Aloha!

We are back ;-( from Hawaii. The weather was beautiful and the scenery breathtaking. We had a wonderful time and are having trouble adjusting to the “real world”. Here is a recap of the trip.

We left on Saturday the 24th. It was a long day of traveling. We flew from Austin to Denver, which was a two-hour flight and then from Denver to Hawaii, which was close to a 7 hour flight. Hawaii is a five-hour time difference from Texas. That evening, everyone was dragging because it was like 1:00 am Texas time. Cole was still bouncing around.

The next morning, Cole, my mom, and I were up at around 4:00 am because we still hadn’t adjusted to the time change. We walked the ship and eagerly waited our first sunrise. The morning we left for Hawaii I had a sore throat. It got worse and I had a fever (followed by fever blisters on my nose and lip) for several days, but I was still in Hawaii!! The first official evening, my grandma wanted everyone to eat in the dinning room. Cole and I went to take a nap and I didn’t wake up when my mom called to wake us up or pounded on the door. I happened to wake up at exactly the time we were supposed to be downstairs for dinner. I showered in dressed in minutes, feeling like I was hung over. I dressed Cole (still sleeping), carried him downstairs to dinner, sleeping through 1 and ½ hours of dinner and then to a comedy show where he continued to sleep. I then carried him back to bed. He slept until 5:00 the next morning!

We did a lot of shore excursions and got to go to the beach several days. Some of my favorite sights were the active volcanoes. Volcanoes just seem so prehistoric to me. So to see the steam vents, see the “lunar landscape” of the volcanoes and to bend down and feel the heat radiating from below your feet was surreal. My favorite moment is when the cruise ship went by an active lava flow. It was nighttime and the lava glowed at the top of the mountain and then disappeared through a lava tube until it reached the ocean. It was glowing a wonderfully orange/red and even from that great distance you could feel the heat in the air. Sadly, this was the night Cole was sleeping through everything, so he missed it.

The cruise ship had a kid’s club that Cole enjoyed. Several evenings Cole went after dinner so I could catch a show. He had a great time and I got to relax. One night Cole and I went to the dance “club” with my parents and brother. Cole was on the dance floor, grooving and doing cart-wheels, it was so cute and funny. Our stateroom was small, but perfect for Cole and I, we sure missed having a balcony like we did in Alaska, though. The food wasn’t very good and the service was awful. This ship only services Hawaii and can only hire American workers. Sadly, it makes a big difference. Cole also, had a wonderful time with his cousins, in particular the younger one Christopher who is 8. Cole was so excited to see him every day and always wanted to hold his hand or sit next to him. Cole would say, “Cousin” whenever he wanted his attention, which would crack me up. Christopher was very nice to Cole and would help him at dinner and always make sure he was taken care of. It was nice, that Cole got to spend some time with family. My aunt, uncle and cousin’s live in California, so we rarely spend time with them.

Seeing Hawaii by ship was a good experience because you get to experience a little of the major islands (132 islands make up the Hawaiian islands). Most trips of the island where by bus and the tour drivers were very informative, however, by the end of the trip I was tired of hearing “Aloha” every second. We got a good deal of Hawaiian history. The white missionaries arrived on Hawaii and took the majority of the lands away from the natives (in the name of Christianity) and still own the majority of land today. The islands are also a very expensive place to live. An average house (on any of the touristy islands) is around $750,000. Gas is around $4/gallon, it was $5 a month or so ago. A gallon of milk is $4. I don’t know how anyone, can afford to live there. So now if I ever get a chance to go back, I would know where I wanted to go. Hawaii (the big island) was wonderful, because of the active volcanoes. Maui was somewhat of a disappointment. It was very industrialized and busy. They had beautiful beaches and a lot of movie stars own land there. We spent some time at a Maui beach. The waves were rough and at times we were knocked down and around. Thank goodness, I had packed Cole’s life vest. On the Maui beach, my mom got knocked down and we got a free peep show when she stood back up. My favorite island is Kauai. It was the most rugged and had some spectacular beaches. They had huge houses on the beach, which are just vacation homes. You can rent a house on the beach for about $5000/week. That’s what I would like to do someday.

Our final day, we had a chance to visit Pearl Harbor. I have always wanted to go there. It was very somber and a pivotal point in American history.

Our plane didn’t leave until 10:00 pm that night, so after our Pearl Harbor tour (and a bus breakdown) we were at the airport by 4:00 pm. At this point, everyone is tired and irritable. Luckily the airport has a USO room. Since my dad is retired military we got to use the room. It has a kid’s room, which had a TV and toys. Seeing the young, baby faced soldiers coming in and out of the USO room was heartbreaking. They are SO young and are away from home and serving their country. Cole and I didn’t have assigned seats on the flight from Hawaii back to Denver, so we went to the gate two hours early. (I had already tried to get us seats when we first arrived at the airport, but was told they could only do so at the gate, along with “We at United don’t want to separate families, don’t worry you will get to sit together”, funny we didn’t have seats together the FIRST time). They didn’t even have a gate attendant until about 45 minutes before the flight. I had a massive headache and was sick to my stomach and had already thrown up once and had to stand in line to try to get a seat together. The gate attendant said sorry we can’t help you until 30 minutes before take off. So, I had to sit back down again. Finally, with about 15 minutes left until take off, we got assigned seats together. Luckily, Cole was asleep by then and slept the entire way to Denver. We got home Sunday pm. Monday we were so jetlagged, we were virtually useless. So, back to reality we go!