Oahu

I just posted pictures on Flickr of our week on Oahu. Go check them out. I wrote comments on a lot of them, so I won't repeat myself here. I apologize that I am writing this out of order. We actually spent a week on Kauai first, but because of how the pictures posted on Flickr, I only managed to get the second week's up. Hopefully the rest of the story will be told tomorrow.

We got to Oahu on Saturday afternoon after a week on Kauai with friends of mine from college (more on that next time). Heather and Greg picked us up at the airport and we headed to our little shack on the beach. Literally. Shack on the beach. We stayed at Barber's Point which is a former Navy base. The Coast Guard still has a presence there, so we were entertained by planes and helicopters taking off and landing daily behind our house. But it was fine. We could hardly hear them and it was entertaining. The best part was you walk out the front door and you are on the beach. It was perfect. And even though I love my friends and we had a great time with them, it was nice to have some space to ourselves for a week.

We spent most of the time hanging out on the beach or in the cabin. Or eating at "The Hapa Grill." I'm not a big pancake fan, but you can't beat $3.99 all-you-can-eat pancake breakfasts. Mimi and Grandpa came over almost everyday. Heather and Greg stayed in the cabin behind us. It was a pretty sweet deal.

We didn't spend the entire time just hanging out around the shack. We did venture out a few times. Monday night we went to Joel's cousin's house for dinner. He is also in the Air Force and is stationed on Oahu. Tuesday we visited the man-made lagoons at the Marriot Resort with Ben, Susan and Ella. They just happen to be on Oahu for a month for work. (They were also in Kauai with us.) The lagoons are great because there are no waves. Padyn can sit at the water's edge without worrying about a wave taking her out. (We were blessed with a similar beach on Kauai.) It was also a beautiful resort. Much more like Maui than Oahu. Although, apparently, you are not allowed to put up any type of shade on the beach or grass. Ben and Susan had a cabana that they borrowed from some of our other friends to shade the babies. We were told that it was not allowed. What? You can't provide shade for your baby? That's pretty ridiculous. I convinced them to let us keep it up since we weren't going to be there very long. After the rough day at the lagoons, we had some friends who live on the island over for a BBQ. We somehow seem to have friends everywhere we vacation. Kinda nice.

Wednesday, Joel and I got a real date. Mimi, Grandpa, Heather and Greg tackled the kids while we hit the town. One of our favorite restaurants in Hawaii is Hula Grill. On our honeymoon to Maui we ate there twice because it was so good. Fortunately, there's also one in Honolulu now, so we went there Wednesday night. And then we bought me some T-shirts. I really wanted to buy a new bathing suit while I was in Hawaii, but it just didn't happen. The T-shirts were the next best thing.

Thursday we headed to Ben and Susan's super secret beach. It was a natural lagoon-type bay with very small waves. And there were sea turtles! Lots of them. I never actually pulled my camera out this day, but trust me. It was an awesome beach. You had to park on the side of the road, then walk through the jungle to get there. Very secluded. We saw a few other people briefly, but no one else hung around like we did. We had the whole place to ourselves. When the waves started getting too close to our mat and it was too close to nap time to expect Padyn to behave herself anymore, we headed to Mimi and Grandpa's for one last dinner before we had to get back to the shack and pack everything up.

Friday we had to head home. The week was over too quickly and don't even get me started on the plane ride home. We were an hour late taking off, Kate wouldn't sleep AT ALL the entire flight, and American Airlines makes you buy meals now instead of providing them. At least Joel did manage to score us the bulkhead and Padyn was pacified the whole time by watching TV. She didn't care that it was "The Queen" instead of a cartoon (the flight over they showed "Open Season.") And she did sleep. Needless to say, when we got to SFO, we were beat. Especially Kate. She immediately fell asleep in the stroller. After we waited for 30 minutes for our luggage (Kate's carseat was one of the last items off), we finally got to get into our own car. Tired, hungry and depressed that our tropical vacation was over, we headed home.