Hawaii Part 2

Wednesday Craig dropped me off in Chinatown. I just walked around enjoying the hustle and bustle of city life. I had planned to eat here but because of the timing, I wasn't hungry yet. 

We walked all the way down to the Iolani palace. Didn't go in but rested in the shade a while and Jude made friends with the lawn mowing guy. Just was mesmerized by the riding lawn mower to the point where the driver noticed Jude just following him go back and forth and stopped to wave. It was super cute despite making a cute palace selfie impossible. 

Then on to the Kawaiahaʻo Church. There was a wedding going on so we couldn't enter but the doors were open and I could see the ceramony from outside. Then we got picked up for our first Uber ride!

He took us to the hotel but Jude fell asleep in the car so I just popped him into the stroller, walked down to a korean bbq place I had wanted to try and he snoozed away while I ate on the beach. 

Funny story - one time I was strolling him to the beach and someone stopped me to inform me by baby was squinting. I looked at thought, This baby? The one with the sun hat and the huge sun shade on his stroller so he's in more danger of vitamin D deficiency than he is of sunburn? Okay, I think he's just sleepy. 

That's when I realized that traveling with one kid, people make the natural assumption that we are first time parents. So while I got less "wow, that's a circus" looks, I had to deal with some (not so) helpful comments. I guess you can't win. But we got way more "oh, cute baby!" comments than anything else so all is well. 

Wednesday night we walked down to Duke's for a dinner overlooking the beach and Craig has one of their famous mai tais. 

Don't you wish someone would look at you the way Jude is looking at this fry ;-)

I had a sip of Craig's Mai Tai and it was fine but I prefer to spent my extra calories on dessert. So off we went to Henry's Place. Henry's Place is basically a fridge filled with styrofoam cups of fruity ice cream but we grabbed a Mango while walking up the beach so the lack of ambiance didn't bother me in the least. I have to say that 3-4 of the small mom and pop places I went to had a mixture of 5 stars and 1 star reviews and the 1 start reviews always talked about being treated rudely. I didn't have any problems at any of the places I went. Everyone was perfectly nice. The food was good, quick and not super expensive. And I have to wonder kind of person are you that you can't manage to pick up a cup of Styrofoam and hand someone $5 without feeling like you are being ill treated?  I would wonder if its a language barrier issue because these places were mostly asian but really, the cups say Mango or Pineapple or Purple Yam and they ask you to pick a flavor before you open the door so the freezer stays cold. It's not rocket science. Side rant over. 

 Thursday. Ah, Thursday. That's low #2 started. We had been skyping with kids before breakfast (easy to do when breakfast doesn't start until 6:30 but your baby wakes up at 3:30) and this time we got to hear the exciting new that the basement was flooding. We had a neighbor drop by to help and Craig's mom sent us a picture of the big kid's being helpers and sweeping the water towards the drain but there wasn't much else we could do from there so we wished them good luck and kept on going, trying not to think about it too much. 

This actually turned out to be fairly easy because Thursday might have been one of my favorite days. I had planned to just do the beach with Jude but someone commented on my instagram feed about the Bishop Museum and since we had plenty of time to kill in the morning, I had Craig drop us off on the way to work. We got there 30 minutes before it even opened but even that was pleasant, just sitting in the grass surrounded by beautiful plants, listening to the birds. Jude could hear them and he was looking but he couldn't find them and hasn't mastered the idea of looking past my finger if I point yet so I was just amused watching him search. 

Then we got started and I'm so glad I added this to our agenda. It was a great little museum all about Hawaiin culture, history and nature. Smithsonian quality without the aching feet or crowds. As is normally the case, my museum pictures are mostly lame. Museums are really a "you have to be there" kinda place. 

While I wasn't sitting around worried about the basement back home, I did keep finding things I wanted to show my kids back home. I guess I do love them after all :-) Lucy is really into string games these days and this was a whole collection of different outcomes. 

I spent way more time at the museum than I expected but we still had time for the beach. It was actually pretty easy to fit beach time in because I didn't like to have Jude out for more than an hour. But between the short times, sun protection and rash guards, we managed to make it through the whole week with nary a sunburn in the family so I call that a success as we have very little natural protection in our skin. But paleness aside, could he be any cuter?

