3 Days til Christmas......Day 14 Leaving Hawaii

It was a long, long day traveling back home.

We woke up to our last morning in Hawaii.

Sad to be leaving the sun,

but ready to get home with our family for Christmas,

our "normal" life and especially our own beds! :-)

Our plane wasn't leaving until 1:50pm, so we were able to longe around alittle. But really we just got to finishing our packing and cleaning up the rental. We were ready early, so we waved "aloha" to our house and went to breakfast. Then we did a little last minute trinket shopping until it was time to head to the airport.

Getting through the airport was a nightmare!

We didn't check-in online because we didn't have a printer, so we had to use their computers. It seems that they don't have people checking you in anymore and then I, of course, got a computer that was broken. Then they didn't even take your suitcases at that time. Before we checked-in they went through screening, then after check-in they had to be dragged over to TSA (with kids in-tow) and gave to them. Then we had to get in the security line. Elissa's medicine had to be checked and finally we were through, but oh not yet. Then we had to get in another line for an agricultural check before we got to our gate. It sounds easy typing it all out, but keeping 3 adults and 2 children all in the right place with our stuff was "challenging" to say the least.

Time to board the plane!

It was fitting that it was raining as we left. :-)

We are excited to be on our way!

Zach was out soon after taking off. He slept for half the flight next to Darin. Elissa watched a movie, wrote in her journal and colored......and climbed back and forth from me to Nana.

We got into San Francisco 20 minutes early, 8:40pm. We got a little dinner and waited to get on our next plane.  This flight I had Zach and, of course, he was up the entire flight because he has slept on the last flight. Elissa was out before take-off and her and Darin had a nice little snooze. I kept Zach busy trying to watch a movie, but really I just had to answer his questions for 2 hours. :-}

We landed around 1:30am.

We got our luggage and there was a taxi driver right there that was ready to take us, but he only had a town car. I asked if it had enough seatbelts and he said yes. He got all our luggage in and then - Nope! - not enough seatbelts. He wanted just to ride anyways. I don't think so!

We unloaded and found a van taxi. The guy was a CR-AAA-ZY driver. I was scared for our lives. And, oh yeah, my seatblet clip was completely mangled but I somehow got it clipped.

BUT we came home to a wonderful pine smell and this beautiful tree!

That can change anyone's mood!

Thank you so much Grandma and Papa for getting and decorating us a wonderful Christmas tree!

The kids were SO excited when they came in. Zach was for sure that it was Christmas right then. He wouldn't go to bed because he wanted to look at all the ornaments and find his.

We finally went to bed at 2:30am with sugar plums dancing in our heads.

4 Days til Christmas.......Day 13 in Hawaii

Our LAST full day in Hawaii.....

We, of course, spent it at the beach.

It didn't turn out to be the best weather.

It was never sunny. It was always cloudy.

And yes, it did rain on us at times.
BUT we had a great day anyways!

I don't usually let Elissa have bikini swimwear, but I did for Hawaii as a treat.
She was excited.
Our beautiful girl inside and out.

Darin spotted a whale just off in the distance. We saw that the catamaran that we went on yesterday was tracking it. Darin got this awesome picture of the whale breaching.

Cropped in pic of the whale.

There was a huge black cloud that kept on coming toward us. We felt the air get cold and eventually the rain followed. It was cold. I would have gone home, but I wanted the kids to have a full day at the beach so we just stuck it out.

Hang loose!

I love the feel of the sand at Hapuna. It is very fine and soft.

(I love that my pedicure lasted the whole trip!)

We got to Hapuna around 10:30am and left at 2:30pm.

It was a good day, even if the weather wasn't "perfect".

We went home and hung out for awhile and packed a bit until dinner.

We decided to go to The Beach House for our last night (which we did back in 2005 also). It has good food and a beautiful view on the water where we could watch the sun go down.

Our family shot at our Hawaii house.

Our family shot at sunset.

The sun had gone down and the kids were exploring after they were done with dinner.

Then when we got back to the house there was a group of people caroling down the road of Puako on the back of a truck. Fun!

I'm ready to go home and celebrate Christmas with our families.

Zach says he wants to go home everytime he is tired. He is definitely ready too. We are all looking forward to being in our own beds. :-)

It is so nice to be on vacation and it is nice to get back home.

The Kids put on a Luau Show

The kids loved the luau performance so much that we had to buy a firestick for Zach (not sure how we are getting it home) and poi balls for Elissa.

This was the same night as the luau; when we got back.

Enjoy the show!

Zach vs The Gecko

Zach Won.

We dedicate this video to Cousin Cole because he will probably appreciate it the most. :-)

Zach came in the door and he was holding this wriggling thing between his fingers. I'm trying to figure out what kind of worm he has found......



That's right.....my son pulled off a geckos tail.

It was wriggling a lot more before I got the camera out. Can you believe how proud he was of himself??

