Honolulu Day 9 - Saturday, December 26th

Saturday and Sunday morning sort of ran together so I will combo them into my last post:). I forgot to mention that Brian drove his parents to the airport in the evening on Christmas Day, so we were on our own on Boxing Day. We decided to go to the Zoo! It was a very nice morning, although the weather was not fantastic. A lot of rain showers, and there were a few that were pretty intense! We managed to seek shelter so we didn't get too wet, although the kids did get a bit wet on the slide at the playground (thankfully they didn't mind!). We saw some cool tortoises and rhinos, definitely the highlights! We went back to the condo for lunch and packed up in the afternoon. I was glad we weren't at the beach that day because it rained a lot more in the afternoon. I was very thankful we had gotten a late checkout! It was a weird feeling leaving the condo, I was a bit melancholy shutting the door that final time. There is something about a vacation that you've been anticipating for a long time coming to an end, it's a bit depressing:-/. I was ready to come home, and a bit excited about it honestly, but that was a very sad feeling!

We were going to go to Ruby Tuesdays for dinner, but they had a big waiting list. The kids had seen a McDonalds play place in the same parking lot and wanted to go there so we did. That was a bit of a weird experience. It was the first time eating away from the touristy area, so we got a bit more of a "local" feel. There was this little girl that just made herself at home at our table. Her Dad was reading the corner and hardly looked up once. It was definitely strange! But the kids had fun, and were able to run off some energy before the long plane ride home. They all fell asleep waiting in the airport, and fell back asleep fairly quickly once we got on the airplane. Nathan slept the best, he was only awake for the few minutes it took to board the plane and fell right back asleep. It would have been a very nice plane ride home except that I can't sleep on planes. There was a small hitch with our shuttle when we landed and we had to wait a bit, and then when we got back to the van, the battery was dead as a doornail. Like so dead that a battery charger didn't have the juice to charge it up. And when the guy gave up and brought his car to charge it, it took several minutes and some serious revving of his engine to give our poor battery to juice it needed to start up again! Time for a new battery!

It was really nice to come home. Yesterday was a bit of a rough day, everyone was very tired and grumpy (I might have been the worst of everyone!), our sports teams lost, just not a good day! I am feeling better today though, a good night's sleep makes all the difference in the world! Now we prepare ourselves for another trip on Wednesday! This one will be much more familiar, and much more of a "normal" Christmas trip. Lynsey mentioned a few times that Christmas didn't feel "normal", so I'm glad we have this time at Grandma's house coming up to give her that feeling of Christmas!

I guess I will talk to you all when we get back from Edmonton!

Honolulu Day 8 - Friday, December 25th

Christmas Day in Hawaii! Definitely a first, but hopefully not a "last":).

Stella had to be at the airport early, so Brian's parents drove her. We also noticed some red Christmas bags on the counter when we came downstairs in the morning, Brian's mom said that the kids had to have SOMETHING to open on Christmas morning:). I walked down to the umbrella rental stand, thinking if I got there 20 minutes before it opened we might get a front row umbrella this time. Nope, apparently you have to get there a lot earlier than that for a front row umbrella on Christmas Day! Third row was still okay, it's really nice to have that "home base" when you're on the beach. One thing we noticed is that the beach got busier and busier the closer to Christmas it got. It was pretty hectic that day, but we still had a lot of fun! Got some hot dogs for lunch, hung out in the water. It was our last beach day so I wanted to take advantage of it! We came back in the early afternoon and had some down time at the condo. We had our "Christmas dinner" at a Mexican roof top restaurant. There was a small hitch when Adam didn't tell us he needed to go the bathroom and instead peed in his seat:-/. I rushed him back to the condo, ranting all the way, and we were able to run back and have dessert with everyone:). We walked down to the beach again so the kids could run around in the dark. This is where I heard a band playing "Walking in a winter wonderland" as I was walking on the warm sand at the beach. It was so strange to hear them playing all these "snow" songs! Aren't there enough Christmas songs that don't have anything to do with snow?? It felt a bit out of place, but I didn't mind;).

A beautiful Christmas day!

Honolulu Day 7 - Thursday, December 24th

Whew this is turning into quite a marathon posting session haha! Almost there:). Christmas Eve - what a great day it was! Brian's parents watched the kids for us so Brian, Stella and I could go snorkeling at Hanauma Bay in the morning! It was a lot of fun! There were so many fish and the water was so shallow - great fun! It was as busy as advertised, but it's a big bay so still plenty of room to move around. When we got back, we took the kids to the pool. We hadn't tried since the weekend before when it was still pretty windy and cool, so everyone had a lot of fun in the warmth! For dinner, we walked down to the House Without a Key. There was even a tropical Santa there! We had a lovely dinner, and were able to see another beautiful sunset. The kids were getting restless, so we thought we would head straight back to the condo afterwards, but thought we could walk along the beach first. It turns out the kids LOVED running along the beach when it was dark out! Hardly any people, and how fun to run in the dark! I wish we had discovered this sooner, it would have probably become that thing we did after dinner, like the hot tub was on our Maui vacation:). We hung around there for a while and then headed back to the condo.

A different Christmas Eve for sure, but still so much fun!