Memorial Day at Waikiki

Last week, Brady and I were both feeling a little stir-crazy (could you tell from my last blog post)? We decided one day that we needed a little getaway, so we booked tickets to Oahu and off we went.
The trip started out rough--our flight was delayed by over an hour and a half (annoying because that is three times longer than the flight to Oahu), which was hard with two kids. I kept remembering our 6-hour delay in San Francisco when we came back from Spain, and wondered how anyone with children could handle that much time in the airport.

No worries, though. It was my birthday, so we chose my two favorite activities for the day: hiking and surfing. Zachary fell asleep in the car on the way to the hike and got about 10 minutes of shut-eye: enough so that he was very grumpy and emotional when he woke up. We didn't know if we were really going to make it up Diamond Head for our Waikiki views. He cheered up quickly, though, and impressed all the out-of-shapers making the climb by blazing past them the entire way (it was a whopping 1.6 miles, but in all fairness it was steep).
Hiking Diamond Head is an easy way to get rich payoffs.






We checked into our hotel overlooking Waikiki Beach, and headed out with the hundreds of other surfers. Waikiki is awesome for it's long break, as well as how easy it is to rent a board and get out there with them.
Be very impressed with this picture. Brady was holding Kate and entertaining Zac while holding his bulky camera JUST in time to catch me on one of the 5 waves I caught in my surf hour.
Kate slept the entire time for Brady's turn in the water. The entire trip, we were really concerned about the sun and keeping her shaded without overheating. We were lucky because the weather was perfect all weekend--sunny and not too hot.


Brady up on his board. He fared better than me and caught tons of waves. Now he wants to get a long long-board.
Swimming back in (remember that you should still be impressed with this picture-taking coordination).
That night, we did Cheesecake Factory take-out (oh, I die over that Santa Fe salad), and yes, I do realize that sharing a piece of that enormous chocolate cake does in fact negate all weight loss efforts of the previous weeks! I used to never understand take-out. Why order out when you can sit down and have a nice meal at the restaurant? Answer: children. Eating our food on the balcony of our hotel room while our babes snored away was uniquely romantic.

Zachary has been a really gentle kiddo these last few weeks, in part because we've been working on a star chart. His star categories each day were chores, obeying, playgroup behavior, and naps. It took four extra days to earn all the stickers, but he did it, and earned his promised train ride. We did the train at Dole Pineapple Plantation, which was a fantastic destination the first time we went (when Zac was exactly the same age as Kate), but kind of lame after living here longer.



Zac LOVED it, so it paid off.







Finally, the train ride! Zac showed his sticker chart to the conductor, and was super excited. He even smiled for the camera!

The ride took us on a tour of the lush pineapple fields.

Whoops, no! The fields were "resting," so the view above was about as good as it gets.
The view from our balcony:
Next stop: the Waikiki Aquarium. When we asked Zachary later which he liked more, the train ride or the aquarium, he answered, "aquarninum."






"SHARK!" This pic is included primarily so you can see the shiner I gave him earlier in the day. I opened the car door too quickly and it nailed him on the eye. He still has a nasty black eye. Oh, the guilt!



The last day of our trip, we decided to explore two more famous beaches. It is too bad we didn't just stay in Waikiki and surf again, but the urge to explore runs strong with us and sometimes leads to poor decisions.

The first place was Hanauma Bay, a protected beach with an entry fee and a required video before you can go out and snorkel. We are not sure what the big hoorah is over this beach, because the coral reef was brown and we saw nothing but fish. The snorkeling was nothing like Big Island and Maui--it was more like Kauai.
It was certainly pretty, though.
The second beach took us over an hour to get to, and Kate screamed the entire way. We always think that eventually she will stop, but she has proven us wrong over and over again. We planned to paddle board at Kailua, considered one of the best beaches in the nation, but the water was way too choppy. Instead, we spent the beach day "frolicking." If only we were frolickers... Again, though, Zac loved it here, so the family vacation part of me decided that the day wasn't a wash.


Zachary with Brady in the background:

Whew! Finally, our adventure itch was scratched and we are all pretty content around here! We were completely surprised by how easy the kids were on the trip, and how quickly they've adjusted back since getting home (that is easily the worst part about traveling to the mainland). I feel spoiled because this is our third year in a row taking a trip over my bday (last year was Big Island and the year before was Maui). I'm thinking we should do this every year.