We made it

Aloha! We finally made it to our destination on the beautiful North Shore in Hawaii. Our family packed up and left last Friday at 10 am on a shuttle to SLC Airport. We had a wonderful time with Grandma and Grandpa Hardy who came to say goodbye and have a little lunch with us. We love you Grandma and Grandpa! They gave our kids lots of suckers that great helped with the long plane ride. Thanks Mom.

The flight went great. The kids were such great troopers and made it the entire ten and a half hour flight with no major upsets other than one non-diapered child peeing their pants (name withheld to protect HER identity), and a disoriented little Christian waking up a half hour left of the flight disoriented. But with mommy's help he calmed down and slept the remainder of the way. We ate a yummy lunch/dinner in Seattle and was able to get situated before leaving to Honolulu.

Our arrival at the Honolulu Airport was memorable arriving at 8:30 PM and feeling the warm weather, the swaying palm trees, and the beautiful Hawaiian people. We stayed at an awesome hotel in Honolulu our first night right by the airport, the Plaza Hotel that provided a free shuttle. The people are so amazing as everywhere we turned we found friendly and helpful people who I feel were guided by Heavenly Father Himself to get us where we needed to go. It was a miracle how we found the hotel next to a car lot who had a 12 passenger van that we could either rent or buy. The man who helped us (his name is Panda), said they never get vans in but for some reason they had one there. Coincidence, not.

Saturday was fun in the sun as I started the day with a short jog to get my bearings. Holly took us on a short walk to the grocery store for breakfast and have fun climbing a tree and eating our donuts, yogurt, and bagles. The rest of the morning we rested by the pool until we evacuated the premises due to an unfortunate "accident" in the pool. With a quiet little boy, I escorted Christian to our hotel room to clean him up. As we checked out of the hotel, we were somewhat amused by the several signs around the hotel explaining how the pool was closed for the day since it needed to be quarantined. A yellow ribbon encircling the pool was the final straw as we packed into a 12 passenger van with around 20 pieces of luggage to voyage to our next destination, Mililani.

We loved Mililani as we had lunch at the Genki Ramen with chicken katsu curry my personal favorite. A couple kids wanted hamburgers so we also had Burger King. After a light rain and feeding the birds, we ventured off to the North Shore to our temporary vacation home by Waimea Bay. It is a gorgeous beach front property. We felt so blessed and secure as the home has a gated entrance so the kids can't run into the street. I also made friends with our amazing bachelor neighbors who are all in the military. They had a coming home party of one of their buddies who recently returned home from Iraq

Today has been a very relaxing, peaceful, and uplifting day as we have truly enjoyed the beach, sun, rain, palm trees, geckos, and yes turtles. The private beach that is about a hundred feet from our back porch has several turtles that swim here. It is truly paradise. The kids have loved the water, rocks, sea shell collecting, rain, and Holly has especially loved the outdoor shower.

Goodbye for now...