Day 7- Heading Home

Monday morning was pretty laid back for us. Kristi and I went walking down by the missing man formation. They have a walking/jogging path there that is right by the water way that brings the ships in and out of Pearl Harbor. It was really nice getting to walk down by the water. When we got back it was breakfast time. Seth and Hayden decided to share a poptart. Unfortunately, they also decided to eat it off the floor. Joss and Seth got a nice tan while we were in Hawaii. I love her flip flop lines. :) After breakfast, I had Patrick entertain the kids while I packed all our bags and showered. I was a little nervous about the weight of our big suitcase. I had stuffed all of our clothes into the one bag and it was pretty heavy, but Kristi's scale said we would be okay. After getting everything and everyone all ready to go home, we had some lunch with Mike and Kristi, said our goodbyes and headed to return our rental car. When we got to the airport, we checked our big heavy bag in at the counter and it weighed in at 50.0 lbs. Anything more and we would have had to get in a huge line to repack our bag and start all over again. Phew! After checking everything in and going through security we headed for the gate. We saw on the map that it was pretty much the furthest gate from us. So we headed as quickly as we could herd our two kids while carrying our carry-on bags. As soon as we got to the gate, they were telling people that the gate had been changed and it was now leaving from the other side of the airport. You know, the side that we had just come from. So we herded the kids all the way back. When we got to the new gate, we found out that they were having so technical problems with our plane and that they were unsure of when they were going to be fixed. Ugh. This was a little after noon that we got to the new gate. They told us that the would have more information for us at 3:30. So we found some seats, and tried to keep the kids entertained. Joss enjoyed getting to play with the ipad. Seth just wanted to run away and get into everything. He was very frustrating, but Patrick was so beyond patient with him. He is amazing. After a long 3 hours with the kids, we found out that the plane is still having problems and that they would have more information for us at 7pm. Double UGH! They did give each of us a $20.00 meal voucher to use at the different restaurants in the airport. At this point, Seth is beyond tired and did I mention that he had a cold too. He was one really unhappy boy. I knew that he was tired, so I tried rocking him to sleep, but he wanted nothing to do with it. So I put him down and he cuddled up with his blanket and passed out it 30 seconds. It was such a relief and not just for me, but for everyone else too. While he was asleep, a nice lady came and told me about how when her kids were about the same age she had to move to the Philippines. Her husband was already there and so she had to take the two kids and all their belongings on a 16 hour flight, then a 3 hour layover and than another 4 hour flight. She said she was exhausted and that when she got to her destination, they authorities wouldn't let her husband through to help her with all the bags and the two kids, so she had to go through customs and everything all by herself. That would be a tough trip. Patrick decided to take Joslyn with him to scout out where we wanted to use our vouchers. While they were gone they went down to the gardens on the ground floor. Apparently, a lot of people don't know that the airport has gardens down below the main walkways. There are three of them and each one has a different theme. There are the Japanese Garden, the Chinese Garden, the Hawaiian Garden and the C.B. Lansing Garden. Joss enjoyed the Chinese Garden. Here is the C.B. Lansing Garden from the walk way above. So if you ever have a really long delay or just a good sized layover, I recommend going down to see the gardens. When we went to use the meal vouchers, you couldn't split them between stores, so you either used all twenty dollars at one place or you lost the money. So when we went to Burger King to buy the kids chicken nuggets for dinner, we ended up getting them each a ten piece chicken nugget meal. They were in heaven. Here is Joss enjoying her nuggets. Patrick and I went to a Chinese food place that wasn't very good, but it is airport food so I wasn't expecting much from it anyway. We did get to enjoy this beautiful sunset while we ate though. After dinner, Patrick went to Starbucks and bought smoothies and cookies for dessert. We were totally stuffed by this point, but we still wanted to use our last voucher, so I took Joss and we went looking for somewhere that we could buy stuff to take home with us. After going pretty much around the whole airport, I decided to ask one of the news stand employees if we could use our vouchers there and they said that we could, so we loaded up on candy and juice and headed back to Patrick and Seth. By this time it was 7pm, and they told us that they were taking the plane for a test flight and that they would be letting us know soon when we would be boarding, which ended up being 8:30pm for a flight that was supposed to leave at 2:55pm. We were exhausted, and just wanted to be leaving. Joss didn't even make it to take-off before she was out in her seat. Seth had a hard time getting to sleep until he gave up on getting comfortable on Patrick or me and slipped down to the floor and slept there. I can't sleep on airplanes which made this trip really really long. Especially since the pilot decided to not show the in-flight movie for whatever reason. I ended up playing games the whole time on the ipad. Our flight came in at about 6:30, so we got to see the sunrise while we were on the plane. We made it to our house around 8:00 and we all went to bed for about 3 hours. It was much needed! Patrick and I didn't recover for a few days. It was a rough ending to our wonderful trip but we had an amazing time and would love to go back someday.

