Hawaii - Day 1

Finally, off to Hawaii!  Specifically Waikiki. It has been about 15 years since I have last gone and I am so excited!  The purpose if the trip is really to surprise my mother in law.  She has always wanted a family trip.  My father in law started to plan for this surprise last year!

Our flight was out of Bellingham.  From out house, maybe a 1/2 hour drive or so.  But because it was the Thanksgiving long weekend, I was really worried about border line ups.  But out flight was at 5:40pm.  I thought I was going to barf because we didn't end up leaving the house until 2:30pm!!!  My husband calls me a nervous traveller.  When it comes to border line ups and catching a flight....yes, I can be very nervous.  

Good part is that we got there in plenty of time.  Since it was such a small airport, very quick to get through security. We met my brother in law (hubby's brother), sister and law and nephew there and all travelled together.  

We got to Hawaii just fine at about midnight.  And really, day 1 wasn't very exciting as that was our travel day.  Yes, we probably could have caught an earlier flight from Vancouver...but that would have cost an additional $450 per person.  Granted, we were very fortunate we did not have to pay for this, but still...for the father in law, that is a huge savings!

Off to the hotel we went. And if you've been there, you know that even "new" is old.  Our hotel was no exception.  But it was old enough where you could tell the hotel was originally only 17 floors.  We were on the 18^th.    But you had to take the elevator to the 17^th floor and then walk up 2 flights of stairs to get to the 18^th.  OMG.  Can you imagine?  In the middle of the night with 3 tired children and luggage. 

But it doesn’t matter because we were in Hawaii!

Day 2

Wow.  Everybody was on Pacific time.  The 3 kids were up by 5:40 Hawaiian time which is really 7:40am pacific.  Ummm....remember we didn't get in until midnight??

The 6 of us knew today would be a "get grounded day."  I went out to get breakfast for all of us.  Some of us were starving, some were still sleeping.  Figured I was going to eat to avoid anger from low blood sugar and snapping at someone!

I also went to the Food pantry across the street to get groceries and snacks.  This store was a complete lifesaver as Hawaii is not cheap and being able o buy snacks and groceries and store them in the fridge in the hotel room made a huge financial savings.  Though, it was quite amusing to see some of the prices for items totally jacked up.   Close to $10 for a gallon of milk? Close to $8 for bagels?  Yeah.  Totally jacked up.  But soon as you went to another brand, they were decent prices.

And I spotted spam sushi.  Had to try it.  Let's say that I tried it and I'm good at that.  

We had access to a free trolley to get around town which was a great perk.  All 7 of us decided we would take it, get the lay of the land and stop off in a couple of places.   Went down the strip and took a shopping break at Ala Moana mall.   Woo hoo!  Disney store was there.  I got myself a Disney Christmas ornament.  Stitch in an Elvis suit.  And it’s perfect because every ornament on my trip has a story.  This ornament will remind me of my time in Hawaii!  My husband was in shopping heaven.  I actually took a break and hung out with the kids.  They had these huge pools of koi there.  Holy smokes.  Some were at least 20 pounds.   We must have watched these kois for 45 minutes.   But they kids were loving it. 

These ones were the small koi and you really can't understand the size of these things in this picture.  

On the remainder of the trolley tour, we decided we would get off early to stop off at the beach.  This is the first time my kids have seen a tropical beach and they were thrilled!!  Blue water, warm, clear and just awesome sand.  They wanted to hop right in.  But it was getting late and the sun was going to set soon.  

So we opted to get them a shaved ice.  Wow.  They were in heaven!  And look at the size of these things!  They were like the size of my head!

And just like that, the day was over.  Everybody was extremely pooped, but it was a great day!

Day 3

We woke up to another beautiful sunrise!  I love having breakfast with the beautiful view and warmth.  What a great way to wake up!   I decided to just keep to Pacific time so I could wake up each day seeing the sun rise. 

