Banter of a Blond Republican Couple: For not being a spontaneous person, I seem to do a lot of spontaneous traveling. Aka Hawaii Part 1

3.08.2019

For not being a spontaneous person, I seem to do a lot of spontaneous traveling. Aka Hawaii Part 1

I'm a master planner. I love my to-do lists and my bullet journal and preparing for every possible contingency that could happen. Except, you can't actually do that. I know that but of I didn't, these past few weeks have definitely taught me that lesson - in mostly a good way. Well, partially a good way. Let's just say the highs were high and the lows were low!

Let's start with the highs because that's just more fun. Craig had an unexpected work trip - to Hawaii! When he came home and told me, I, being a sensible wife, asked if I could tag along. He told me how little time we had (we basically had to make a decision by the next morning because he had to book things and fly 9 days later) but I sent our a video message to a few friends asking them to pray that it would come together, told myself that it would be a miracle if I could pull it off, then started making phone calls.

Luckily his mom was a super sport and stayed the week with the bigger three (with Craig's dad and sister coming for part of the babysitting week too). It was a crazy week for me with the packing and planning and preparing but - totally worth it!

Hawaii isn't a place that was ever on my top 10 places to visit but this trip was pretty amazing - after a rocky start. So prepare for picture overload. Sorry not sorry.

We landed. Jude took a few naps on our long flight but mostly made friends with people. Then we got our first Hawaii food before heading to hotel.

The plan was to take a nap, then try and wake Jude up for a little bit so that he'd be more likely to wake up at 4 am and not 2am (which was 6am at home, his normally wake up time). Alas, he started coughing that afternoon so we decided to just let him sleep. Enter Low #1 - Right about 7pm when Craig and I wanted to sleep, he stopped sleeping and starting coughing more. Coughing and crying. After a hour or two sitting in the bathroom running hot water (one perk of the hotel life - endless hot water!), he was still fighting croup so we headed to the Emergency Room. So not only were we awake at 2am, we hadn't even really slept.

Are you jealous of my fabulous beach vacation yet?

We got out of the ER just about the time we had planned to really start the day so we to decide what to do next? Go back to hotel and sleep? This was actually the only day Craig didn't have to work so that sounded lame. And Jude was up and awake by then and I knew I'd probably want him sleeping either on me or in his car seat to be elevated anyway. So we decided to just go for it and do our regular itinerary. It was flexible and fairly low key anyway. But if we look a bit tired in these photos, it's because we are!

I had most of our food stops planned out but wanted to swing by Leonard's Bakery and wasn't sure when. Turns out, it was near the ER and perfect when you need a bit of sugar in your system at 5:30 when you need to keep going but haven't slept in over 24 hours. And the malasadas (Portuguese donuts) were really tasty!

On to Hanauma Bay for snorkeling (Craig and I took turns. No snorkeling for Jude ;-)

Look, we got to see the sunrise :-)

Waking up from his nap, you can still see his hospital "bracelet" around his ankle.

Strolling around. I could get used to this view.

Hiking Makapu'u Lighthouse trail. Jude slept all the way up and missed the breaching whales but woke up just in time for the photo ops.

By then, the steroids were obviously kicking in and Jude had gotten a couple really good naps, on in his stroller on the beach plus the hiking one so he was in a great mood while we waited for lunch at Boots and Kimos although we flew all that way just to sit at a St Louis rams table which just seems wrong.

Last stop of the day was the Byodo-In Buddhist Temple.

It was beautiful but smaller than I expected which was good because by now, the lack of sleep was catching up to us. Also, I stopped eating sugar about 6 weeks before this trip. I had decided to indulge as much as I wanted on the trip but a donut, banana pancakes with macadamia nut sauce and a shave ice was probably a bit too much for the first day back on sugar. A nap, a patio dinner while Jude slept and some time relaxing in the hotel with my nature journal got my back in fine shape though.

For Day 2, it was just Jude and I in the morning and it was a bit drizzling at first but we took a nice leisurely (2 hr!) walk up and down pretty much the entire Waikiki strip. I bought myself a ukulele, took some bad selfies (this was prince Jonah so I had to try for my own Jonah's sake) and headed back to hotel with our Acai bowl for a mid-morning snack and a nap. Not horrible exciting on paper but I rarely have a morning to do exactly what I want to do on my own pace with no one talking to me and if was really really nice. And I always love napping when the baby naps.

Then more food. I'd be sorry about all the food pictures except its really more Jude pictures. He's just so darn cute I can't help it!

Poi - one of the few foods he's not a fan of.

Bland looking but quite tasty. I've eaten lots of unique foods in the past but I think this was my first taste of raw fish (salmon in this case). It wasn't bad. But the pork was better. Pork is always better, isn't it?

Time for another solo mom adventure/baby naptime at the Dole Plantation. An awesome combo! I took so many photos of the gardens. I wish I had been more confident that he would have kept sleeping if the stroller stopped moving so I could have stopped and journaled but it was still enjoyable.

This was specifically taken for the big kids to play "Can you find the bananas?" with. They did eventually. Norah needed some help.

For those of you that like coffee.

All the pretty hibiscus.

And an actual pineapple.

Despite the drizzle, the weather was perfect for an outing like this. It was just cool enough for my rain jacket to be comfortable and when Jude woke up, I threw his extra pajamas on him for a while until the sun came out which is great baby wearing weather.