Hawaii Day 6- Church/Family Pictures/ Mother's Day

Sunday was definitely a much needed day of rest for us. We woke up pretty early so that we could all be ready for church at 8am. Joss was pretty excited to go to church this day because she thought we were going to be dancing like we did at Friday's fundraiser. She was still happy to go to nursery even if it wasn't a dance. Seth on the other hand stayed with Patrick. He didn't do too well in the nursery on Friday so we decided to spare their nursery leaders and keep him with us. I took Hayden for Kristi while she was doing her librarian duties. It was pretty funny watching people do a double-take when they saw Hayden and I together. You could tell that they knew something was different about me but they probably didn't think it was because I wasn't Kristi. It's always fun when people don't know that there are two of us roaming around. After church, we came home, ate lunch and let Seth and Hayden take their naps while we played Phase 10, which I won! After the game, Joss and I went out and picked some plumeria flowers to put in our hair to match Joss's new dress. Joss looks so sweet. While Kristi and I played with the kids, Patrick was in the kitchen making us some delicious sour cream enchiladas for Mother's Day. They were really good and he did a great job making them. I am pretty darn lucky to have such an awesome husband. Before we left Phoenix, we asked Kristi if she would be willing to take some family pictures for us. We went to Foster's Point on Hickam Air Force Base. It is a really pretty man made peninsula park. When my parents came home from Hawaii we saw about 50 pictures of the huge tree that is at Foster's Point. They both loved it so much and because it is so pretty we decided to have our pictures taken there. Seth was being very difficult for this photo shoot. He just wanted to run around and any time that you tried to hold onto him he was squirming to get down. Add in the wind that was blowing me hair all around, Patrick and my weird expressions from trying to wrangle two wild kids and Joss's crazy faces and Kristi had A LOT of editing to do. Luckily, she likes to use photo shop. :) Here is one of our favorite pictures from the shoot. I actually ordered this picture on a large canvas to hang on our wall at home. This picture shows the big tree that my mom loves. We had to take a picture with the tree for her.

Hawaii Day 5- Aloha Stadium/Pancakes/Pearl Harbor Memorial

Saturday morning we woke up and got ready for the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet. There were TONS of vendor shops. It was crazy. The vendors circle around the stadium's parking lot and it is a great place to buy souvenirs, which is what we did. We all got some T-shirts. I got a coral necklace, Joslyn and I each got a pretty dress, and we also bought some Pineapple Flavored King's Bread and Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Shortbread cookies. We almost didn't get the cookies, but the shop lady convinced me to buy them and I am SO glad that she did! They were really delicious.

After the Swap Meet, we were pretty hungry. We decided to go to KOA Pancake House. We have heard so much about it for Kristi and Mike that we pretty much had to go there at one point in our trip. The kids loved their pancakes. They had regular pancakes because the restaraunt forgot to put the strawberry topping in the bag. They did remember the whipped cream though. Patrick had the Macadamia Nut Pancakes and said they were really good too. Here are the kids waiting for our order at KOA Pancake House.

After lunch, it was time for Seth's nap. This poor kid hadn't had a good nap since we left for Hawaii. While he napped, Joss watched her new favorite TV show, Phineas and Ferb. Kristi and Mike keep their house cold. Like 68 degrees cold. That must have been the reason Joss curled up under a beach towel to keep warm.

After naptime, we headed over to the Pearl Harbor Memorial. Unfortunately, we got there late and weren't able to really see anything. We did go to the Bowfin Memorial Museum. It was really interesting to see all the different submarine equipment and read about the heroism of those that were in WWII. Here is the Bowfin Submarine. If we had gotten there earlier we would have been able to board the sub and see more of it.

Here are some of the torpedos they have around the site. They are pretty big.

After the Memorial, we went to dinner and when we came home, the kids wanted to play on the playground that is in front of Kristi's house. Here is the sun setting as we were coming home.

Hayden even came out to watch Joss and Seth play.

Kristi and Mike have a plumeria tree in their front yard. They smell so good.

After playing on the playground, it was time for Saturday night baths and bedtime. Joss and Hayden enjoyed getting to bathe together but Seth, who normally LOVES bath time, wanted out pretty quick. Joss liked squirting Hayden with water and Hayden liked getting squirted with water, so it worked out really well for them.