My little family unit decided that we would head off to Hanauma Bay today.  I was up and ready but everybody seemed to be on “slow.”    OMG.  We didn’t get to the bus stop until 10ish and we just saw the bus pull away.  So we decided to wait for the next one.  Of course, back home, it’s usually no more than ½ hour.  But after an hour, we finally see the bus…only to see it drive off without picking us up.  It was completely full.  What a waste of time!  And my youngest was so disappointed that she wasn’t going to go snorkeling she started to cry.  Really don’t blame her as we really built this activity up!    Back to the hotel we went and we happened to bump into the other 3 family members.  We told them what happened and they were surprised too.  But in the end, all 7 of us ended up going to the Hilton where they had a public access Lagoon!

The Lagoon rocked.  It was totally calm so you could just bob in the water, go snorkeling (where there was fish!), or try paddle boarding.   Just behind the Lagoon was the actual beach if you wanted the ocean. 

But we thought we’d let the kids romp in the Lagoon to get them used to the idea of snorkeling in calm waters.  My 2 girls were in total awe!  My youngest kept screaming under water because she was so excited, but that would cause her to drink water and choke!  She’d come up, cough all the water out and then go right back into the water to snorkel some more. 

My 2 girls and my nephew had a great time just chasing the birds around and building sand castles too.  I just loved the blue water and the palm trees.  I read my book, chatted with family and just totally chilled.  Felt great!

I was having such a good time just watching the clouds drift by...so zen!

After a lovely afternoon, it was time to head back to the hotel to have some grub and get ready to meet the in-laws who were flying in from New Zealand.  My mother in law still had no clue that we were all there.  The plan was for all of us to meet the two of them in the lobby area.  But the universe had different plans for that night.  The in-laws were delayed by about 4 hours as there was an emergency landing of their plane.  They were an hour into their flight when someone collapsed in the aisleway right next to them.  The plane had to turn back, dump fuel as it was too heavy to land, drop off the guy to emergency personnel, fuel up again and set out to fly again. 

So, it was just my hubby and brother in law that went to go meet them in the lobby area.  My mother in law was very surprised as my husband went up to her and said “Aloha!”  And she thought, “oh, how lovely.  Someone is saying Aloha to me.”  Apparently her face was really surprised when she clued in it was my husband!  Yay!  Surprise achieved.  And she was delighted to hear that all of us were also in Hawaii…though visits with her would have to wait until the next day.

Day 4

Oh, another beautiful sunset to greet us this morning.

We all thought today was a good day to go to the beach early and then have everybody else meet us at the beach.  This would give the in-laws a chance to sleep in and chance for my sister and brother in law and nephew a chance to just chill.  

We got to the beach at about 8:30am.  YES.  Nice and early.  

And there were some awesome waves.  You got it…time to catch some waves while surfing!  The price was really good so I opted for a private lesson.  Figured I might as well get a lesson again as it had been a while since I’ve surfed.  This guy was hilarious.  Total beach bum but he knew what he was doing.  He had some typical questions…”where are you from, what nationality.”  He has some interesting thoughts on Canada.  And apparently he thought I was from Nunavut.  Guess I should have brought my fur lined parka with me.  

Anyways, the surfing rocked BIG time.  Caught some great waves and stood quite a bit.  I actually felt like I was surfing.  And I’ve vowed that from now on, each place where I can catch a wave, I will endevour to do so.  

After my lesson, time for the hubby and kids to just snorkel and have a great time.  I sat on the beach and eventually the rest of the family showed up.  We chilled a little longer with everybody and decided that we were going to split up.  The guys were all going to Pearl Harbour and the girls were all going shopping. 


We just took it easy and wandered all over.  We stopped off at the beach again as it looked like it was going to be a fantastic sunset.  And that it was.

Day 5

Another beautiful sunrise!  Seriously, I can never get sick of this!

Today was a day for a road trip around the island.  We rented two cars and decided that we were going to take a drive to see other parts of the island.  First stop, Dole Plantation.

Not everbody is into this type of stuff.  But I had a great time!  Seeing “live” pineapples was cool.   Look how tiny this one is!!

Here's a larger one.   Just as cool.  

I love all the touristy stuff that was at the plantation.   This is just one of the many pictures with kids sticking their heads through some type of scene.  

And of course, seeing a whole bunch of other fruit trees was cool too!  Rambutan, mango, kakui nut, papaya.   

Of course, there was the floral side of things where I got to see all the different flowers, trees and lagoon that was there that waters the plantation.  Very cool stuff.  

