Oah'u

We just got home from our big vacation to Hawaii, and in order to make my blog update easier on myself to write, and not such a novel for those who choose to read it, I've decided to split it up a little bit.  I'm tackling one island at a time.  So we begin with Oah'u.

We left last Wednesday morning.  I was so nervous about flying with an infant, and all of the extra luggage that comes along with it, that when our alarm went off at 4am I was actually bounding out of bed.  We made it out the front door in record time.  Aside from a small incident where I walked off and left my boarding passes sitting in the kiosk check-in machine, and had to come racing back downstairs from the TSA line to have a airport security guard dig them out of the trash for me, the initial check-in and flight to LAX went well.  In LAX we felt like we took a walking tour of the entire airport.  We had a 45 minute layover and we spent all of it walking from one gate to the other.  This wouldn't have been such a fiasco had it not been for the fact that we had a 20lb. infant, a carseat, an overstuffed diaper bag, and two small carry-on items in tow.  The plane was already boarding when we arrived at our gate, tired, sweaty, and frazzled.

Thankfully, Vivian seems to love travelling.  She could not be persuaded to nurse during take-off like I had planned, but rather wanted to watch the whole process out the window.  She spent hours on the flight crawling, climbing and hopping back and forth between Justin and I, while letting out loud squeals and shrieks of delight and excitement.  We were able to get her to take a couple of naps that gave us a welcome relief from serving as her personal jungle gym.  We arrived in Honolulu at 11:30, and were napping in our beachfront cabin by 1, which is kind of a weird feeling when it seems like your day should already be over.  The rest of our first day in Hawaii we spent hanging out on the beach, shopping for food, and mostly just resting up from the morning travels.

As for our accommodations, I really cannot overstate how much I loved them.  We stayed in a studio cabin.  It is operated by the military, therefore the Hilton, it is not. That being said, it was clean, and the location just can't be beat.  A really beautiful, private beach is literally steps away.  One side of the beach has waves where people go out surfing, and the other side is a bay where the waves break early and end up just kind of sweeping onto the shore.  That's where we spent most of our time since it was easier to swim there, and it minimized the risk of having Vivian hit by a wave or washed away from us.  The water in March isn't bathtub water, but I don't think it classified as cold either.  All in all, we loved it.

Vivian slathered in sunscreen and strapped into her life vest.  The vest is understandably, not her favorite thing, but she tolerates it, and looks super cute bobbing around in the water with it on.

This was early our first morning there, and we had the beach completely to ourselves.  

She's not the biggest fan of the waves.  Even the little ones freaked her out.

Even on a sunny afternoon, with perfect weather the beach was never crowded.

Our first night there we went to bed absurdly early, since our hours were still all messed up, and consequently we also woke up very early.  That first morning we walked around on the beach for a while, and then decided to change and swim.  We discovered that Vivian hates the waves, and she would cling to us in terror every time even a small one washed up around her feet.  I tried to get her used to the water, so she and I spent some time sitting in the sand letting the waves lap up around our feet, while Justin was swimming.  I slowly inched her off my lap until she was sitting next to me.  Things seemed to be going pretty well, until a big wave unexpectedly washed up and hit her.  She got knocked flat, and I looked over to see my baby lying sprawled out on the beach like a little "X" with a shocked and stunned look on her face.  Needless to say, she was done with sitting in the waves with me after that, and I felt amused, but also very guilty.

We had also decided that we were going to hike to a waterfall that day.  We wanted to do something short, and then spend the rest of the day at the beach.  We looked at several options, and finally elected to drive to a place called Nu'uanu Pali Lookout, and hike to a waterfall from there.  It was an overcast day anyway, so we figured that it was the perfect day for a little hike.

The hike was supposed to be well marked, but after climbing down a ladder, crossing under the freeway, and getting chewed up by mosquitoes, the trail just seemed to end.  As a side note, Justin mentioned later that he had read in two different places that this hike was not recommended without bug spray, but decided not to mention it because we didn't have any.  Mosquitoes don't like him.  I counted 15 on my arms.  He still owes me for this one.

