At the airport - Hawaii here we come!
2 parents, 4 kids, 11 carry on's and a partridge in a pear tree
Going through security
Not awesome. I'd stuffed snacks in every available nook and cranny
and apparently food has to be hand inspected.
That poor security guy doesn't get paid enough for what we put him through.
On the flight - and ready to go!
We had a quick layover in LA
We had a quick layover in LA
2 cute boys had to do homework on the flight -
but worth it to skip a week of school!
Oh the TV's .... it didn't take long to figure out that
an endless supply of movies is pretty awesome during a
5 hour flight. Didn't mind that 5 hours at all.
We couldn't check into our apartment (we rented an Airbnb apartment - in downtown Honolulu, just a 2 minute walk from Waikiki) until 4:00 and we landed at 1:30. So after we picked up our rental car we drove around downtown for a bit. We stopped for a minute at the state capital (not everyone's first stop in Hawaii I'm sure!) because Logan has a love for state capital buildings. In every capital we've driven through - we always do a drive by of the capital building.
Hawaii State Capital
We quickly fell in love with banyan trees - they are the coolest!
I told the kids about their awesome aerial roots -and we pointed them out for the rest of our trip.
Banyan trees are the coolest! I want one!
After we saw the capital building we realized we had enough time to do Pearl Harbor. We'd planned on going there the next day, but were excited to get it in a day early.
The USS Arizona Memorial
On the boat ride out to the memorial
The USS Arizona - still above and below the water
Leaving the memorial
Visiting Pearl Harbor was awesome. I learned so much! I didn't even know that Hawaii was only a US territory when Pearl Harbor got bombed - it wasn't a state for another 10 years! Am I the only one who didn't know that?? They are also still putting Pearl Harbor survivors' ashes down in the USS Arizona, for those who want to be buried with their fallen shipmates. I thought that was such a sweet sentiment. The memorial was so nicely done to honor those men who died there. Derek could have stayed for hours and hours, and the kids were all thankful that they kicked us out at 5:00!
After Pearl Harbor we were ready for dinner. Derek had seen a Lahaina's Chicken restaurant inside the airport and wanted to find one of those for dinner. Derek is all about local eats - no chain restaurants when we're on vacation! We put it in the GPS and headed off to dinner. Little did we know that Lahaina's Chicken would be in a mall food court - but there it was! And we ate our first dinner at the Honolulu mall - jokes abounded about how when we go to Hawaii all we want to see is the capital building and the mall!
Lahaina's Chicken - at a mall food court
After dinner we headed to our apartment and checked in. It was fun to be in one of the high rises of downtown Honolulu and the kids loved being on the 8th floor up. After we checked in, the fatigue started to set in. Before I could make up the pull out bed for the boys, poor Logan could only lay down on the hard wood floor. He was so tired! I put Logan to bed and Derek and the girls ran out to grab some groceries for breakfast. After they got back we got all settled for the night - and excited to start a full day in Hawaii!
One passed out traveler
The view from our apartment - the homes are built right up the face of the hillside in Honolulu -
with steep sides that they can't build on so it's all lit up in the middle,
and pitch black everywhere else.
1 comment:
So cool. Smart to do an apartment! I didn't know lots of things....that Logan loves state capitals, or that Hawaii wasn't a state yet. Or anything about ariel roots.
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