Day #1: Hawaii Five-O

I don't have photos of our trip. I promise - they do exist. December 27th, 2006 - This was the plan: Leave the Yellowstone house no later than 5:40am. This required some early rising from those who live out in Johnson Ranch/Queen Creek. I was a little nervous about that especially since the day before, Jeff kept saying "be there at 6?". But much to my delight, everyone was on time/early! We had at 30 pieces of luggage to check, which included not only suitcases, but golf clubs, strollers, and portable crib. We took 3 vans to the airport, one of which was mostly luggage. Jennifer went directly to the airport from her house since she lives so close the the airport. Oh, in my obsessive organizer way, I provided colorful floral ribbon to tie on to each piece of checked luggage, which I thought would facilitate grabbing the luggage when we got there. It did help, but next time? I'll get more ribbon and make it brighter. Did I say next time? What am I thinking! Anyway, got to the airport in 20 minutes - still on schedule. Luggage was unloaded at the curb and the 3 vans drove off to the long term parking lot while the rest of us lugged the luggage into the airport - we hardly made a scene. This was an interesting exercise since we had to keep the little girls and the baby in one spot inside the airport along with a couple of "overseers" while the others carried-dragged-wheeled-kicked the luggage from outside to inside. Oh, we also had to have an outside overseer to make sure none of our luggage when to Philadelphia, or South Phoenix.

Once we got inside, each family group took their own luggage and went to stand in the line to check in. This was not the fun part of the trip. At that point, Jeff realized that his black carry-on back was not to be found. We searched each group and even called the van boys to make sure nothing was left in the vans. I could just see some screaming trip back to the house to make sure it wasn't on the sidewalk at home. Finally, the bag was located. And, by the way, it's green, not black. So the first "issue" was resolved. After about 30-45 minutes in the check-in line, we all made it upstairs. I think I was the last one. Going through Security was another line. That was when I found out that I had be specially chosen for the personal inspection. I'm sure it had to do with my birthday. I did feel special. Cleared that hurdle. On to the gate area. We had about 90 minutes to wait. Bought some breakfast and reading material. Boarded the plane with very little difficulty. We all sat in a group of 15 - 3 rows of the 3 middle seats and the 2 window seats. What a happy bunch we were! Once the plane took off, there was nothing to anticipate but 6.5 hours of flying. So now what?

Emma and Sadee checked out their backpacks to see what snacks/games/books etc had been packed. That took about 10 minutes. Movie anyone? We had the little DVD players. Emma can watch Little Mermaid in about 15 minutes - it seems that most of the movie bothers her, especially the part where the daddy yells at Ariel. She doesn't like Ursula, or any other conflict. So most of the movie is watched in FF mode. I read a little, but it made me sleepy and I can't sleep on a plane - it just makes me cranky. So I didn't read. Sadee slept a bit - Jeff slept a bit. I couldn't really see everyone, so I'm not sure what happened. But eventually we prepared for arrival! Flew really low over the ocean until the runway appeared. Gathered our things and got off the plane. We weren't quite sure where Baggage Claim was, so we were afraid to get on the tram. So we walked - couldn't be that far. Wrong. But the walk was kind of nice after so long on the plane. So we did the luggage thing in reverse. Got all the bags in one area. Then some of us went to get the rental cars. We got 4. Once everyone was loaded, with map in hand, it was every car for itself to make it to the North Shore. We decided to meet at the motel which is in the same parking lot as the Polynesian Cultural Center. The drive was beautiful - really unbelieveably beautiful. So green. And the humidity wasn't too bad. I had a few nostalgic moments as drove along the Kam Hwy hugging the coastline - remembering that sad day when Becky and I left Laie in 1978. One thing I noticed? Trees grow a lot in 30 years.

Got to the motel - checked in those 3 rooms and headed over to the rental house which we had passed on the drive in. The house is pretty much on the beach. No houses obstruct the view, with about 30 yards of lawn between the porch and the beach. First order of business for most? Get in the water with the snorkel gear. I was more concerned with the fact that the house did not have air conditioning. That first afternoon was rather warmish. So I took the floor fan into my room, and decided that if that plus the ceiling fan didn't cool things down, I was in big trouble. We went to the grocery store for the necessities of life and came back with about 10 bags of stuff - just the necessities, right? We had dinner. I think salad and roast chicken. Unpacked. We were mostly too tired to stay up really late. The last thing I did before bed was ask Jared to close the windows in the van. Good thing. It rained pretty hard during the night. This concerned me a little, but I was also pleased because it also cooled things down and brought a really nice breeze through all the open windows.

Next post? Day 2. I'll try to condense this a little more, but it's also my way of remembering most of the details. So be patient.