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Crossing under the freeway

These are the sorts of things that tend to happen when you fail to pick out your hike before departure.  The entirety of the planning for this outing consisted of reading through a few options that pulled up on a Google search at a Starbucks.  They do sell delicious donuts there, pricey, but delicious.  Regardless, on our way back to the lookout we spotted a sign for a waterfall, and since this hike seemed more legitimate than the one that we had just abandoned, we decided to give it a whirl.  Three hours after leaving the lookout we were still hiking, and there was no waterfall in sight.  We ended up with a great view of a beautiful valley.

We finally decided to give up, and turned back.  We enjoyed ourselves, so despite our failure to find a waterfall, we still called the experience a success, and spent what was left of our day back at the beach.

The next morning we struck out to climb Koko Stairs.  We had read about this online, and the views from the top looked amazing.  I took one look at the stairs and was ready to give up.  Vivian does not like it when Justin carries her, for whatever reason when it comes to hiking, lucky me, she prefers Mom.  Always.  Justin hyped me up with all sorts of encouraging remarks about how it wouldn't be that bad, and we started up them.  It was crazy.  Vivian loved it.  While I was panting like an asthma patient lugging her up impossibly steep, seemingly neverending stairs, she was back there relaxing, talking, laughing, and smiling at everyone else on the stairs as we passed.  I took a ton of breaks, and at each one the top still seemed just as far away as it had at the previous one.  All the same, we did finally arrive at the top, and the views were amazing.    

Notice the mosquito bites all over my arm from the previous day's excursion.

We spent the rest of the day driving around the island, just kind of taking in the views, and then had the misfortune of getting caught in rush hour traffic.  We finished up the day sitting on the beach watching the sunset.

One of our stops while out driving at the "Blowhole."

The next day we spent the morning at the swap meet sorting through all kinds of junky souvenirs, and  we ultimately walked away with a little wooden turtle to hang on the wall, a Hawaiian dress and some earrings for when Vivian is older, and a t-shirt for Justin.  We spent the afternoon back at the beach, where I got my best souvenir, this picture of my people:

That evening we met up with three of my classmates from AIT for dinner.  It was so good to see them again, and after a few minutes of talking, it felt like three years had only been a few weeks.  We stayed until our waiter probably hated us, and finally Justin snapped a picture of the four of us plus Vivian and we headed out.  Our little reunion dinner was a highlight of the trip for me.  

I was so sorry to say goodbye.  

The next day was Sunday, so we went to church, drove the north shore, visited the temple grounds and then made our way back to the airport.  We spent probably 30 minutes on a fruitless search for a gas station near the car rental agency, and then gave up and broke for dinner.  We seem to have better eyesight when we're not hungry.  The car rental shuttle took us back to the airport and we told them to drop us off at the Delta check-in counter.  Justin and I had a dispute about whether or not it was Hawaiian airlines or Delta.  I kept telling him that we had been given a Delta flight number, and Justin insisted that it was booked through Delta, but it was actually a Hawaiian airlines flight.  His uncertainty, and my insistence finally landed us in the Delta terminal, where an exceptionally unhelpful woman looked at us like we were nuts, informed us that we should have read the "fine print" on the ticket, and told us that we were in the wrong terminal because "Delta does not have inter-island flights."  It was quite a walk back to the Hawaiian airlines terminal and I feel even more hostile about the incident in retrospect now, knowing that there is a free shuttle that runs between the two terminals that the Delta employee failed to mention as she stood there talking to us with again, our 20lb. infant in her carseat, which makes her feel like a 50 lb. infant, an overstuffed diaper bag, two small carry-on items, and two rolling suitcases.  Once again we found ourselves arriving at our airport destination sweaty, tired, and frazzled.  We managed to depart Honolulu, but left behind Justin's fleece jacket and BYU cap.  They were accidentally abandoned at the check-in kiosk.  All the same, they were our only casualties this trip.  The jacket was old, and the cap was a $5 Walmart variety, so we were annoyed, but it wasn't a catastrophe.

I'll cover the stay on the Big Island next.