We celebrated 10 years at Thrive last year (they give a trip as your 10-year gift!), our anniversary, and Kyle and Alexa's birthdays by taking the family to Hawaii. It was sooo much fun.
The flight there was a little crazy. It was supposed to leave SLC at 9am so we woke up at 6:30am to get to the airport. When we woke up we saw a text sent at 6am saying our flight had been moved up an hour, to 8am. Needless to say, we ran out of the house in a panic. Kyle took the kids to security and I ran to check our bags at 7:20am, but the agent said she couldn't check them because it was less than 45 minutes before the flight. They bumped us to a different flight through Denver that left an hour later, but they couldn't seat us all together so we were split into pairs all over the plane on our 7 hour flight from Denver to Honolulu. Alexa took care of Tad, Tyler and I got baby for the first half, and then I traded Kyle for Liam and he took baby the last half of the flight. We were in the middle seats of a 4-wide row with a tired wiggly baby and people asleep on both aisles, but we survived...
We accidentally left all of the tablets charging at home. It was nice that we didn't have screens while we were in Hawaii for the kids to be distracted by / focusing on, and thankfully the flights all had movies and personal TVs.
We have baby chicks at home and Tad wanted to bring them on the flight. I told him no. His response, "Why not?! The workers said you could put animals under your seat on the plane"
Wednesday
We found a great Airbnb on the west side of the island, in Waianae at Pokai Bay. The next day was Kyle's birthday and we started the morning with the shark cage. It was incredible! They take the boat to a fishing area and say that because the fisherman go there to clean up scraps the sharks hear motors and come right over. They didn't throw out any chum but there were 15+ Galapagos sharks right next to us the whole time, swimming back and forth. They were absolutely beautiful.
Thursday
We spent the day at the Polynesian Cultural Center with the Pardons. We did crafts and games, rode in canoes, learned to hula, saw a guy climb a coconut tree and then split the coconut open, did a luau, and had the most delicious pineapple smoothies.
Learning to hula: https://youtu.be/iaUxo52irQ4
Friday
We hiked to Waimea Falls where you can swim in a big pool underneath. Then we got Matsumoto's shaved ice and played at Turtle Bay.
Saturday
We snorkeled with tropical fish at Hanauma Bay and then played at Levi and Brittany's fancy hotel pool.
Sunday was Alexa's birthday! We celebrated by learning about pineapple (and eating lots of it) at the Dole Plantation.
Monday
For her birthday Alexa wanted to swim with dolphins, so that was scheduled for Monday. I stayed with the littles and Kyle took Alexa, Tyler, and Tad to play with the dolphins.
Tuesday
Ironically, the very next day after we paid a lot of money to swim with dolphins there was a huge pod of them (30+) in the cove about 100 yards from our AirBnb. We saw them and ran to grab our host's kayak. Alexa and I jumped in the one-person kayak together and tied a boogie board to it so Tyler could hold on. And then we paddled out into the ocean and were mesmerized by the dolphins swimming, splashing, jumping, and talking right next to us for about 2 hours. We also had 2 giant sea turtles come up and swim about 10 feet from us. We only flipped the kayak in the middle of the ocean twice :).
I went to Hawaii with my parents in high school and my dad and I went snorkeling every morning to try and find sea turtles. At the cove in front of our Airbnb in this quiet little non-touristy section of Oahu we saw sea turtles 4 times! They came right up to the shore and we would grab our goggles and swim right next to them. One time I was further out so I swam right next to a turtle with it kind of pinned between me and the shore and we just swam side by side for 100 yards or so. It was all of 2 feet from me the entire time. It was absolutely amazing.
As I sat on that kayak in the middle of the ocean with the kids, surrounded by dolphins and turtles and beauty, I was thinking about how surreal it all was. What an incredible experience. It was so different and amazing to see these incredible animals in their natural habitat and just be there to soak it in. To see the dolphins jump and splash just for fun with their families, not because they were trained to do so. And to see the sharks peacefully and gracefully swim past us, only a few feet away. Man, Hawaii is stunning.
Then we came home and Tad got a haircut at a hair salon, which he said is his ultimate dream. Kyle always cuts the boys' hair, but Tad has been talking for several months about how his dream job is to own a hair salon and that I can come there every morning and he'll brush my hair for me :). So I thought it would be fun to take him to an actual hair salon. Kind of. We went to Great Clips, does that count? He looooved it and thought it was so cool. He also graduation from preschool and keeps asking if kindergarten starts tomorrow.
Recital Videos:
Funny story:
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