I was lamenting my sad selfie skills but hated to bother strangers to get any good pictures when who should notice me but the one person on the plane we had made friends with (in the back standing section when Jude was tired of sitting). We caught up a bit and she got a good picture of us!

 But I'm still partial to the Jude on a Beach style photos. The part of Waikiki right in front of our hotel had the wall so the waves were very minimal and I could take Jude out quite a ways. The first time or two he got his feet wet, he just seemed confused but by this time he had decided he really liked the water. Waikiki is a busy place and the beach isn't deep but I actually felt much less crowed their than I expected. I did have to laugh when a cute couple came up with their little girl who was clearly terrified of the water despite several other small kids as well as Jude and another baby all sitting there in a row splashing happily. They tried easing her into the idea but she was just not having it. It took me back to my last beach trip in which both of mine felt similarly. Ah, kids!

After our hour in the sun was up, we napped (there it is again!) and when Craig got off, we all hopped in the just in time to enjoy hiking Diamond's head. Well, to hike Diamond's head and enjoy the view. I'm not sure many people enjoy the actually hiking. It's a bit heavy on the steps. But the views make it worth it. 

Jude's got his skeptical baby face on. 

Getting sleepier/crankier

Jude was just falling asleep when we took this and I said something like "okay baby boy, go to sleep now" and he opened his eyes a bit, closed them, smiled and fell asleep. It was adorable and would have been perfect if Craig hadn't chosen to look the wrong way. Silly husband wanted to actually see the view himself.

Rewarding ourselves for a hike well done with some pineapple smoothie. 

Then another dinner on the beach (korean bbq again. I like what I like!) and one of the prettiest sunsets I've seen. Not quiet as beautiful as Thailand but pretty darn close.

Friday was our last day. We took it easy in the morning then headed out to see some of the Pearl Harbor sites and get that last bit of beach walking in before we flew out that night.

The red eye flight with Jude went really well. He fell asleep before the plane even took off and except for stirring 2 or 3 times to nurse, didn't wake up until the plane landed. So that part was good. The bad part, my back was killing me. I had to hold him the whole time while sandwiched between two grown men which doesn't leave a lot of room for stretching. Nor did I get any sleep. I had a few korean drama episodes to sustain me but I think all in all, I prefer to fly during the day when Craig can do his fair share of the baby holding. (Note: Craig's not a jerk. He was willing to help but the one time I tried to pass Jude off to him, he started stirring and crying. The instant I took him back he feel asleep again. So that 30 second, highly stressful experiment was quickly abandoned)

And then we were welcome home by this little crew! I'm not sure who was happier to see each other, Jude or his siblings. 

We also came home to still wet flooded basement ...that turned into a overrun septic tank basement. That's enough to wipe the vacation glow off your face real fast. Or maybe just replace it with a different glow because you haven't been able to shower in 3 days and are having to haul your laundry up to hill to the neighbors house (although I was also very grateful to be able to do that!). But the way this trip came about had caused me to experience the whole thing for what it was - just a big gift from God. A huge blessing. And after spending a whole week thanking God for his gifts, it was a good habit that was hard to shake and I found I was able to deal with all the plumbing stuff with a surprisingly good attitude. At least until the last day when the problems that were supposedly fixed by the first two "solutions" didn't quite fix it and we weren't even able to flush. That's an issue when you're a family of 6! At that point, I could feel my good attitude starting to crack a bit. Luckily another friend lent us her home for the morning and the third fix, almost a week after the original issue began,  actually did the trick so by that afternoon, we were able to do all the water things that a house should be capable of doing. Now the carpet is dry and replaced, my new ukulele has arrived in the mail is almost too much of a hit with the kids (I should have bought 3 I guess!) and the only causality of the basement was one library book that was on the floor of the kids playroom when the original issue popped up which is also pretty amazing. 

So in all,  I've learned if you can handle a lot if you got some good Hawaiian memories to make or reflect on.