Hawaii: June 7 - 21, 2013

Family Trip to Hawaii

June 7 - 14: Maui

Dad, Mom, Shane, Matthew, Mema, John and I traveled from DFW to Maui on June 7. The flight was 7.5 hours. John did surprisingly well. He played in the little area we had in the bulkhead, slept and had lots of snacks. We settled into our room for the day and got pizza that evening. It was a long day of travel and everyone was exhausted!

Most mornings John woke up around 5:30 or 6 ready to go for the day. Since most of us were not ready to go quite yet, either my dad or Shane would take John on long walks by the beach.

We spent the next several days on Maui playing in the pool, in the ocean, walking to Whalers Village, and grilling out. One day we did venture out to the Aquarium, a Pineapple Plantation and the Needle in the Maui National Park. John really liked the fish at the Aquarium.

John experienced sand for the first time at the beach. At first he did not like his feet to touch the sand, but eventually he was crawling all over the beach. He did try to taste the sand once, but ONLY ONCE!

Here are some collage pictures from the first part of the trip.

June 14 - 21: O'ahu

On the fourteenth of June we flew from Maui to O'ahu, while Jay was flying from DFW to O'ahu. We were all really excited to see Jay, especially John! We took a little island hopper plane that let us out on the runway. After another long day of packing up and traveling again, we arrived at Ko'Olina and went to a little Mexican restaurant to celebrate Dad's 50th Birthday! 

We spent a lot of our time on O'ahu playing in the pool, at the beach, eating snow cones and walking through some of the different hotels along the cove areas. John continued to wake up around 6 or earlier every day, and Jay took over the early morning shift, taking him for walks and playtime around the beach.

We took a day to be adventurous and go to the Hawaiian War Memorial and Chinatown. We also tried to Iolani Palace, but they would not let us take a tour because John was too young. You apparently had to be 5 years old to take a tour because they didn't want the babies to be "destructive." Needless to say, we (politely) let them know our distain for their rules and went on our way! Chinatown was definitely a neat experience. 

We did lots of celebrating while in O'ahu. In addition to my Dad's birthday, we also celebrated Father's Day and my parent's Wedding Anniversary! Lots of fun being together for all these celebrations. We went out to eat at Monkey Pod for my parent's anniversary. They had this little live band playing and my dad requested they sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" for my Mom. It is one of her favorite songs. It was very sweet! 

Jay and I also got to enjoy a date night to Monkey Pod one evening while my family took care of John. It was a nice escape for an evening since we hadn't seen each other in a week. 

We headed back on June 20th on a red-eye flight! John slept about 4 hours on Jay's chest. John then played "peekaboo" on my Mom's lap with the other passengers once he decided he didn't want to sleep anymore. 

Here are some pictures from the second week of our trip to Hawaii: 

It was very nice to have an abundance of help with John on this trip! John loved playing with Uncle Shane and Uncle Matthew, as well as being particularly partial to Grandma. Grandpa became John's walking buddy in the mornings in Maui ... Grandpa even had the joy of changing a stinky diaper! I am glad my Mema got to join us too because John became very comfortable with her!

We had a wonderful time relaxing, playing, and spending time with family. It was such a nice break after all the busyness of moving into our new house the month prior. We cherished the time we got to spend with each other!