Hawaii Part 1

It all started way back here, with Anna’s idea for a family goal of flying on an airplane. After a year and a half of each of them saving $5/month and Mom and Dad chipping in…. the day arrived. To say they were excited would have been an understatement, about two hours in the excitement wore off slightly.After a two hour drive to the airport, a six hour flight, a stop at Costco, an hour drive to our house and various shuttles in between, this is what Anna wrote in her journal that night. Sweet girl.
We stayed on the North Shore of Oahu. It was magical… and rainy the first several days. Luckily the water was warm.
There’s a fabulous island called Goat island that you can walk to at low tide, so we did – in the pouring rain. The sun came out for about a half hour right when we got there, and the kids found a million shells before the rain started falling again and we dashed home.
This is at Laie point. Such a gorgeous place.
According to legend, the different rocks are part of a giant lizard. My Mom, Dad, and Adam came with us. It was so wonderful to have them, good conversation, games, and children outnumbered. They walked out to watch the sunset at “our beach” Rocky Point almost every night.
Josh entertained himself by making tracks for his ball to follow rather than stare contemplatively at the sunset.The kids favorite beach was Waikiki. Which is a tiny crowded beach, but the waves are gentle, and the water is warm so we made the trek down there twice.At Pounders beach there was some serious sand castle building going on.
This picture is Max the entire trip. He was so excited that we bought chips for the beach he asked for them approximately 60 million times a day. We did discover why Pounders is called Pounders. The waves crash hard! This sweet boy got bent in half backwards, toes touching his head and was out o commission for a day. Snorkeling with the kids was magical. They always got cold fast, but watching them find new fish was priceless. We found approximately half the characters in Finding Nemo. We were only five minutes away from Sharks Cove which is great snorkeling, but we did make the trek out to Haunama Bay one day. It was worth the trip. The area to snorkel in is huge and the scenery is gorgeous.