Hawaii! Day 1

Our week-long trip to Oahu was AMAZING. After a 7 day vacation I'm usually more than ready to go home, but I can honestly say I could have stayed in Hawaii another week easily. We took HUNDREDS of pictures and looking back there are still days we didn't even have our camera on us. I want to document everything we did. (for my own nostalgic reasons, so I can remember and so my kids can look back at their first real vacation) So feel free to skip the words, or some of the many many pictures. I'm going to have to break this down day by day due to all the pics that were taken.
Our flight left at 11 am Saturday July 31,2010. I was up until about 3 am packing and making sure I had everything for us 3 girls for a whole week, and I tend to over pack. We woke up early and miraculously made it to the airport on time. (Anybody who knows Brian knows he has a history of missing airplanes. Like 3 flights in 1 day. How that's possible? Ask him.) Anyways we made it to the airport with all our bags, carseats, stroller, and benadryl. BEFORE you judge me for giving them Benadryl for a 6 hr and 15 min flight I'll have you know I asked their pediatrician if it was acceptable and he said "Why not?! I would! It can't cause them any harm." So with doctors permission I gave them their dose of Benaryl hoping they'd sleep the flight away. Teya fell asleep immediately. Avery didn't sleep a wink the ENTIRE 6+ hours. But she was such a good girl. She just played with her toys and books and watched the flight TV. She didn't make a sound. Good girl.




We arrived, got our rental car, and finally made it to our beautiful hotel. The Ko Olina Beach Resort. (If you've seen Blue Crush its the hotel from all the hotel scenes in that movie. Super gorgeous!) We met up with all of Brian's family there. That evening we went swimming in the ocean, in the little lagoon in front of our hotel. (Pics coming of the lagoon...) It was so pretty.

The next morning we woke up and attended church, and then headed to Pearl Harbor. (Brian opted out of Pearl Harbor and stayed at the hotel while the girls napped. Probably a good thing since it rained quite a bit. Babies in the rain isn't usually a good idea.) So I got to enjoy Pearl Harbor without my girls screaming the entire time. Which I hate to admit, was kinda nice! Pearl Harbor was really cool. My favorite part was actually probably reading the stories of some of the men that served and died there. It was kind of eerie standing right above the SS Arizona, knowing the bodies of all those men were still under there. But it was a very cool place and I'm happy I got to see it!

The names of all the men that were on the ship when it went down:

The gun rack thing on the top of the ship. It was nuts that it's still all there.

Playing in the water our second night there. The girls got SOAKED, but had fun so I guess that's all that counts. That's Brian's sister Heather in the pics with them.