Hawaii Trip

We just got back from a great trip to Hawaii to visit Jeanna's family. First of all, I have to say how great they were. They made the trip so wonderful, down to the very last details with Lyle picking us up at the airport with Leis (sp?) flower leis for us, and candy leis for the kids. I can't say enough how gracious they were to having us stay at their home, to planning our trip (Lyle is an incredible travel agent) to babysitting... everything! Anyway, like I said, we can't thank them enough. Hopefully, we'll still be welcome if we can make it back to see them before they move.

So, like I said in a previous post, we were off to the hospital after we got there and Jeanna watched Sam while we were there and had dinner for us when we got back. The next day we hit the road running and it seems like we didn't stop until we were dropped off at the airport. I will just give a quick run down of the trip... highlighting the good parts of course, I'll smooth over the sick kids, GROUCHY kids (all part of my family... not Jeanna's) besides no one wants to hear the bad parts right? They are 4 hours behind us so we were up at 4 am on the dot trying to keep my kids quiet so we didn't wake up the entire house. So, bright and early we went to Pearl Harbor. This was incredible to see, but we'll have to go back again when we don't have our kids... or at least Katelyn feeling better. Then we went to the beach and they watched our kids while went to the temple that night. The next day we went up to the Dole Pineapple Plantation. The highlight was of course the Pineapple ice cream.. YUMMY! Then we went to Shark's Cove, which is a tide pool area, where Jeanna and I watched the kids try to catch the fish in the tide pools, and get hermit crabs while Lyle and Michael snorkeled.

Saturday we went to Haunama Bay, which is a protected cove which is great for snorkeling. Since it is in a bowl type cove the waves were very minimal and the kids had a great time while playing in the sand and water and the boys snorkeled. On Sunday, we tried to get family pictures taken. I posted probably the only one of a hundred that is decent. The kids were grouchy (Sam fell down and scraped up his knee and couldn't get over it, and Katelyn didn't want anyone touching her stroller) or distracted by playing in the sand. We got a condo the last couple of days because we didn't want to impose for too long on their family and we realized a little too late that we did it backwards. After spending fun filled days with cousins... we were a little boring. We were up on the north shore, and we took the opportunity to go to a famous shrimp shack. Literally a truck on the side of the road. You got a plate of a bunch of shrimp and some rice. It was really yummy and Michael was kind enough to peel it (with his HANDS). Sam wouldn't have anything to do with the shrimp, but he ate the rice. Then we went in search of another place we were told we had to try, which was shaved ice. As you can see in the picture... that line behind us is indeed just for shaved ice. I guess what's so fantastic about it is that you can put a bunch of stuff on it and ice cream in the bottom. I wanted to go to the cheap place across the street (half as much, no line) but Michael insisted we try it. He said it was worth it. We did have a beach outside our condo which was fun. Michael caught a crab for the kids in a tupperware. Katelyn wanted to hold it and Sam wanted nothing to do with it. After staring at it for a while we let it go. Jeanna watched the kids while we went on a lunch date and then we went swimming that night at a swimming pool down in Waikiki that Sam LOVED and to dinner afterwards. The last day we did some shopping at the swap meet (HUGE, went all the way around the stadium) and the boys went fishing and came home within minutes to leave for the airport. The flight home was awful (we found out yesterday that both of Sam's ears are incredibly infected and the doctor was surprised they didn't burst on the flight... which explains a little why the flight was so bad). Phew... what a long trip. So FUN, we already want to go back!