Now we are on the hunt for a "not-the-tail" gecko.

We found the "evil" gecko.

Can you believe this?!

5 Days til Christmas.......Day 12 in Hawaii

We saw WHALES!!

Our 2nd trip out and we were successful!

Just 10 minutes into the trip and we spotted a whale. We were so blessed that it was a frisky teenager that wanted to breach and slap the water repeatedly.

It was awe inspiring. It literally brought tears to my eyes. It was just so amazing to be watching them in person. It is cool on TV, but there are no words for seeing them in person.

This ended up being the only whale that really gave us a show. He did for about 30 minutes and then he just swam away. We saw several others, but not another one breached or slapped the water.

I was sure that one of them was going to come swim up to the boat, but it didn't happen. I'll just have to go again in the years to come. :-) No matter, it was an amazing experience.

Darin comments that I'm acting like I'm a little girl by answering all of the guide's questions and being SO excited when we see them. I just wonder how can you not?? They are the most beautiful animals. I'm reading "Crazy Love" and it reminds me how everything points to Him, The Creator. How can you not praise Him and glorify Him when you are witnessing His amazing creation.

Then we got to HEAR them!

It was amazing too. We were hearing the whales that were right around us. It brought tears to my eyes again. Then Darin commenting on that made me even more teary. It was beautiful!

Elissa thought it was cool at the first sighting or two, but then she lost interest. She just didn't understand how special it was to see them, but she did a good job entertaining herself while we were glued to watching the horizon.

I'm SO glad that we came back for a 2nd trip.

I've already decided that we are going to come back again during whale season. :-)

6 Days til Christmas........Day 11 in Hawaii

Jingle Bell 5k Beach Run!

Darin heard about this run just after we got to the island, so we decided to put it on our agenda to do.

We had second thoughts when we needed to get up at 5:45am to be in Kona by 7am for a 7:30am start.

We got ourselves up and out the door by 6:15am.

There was a beautiful sunrise on the way in.

Here we are before we started.

We are on are way!

Darin was nice and ran with me. He could have finished much sooner. He was our photographer. :-)

1/2 way!

We can see the finish!!

Their picture of us coming to the finish.

Yeah! We are done!

I'm so glad that we did it. It always feels good after a run. As Lysa TerKeurst says in her book, More than a Good Bible Study Girl, "I never regret getting up and running, but I always regret not doing it." It was a fun thing to do together and before January of this year, it wouldn't have happened. I love that running is a part of our lives now. It feels good.

Chris Lieto set a new course record. I didn't know before today, but he is a professional triathlete who is sponsored by K-Swiss (plus many others). His time was 16:18.5. His son, Kaiden, did the 1 mile race and came in 2nd at 7:49.6. He looked to be about 8yrs. It was so cute, he was all decked out in K-Swiss. Looks like he is following in his Father's footsteps. :-)

It was a free event, but they had lots of prizes and giveaways after. They said that in the spirit of Christmas and giving that the event was free and they wanted to provide lots of gifts provided by generous business in the community. We ended up with a Starbucks coffee mug and a box of Starbucks Mocha VIAs. Love it! We really enjoyed the feeling of community and uplifting each other. It was pretty cool.

So now we have "RUN BIG"

7 Days til Christmas.......Day 10 in Hawaii

Oh we're going to a hukilau,

A huki huki huki huki hukilau,

Everybody loves a hukilau,

Where the laulau is a kaukau at the LUAU.

by Jack Owens

All that to say that we went to a luau tonight. :-)

This is my 4th or 5th luau and it was the best yet.

We went to The Fairmont Orchid, "Gathering of the Kings" Island Breeze luau. It is a very fancy hotel, so I figured it had to be a nice one. It ended up being a more intimate setting, with good drinks (not watered down), really good food and a fabulous performance. So good that it kept a 3yr old and 6 yr old entertained the whole time. That is saying ALOT.

Before dinner the kids and Nana got up to do a little hula of their own. :-)

Love this video!

It was a beautiful night.

We were sporting our aloha wear.

The show started right behind our table!

Zachary was so enamored with this white "spirit". He would continually ask when it was going to come back on stage. We couldn't tell if he was afraid of her or liked her. It was very hard to get a picture of her because she was moving all the time. Then at the very end Dairn & Zach were coming back to the bathroom and the spirit was coming off stage and Zach gave her a hand shake. He was super excited.

We all had a great time and the show kept us intently watching on what was going to happen next.

And the desserts were to die for!
Hot Molten Brownie

&

Macadamia Nut Cheesecake

Were our favs!

It ended with the fire dance!

By the very end we heard how all the Polynesian islands had started and about their first King. We went from Tahiti, Samoa, New Zealand (I didn't know it was considered Polynesian) and Hawaii. So the culmination was "The Gathering of the Kings".

It was a wonderful evening!