers and green, green plants and trees! We took SO many pictures there and took awhile just enjoying all the little details of God's beautiful creation!
After stopping off at Hilo for gas, we headed back to our rooms on the other side of the island and got changed into swimsuits to spend one last hour swimming at the pool there before going to bed. It was our last night in Hawaii.
Monday, June 6
Dad was able to delay our check-out time until noon which made it able for us to get all packed up and Daniel to take a nap that morning. We all packed, ate breakfast and lunch, and loaded the cars before stopping at Starbucks there in Waikoloa on our way to Kona. We drove through our first big rainstorm there on the Big Island as we drove up above Kona to an Organic Coffee Farm. It was so cool to see all the houses up there. They were BEAUTIFUL and overlooked the city and the ocean beyond. Definitely a great place to live! Nanny, Dad, Scott, and Vienna joined a tour of the coffee farm when we got there and I stayed for a little while with Daniel before taking him to a different area to sit and relax some while they finished. Once they were done with the tour and everyone had gotten samples of delicious Kona coffee, we headed into town to go to the International Market where we did our last shopping trip in Hawaii! I got a bracelet, Christmas ornament, and Scott finally got himself a Hawaiian shirt after looking all over for the perfect one. :o) It is awesome and definitely all Scott! :o) We then ran by one more store before dinner where Amanda and Lelia needed to get some things and I was able to find myself a dress! Yay! I had been wanting one the entire time we were there, but was finding it very difficult to find any maternity dresses or any type of clothes, for that matter. But, that is what sisters are for, because Lelia made me try on this one dress that I was sure wouldn't work, but it did and I LOVE it! :o)
We went to dinner at the Kona Brewing Company and had some amazing pizza and a wonderful ice cream / brownie / macadamia nut dessert. It was a great last meal there in Hawaii! :o) Then we headed to the airport where our plane left at 8 something that evening. Our first five hour flight to San Francisco went really great because Daniel actually slept on Scott the entire time! YAY! I was able to sleep off and on for a little while and watched a movie the rest of the time. We rushed a bit once we got to the S.F. airport before boarding our next flight to Denver. Daniel decided since it was now light there he didn't need to sleep anymore, so although Scott and I were exhausted, we stayed awake with him. In Denver we had another almost 3 hour layover (good times at DIA!) before leaving there. I was SO tired while we were there, though, and was getting pretty dehydrated after throwing up twice already that day :o( so I had to rest, try to stock up on fluids, and was DEFINITELY ready to get on the last plane home by 11:40! I was able to sleep some on that short flight and felt quite a bit better by the time we got into GJ. We were home and took a long 2 hour nap that afternoon! It is great to be home and enjoy all this amazing summer-time weather we're having, but I definitely miss Hawaii already! We had a wonderful time and I'm so thankful that we were able to go! :o)
