Hawaii - Day 1 & 2

I can't even begin to write down how amazing our trip was. Josh won it from work, so that made it even better! I was a total stress case trying to get everything ready to go. Rachelle and Sean came over and watched the kids for the 2 weekends, Rachael came over for the evenings/nights during the week, and a wonderful neighbor, Amy, watched them during the day. I finally felt like I prepared as much as I could and just had to leave! Best. Feeling. Ever. To know the kids were in good hands so we could just relax and not worry about them is partly why our week was so fantastic. This was our first vacation in 10 years of being married! It was about time!!! N-e way, we headed to the airport at 10am on Saturday, quickly checked in, and began our non-stop flight. Of course a lady with 4 kids sat behind us, which was fine, until we realized that she didn't bring a single thing for her kids to do on that flight. We are talking a 2 yr old and a baby with nothing to do for 6 1/2 hrs. It was nice to be reminded that I wasn't the one with 4 kids on the plane, but frustrating also as they kicked our chairs and played with their tray tables the entire time. Have you ever had your chair kicked for 6 hrs??? I went nuts. I tried helping by letting them watch shows on my ipad, but it didn't last long. We made it to Oahu at 2:30, got our car, and made our way to the hotel to relax and rest. We stayed at the Mariott on Waikiki Beach. Small room, but loved being on the beach. However, we didn't realize there would be a billion people on Waikiki so we didn't spend much time at the beach. Oh well. We headed out for the evening and walked along the beach and ate at the Cheesecake Factory. It took about 2 days to get over the shock of the prices of everything...I'm still scared to look at our credit card :) Saturday night we rented a movie and relaxed, trying to adjust to the new time zone. 

Sunday we woke up early and headed off to our "welcome breakfast." Eventhough they assured us many times it wasn't a time share presentation, it was just as bad. They made us listen to their little spill on all the things to do on Oahu and tried to get people to sign up for the excursions through them. 2 minutes on my phone and I found much, much cheaper prices than they were offering, so we quickly left. Unfortunately, leaving wasn't so easy. We hopped back on the shuttle, which made a mandatory stop at the Maui Divers Jewelry shop where we were required to go on a tour before loading back up to finally head back to the hotels. I was SO bugged! We knew about the first presentation ahead of time, so we had planned 90 min for breakfast...which wasn't even that good. They didn't tell us about the other hour of stuff we had to do. Once we finally got back we headed to the Aloha Stadium for the famous swap meet. It was so nice to just walk around, shop, and enjoy the day with Josh...not trying to shop with the 4 little ones. Sunday evening we headed out to find Tony Romas for dinner, however the car parking situation was less than desirable so Josh gave up and we ended up calling Papa John's to deliver pizza and watched the rest of the movie we started the night before. Not going to lie...the pizza was one of my favorite meals of the week!