Day 4- Princess Emma's Summer Palace/Dole Plantation/Shave Ice/YW Fundraiser Dinner and Dance

Day 4 started for Patrick and I with this view from our hotel room. We were staying in Waikiki, while Kristi and Mike were so nice and watched our kids over night. Kristi and Mike took the kids to the park and they all had a ton of fun getting to play with their cousin Hayden. They did have one mishap though. Joslyn looked the door to Hayden's room while she and Seth were in there and Kristi and Mike don't have the key. Luckily, they figured it out and no one was worse for the wear.

Patrick and I went to breakfast at a restaurant near the hotel and then headed down the Pali Highway to see Queen Emma's Summer Palace. Patrick and I were not impressed. We actually left the tour early. We left partly because they said the tour would be about 45 minutes and an hour and a half into it we still were only half way through. The main reason we left was because we were tired of being told that our culture is horrible and that the Hawaiian culture is so superior in every way and that we will never be able to even come close to as amazing as theirs is. The house itself was pretty and I wish that we would have just gone around on our own instead of going on the tour. I did get the chance to play Queen Emma's piano. Which is pretty special because anything that the Hawaiian Royalty has ever touched is considered sacred and you can be killed for touching it if you aren't of the royal class yourself. Luckily, Queen Emma gave her permission for other people to touch it before she died.

After we left the tour we headed back to pick up the kids and get them ready to go to the Dole Plantation. Joss has been wanting to see where the pineapples grow since we told her that pineapples come from Hawaii. She was even more excited when I told her that we would get to ride on the train too!

Here we are ready for the train to leave the station! This was about as happy as Seth got on the train ride. He wanted nothing to do with it and just cried the entire time.

Joss on the other hand was in heaven!

The train takes you through the fields where they grow pineapple, mangoes, cacao beans among other things. The scenery was gorgeous and the wind felt wonderful.

Here is one of the pineapples.

Some bananas in the trees

After the train ride they have some fun picture cut-outs. I did get my picture taken but I guess we didn't take it with my camera. Hayden playing the ukelele.

Hayden and Joss

Patrick

Kristi and Mike

After the train ride, we went to the garden. My mom would have been in heaven getting to see all the different trees, plants and flowers. Joss mainly just liked walking around.

In the garden, they have a koi pond. A nice couple was feeding the fish and let Joss have some of their food to give the fish too. She was so funny because she would take one tiny pellet at a time to throw it in the pond.

A few of those fish were HUGE! They must be well fed in that pond.

Our favorite part of the Plantation was the Dole Whip! This was a miracle cure for Seth's crabbiness. As soon as he had some of that pineapple ice cream, he was a totally different kid. Joss also loved the Dole Whip. She still talks about the pineapple ice cream.

On our way to the car we saw a farmer's market and I bought some apple bananas. They were pretty good but I think I'll stick to regular bananas. My kids were pretty lucky that day. Not only were they in Hawaii, got to ride a train, see the pineapples, have a dole whip, but then we went up to the North Shore and had some shave ice. All my life, I grew up with Shaved Ice, but I learned that it is really Shave Ice- no d. We got Strawberry-orange flavoring with ice cream and Azuki beans. It was definitely different having beans in my dessert. It was good though. Not good enough to get it again, but good. In fact, next time I would skip the ice cream and beans and go for the sweetened condensed milk on top. That looked really yummy.

Joss and Seth really enjoyed this special treat too.

We couldn't give it to Seth fast enough.

The West's also enjoyed their shave ice. You can see that Hayden isn't very happy in this picture. It's because his mom stopped feeding him his shave ice so I could take a picture.

After our shave ices, we went home. We were totally bummed that we didn't have more time to go to the beach up on the north shore. We really liked the North Shore area. It has a very different feel to it than Honolulu. More relaxed and small town feeling compared to the big city of Honolulu. We would have stayed there longer but we needed to get back to Kristi and Mike's so we could get ready for Kristi's ward's Young Women Fundraiser Dinner and Dance. Kristi and I are twins and that was really apparent when we realized that we were both planning to wear the exact same outfit to the dance. We both have the same teal pants and didn't even know it. We should have gotten a picture of us both in them but we didn't. In fact, we didn't get a single picture of the two of us the entire week that we were there. Any way, back to the fundraiser. I thought this fundraiser was a great idea. The young women set up a little restaurant. The parents would come and drop there kids off in one of the nurseries depending on their ages. Then they would be seated according to their reservation. You could ask for a private table or a group table. Then we chose between a Cafe Rio style burrito and salad. The Young Women were our waitresses and they brought us our meals and dessert. After dinner they cranked up the music and everyone started dancing.

It was a lot of fun and with about half an hour left, they brought the kids in and made it a family dance. It was so fun and Joss loved getting to dance with everyone. She was so excited on Sunday when we told her we were going to Aunt Kristi's church because she thought we were going to get to go dancing again.