And just as an FYI, an experienced pineapple planter can plant 10,000 plants…in a day.  How insane of a stat is that?  And watching these people plant these pineapples, I can see how that is possible!  


Though this looks like nothing special, I just loved this tree!  The colour is the actual bark colour of this tree.  It really was like a painter's palette!

Of course, no trip to the plantation is complete until you have the Pineapple ice cream.  Yep.  I had the ice cream with the extra pineapple on it.  Why not?!

Next up was a drive to the North Shore for a family picnic.   It was just neat to drive up here…totally different pace from Waikiki.  Sort of a Tofino, laid back attitude with some great eats and cool shopping.   

And the beaches are great.  I really wish we had some extra time because my dream has always been to surf in the North Shore.  But due to timing, this wasn’t going to be the time.   

I must say that I was a little disappointed that we didn’t stop off further into the North Shore. The Vans Surfing Competition was happening and I wasn’t there!!!  OMG.  Totally another dream that I’d like to fulfill…watching world class athletes compete in surfing.  I want to live out a Blue Crush dream!

Next, off to check out the scenery.  It was quite cool how different parts of this island lived compared to Waikiki.  Definitely more laid back and much more suburban.  The scenery was really stunning too.  Mountains are actually the backyard for some of these folks.  

No road trip is complete without some road side food.  YES!  We stopped off at Fumi’s.  The wait was long for the food but boy, was it worth it!  Succulent garlic shrimp.  Very tender shrimp, not overcooked, nice size and just absolutely tasty as could be.  

I love noticing the small things on trips…those are the moments that really make it for me on a trip.  At this little road stand, there was an open space with a bunch of tables.  But in the middle of this open space was a tree.  Not sure what kind but the leaves looked a little sick.  But upon closer inspection, the leaves looked a little sick because people had engraved their initials onto the leaves.  The tree was healthy as could be…but with the sun shining onto the leaves, the words engraved onto the leaves were burnt right into the leaves.  And need you ask?  Or course we got our names and date of our visit engraved onto one of the leaves!

Definitely a great drive around the island.  Wish we could have done more.  But we did what we could and ended the night with a beautiful sunset. 

Day 6

Hanauma Bay…finally!  Here we come!   We finally had time to go.   But we were smart about it this time.  We woke up extra early to make sure that we caught the very first bus that went to this beach.  I remember my first trip there and it was so amazing…wanted to share the same experience with my kids! 

For such a popular destination, they only have 1 bus every hour that runs to this place.  Craziness.   But we figured out the bus schedule and definitely caught the first one out there.  Phew!!

The kids were stunned at the initial view and it’s exactly how I remembered it from years ago.  Amazing how in minutes the weather would change.  But the view was still stunning.  

I haven’t developed the underwater camera pictures…but there were definitely some cool fish down there.  I was surprised at the size of some of them!   There were quite a few that were longer than the length of my forearm!    

In between snorkelling, we all chilled on the beach.  Definitely played in the sand!!  

We were rained out by a tropical storm as the rain was warm…and I was already wet!!!  I would have stayed but my youngest was getting very cold.   Her lips were turning blue.  Yeesh.  So, even though it wasn’t quite the day we wanted at Hanauma Bay, we could say that we went.  And seriously, swimming with fish is just so cool...how can that be bad?

Day 7

Time to head off to the Aquarium…to take a look at fish we weren’t able to see while in the water.  Definitely a small aquarium but it had some neat fish.  

And hey, what do you know…some time for the beach again.  Why not?  I even got a chance to go surfing again.   Didn’t matter that I absolutely sucked but I just loved surfing in that amazing setting.  Really just a stunning place to be for it. 

It was time to head back to the hotel for some good eats.  But before we ate, we watched the sunset.  And this night of all nights had the most amazing sunset that I’ve seen in a while.  Where this island is located, the sun sets very quickly.  And for whatever reason, the sunset had numerous shades of oranges and reds tonight.  I must have taken 50 pictures alone just of the sunset.  Thank goodness for digital cameras!

To make it even a better night, the Hilton set off a fireworks show.  Picture really doesn't do the show any justice!   From our balcony, we had the perfect view.  

My kids were thrilled...and tired by this time.  They fell asleep shortly after this show.