For Coronavirus Freaks: The places we visited were very remote and off the beaten path. We hardly saw anyone in Hawaii. Yes, the plane constituted a risk, so masked up while in the airport and brought lots of sanitizer. Fortunately, the plane was virtually empty. It was like having a private jet liner to ourselves.
Here is our top 10:
10. Driving the most uncool car ever.
The excitement of being in Hawaii was a little dampened when the girls (who seem to be especially sensivite to this type of thing) found out we had rented a old mini-van for the trip. It was the cheapest car I could find that could fit 7 people.
9. Tommy's Dirty Little Secret gets revealed:
I didn't tell anyone at work that I was in Hawaii. Since everyone was working from home, it worked really well. I had to stay on Utah time so that meant getting up at 4 AM everyday and working til noon.
Everything worked well, but on the last day I was in Hawaii, my boss wanted a few of us to meet in person in his office. I tried to postpone it but when pressed, I finally revealed I wasn't anywhere near Utah. ha ha.
8. Reece almost drowning
While the two younger boys LOVED playing in the waves, they found out how powerful the ocean is when they got pulled out further than they wanted. Reece began to panic and, of course, grabbed and pulled down Gideon, who then proceeded to panic as well.
The older kids raced into help. Even Hudson, fully clothed, dashed in to save her little brother. A nearby stranger was able to get to them first and bring them back to the beach.
7. Beaches Closed, No problem; Okay, maybe one problem.
The day after we arrived, all the state parks were closed. This wasn't a problem most of the time because there are lots of non-state-owned beaches. However, that meant no public restrooms available. At one time, one of the kids (who does not want to be named) had to go #2. After much conjecture, I took them to the van and they filled up a yogurt container (which we had spilled in the car earlier). So no one mistook it for chocolate yogurt, we promptly threw it away.
6. Hiking bribes
As usual, we did a couple hikes. As usual, the kids complained. The Kuliouou Ridge Trail and the Ehukia Pillbox. They were beautiful.
Unfortunately, it was pretty clouded over at the top of the Kuliouou Ridge so the view wasn't great, but it was still an awesome hike.
On the Kuliouou Ridge Trail, which is an aggressive hike, a couple of the kids broke down and refused to go further. I had to bribe them with 'souvenir credit' to get them to finish. This was on top of them getting a treat at Megan's favorite snowcone place; Uncle Clay's house of Aloha.
5. Camoflauge
At the top of the Ehukia Pillbox hike, near the pillbox, we played Camoflauge; the hide and seek game. We had so much fun, the kids didn't want to stop.
4. Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Pandemics; oh my...
If the trip had a theme, it would be 'excitement'. Not only was the trip taken during under the shadow of the pandemic, but on the day we planeed to leave, after getting to the airport, going through security and about to board, there was an earthquake. We were close to the epicenter (which was in Magna), so it was pretty severe. I recognized it as an earthquake but then second guessed that maybe a plane had hit the terminal.
They thought we'd still make our flight, but after the 2nd aftershock, they closed the airport and kicked us all out. We had to come back the next day.
While in Hawaii, the pandemic continued to develop, with the governor continually escalating measures.
The best was on the last day we were there. We were on a beach on the west coast when we all got a phone alert that Hawaii was on a Tsunami watch because of a 7.2 earthquake in the Kuril islands of Russia; which we were facing. We just laughed.
3. Swimming with turtles
We had already spotted a sea turtle on a previous day, but while snorkeling, we came across a turtle. The girls and I were able to watch it eat for some time from just a few feet away.
Later, we spotted a couple of turtles again. Reece, who loves turtles, was getting frustrated because he hadn't see them yet. I carried him into the water and waited. We were rewarded when one of the turtles emerged right next to us. Reece was able to touch it's shell. He was so thrilled.
2. Stinky Car
Not only was the car uncool, it became unbearable smelly. In addition to the yogurt getting spilled, the container of milk unknowningly spilled and saturated the carpet. In the hot muggy weather, the stench became super strong. The girls put on scuba masks to get some reprief.
1. "Wait, so American bombed Hawaii!?!"
We wanted to go to Pearl Harber but it ended up closing before we had a chance. But we did talk about it and WWII a bit. At one point, Harper blurts out, "Wait, so American bombed Hawaii!?!" We all laughed hard. Harper get easily confused.
Honorable mentions:
Unintented photobomb guy at airport.
Poor guy. He was just taking the escalator and got included in our family photo.
Charades
I love funny moments like this. We arrived earlier than expected and had to wait for our car. The kids started playing the charades game and got so into it that they wouldn't stop even after our ride was there.
Tate gets a big surprise.
As most know, Tate likes to dig in the sand. He was digging a hole big enough for him to get inside in order to shelter him from the wind. All of a sudden, a large crab popped out the sand. Tate jumped about 3 feet in the air running as fast as he could.
Dad's 1-ton backpack
Because the kids are attempting to do online school and I had to work from home, we had to bring all our laptops. So, I packed 4 laptops, 3 tablets, the nintendo switch, the chargers and all the accompanying earphones, cords, etc... It was SO HEAVY!!! It had to have been over 60 lbs.
We stayed for 1 week; we originally planned for 2 weeks but some of the kids and Megan got home sick. All-in-all, it was an incredible trip.
1 comment:
It was amazing!
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