Heading to Honolulu-day one

I admit it. I have been so excited for this trip pretty much since the moment Brenn told us that she was going to be getting married in Hawaii. At first we debated over the expense of taking the whole family or not and ended up deciding to find a way to make it work. We left last Tuesday and headed for the airport. Hunter is the only one of the kids that had ever been on an airplane and he hadn't been since he was a baby. Deke and I had never been on a plane together. The kids were fascinated by watching the planes take off and land while we waited to board. Emma would see one touching down and start pointing at the glass and mumbling things. Avery wanted to know what we would get to eat on the plane and Hunter was busy checking out all the different machinery surrounding the plane docking area and hypothesizing about the function of each one. We took a small "express" plane over to LA and then boarded a much larger plane to head to Honolulu. Upon preparing for our trip I found out that flying had changed quite a bit since I last flew and now a flight was minus a meal unless you wanted to fork out $10 for a tiny turkey sandwich with nothing on the side, no more peanuts of any flavor or variety but you still get that complimentary soda. Needless to say we planned accordingly and brought each kid a lunchable and brought our backpack loaded with goldfish and other yummy snacks. The kids were so amazed. Avery kept giggling and telling us over and over again how much she loved the plane. Hunter was busy talking our ears off about being this close to a cloud and how tiny the houses looked and how even though he wanted to touch a cloud it would be dangerous to open the plane window etc. etc. Then there was Emma. I was surprised at how excited she was about the whole process. Since she does not like loud noises I figured she would be afraid of the whole thing but she wasn't, she loved it. Once we got in the air a little ways I pointed out the window to show her the view. She peeked out the window wide eyed and all of a sudden she stopped sucking her binky and just froze as if mesmerized by the sight. Then she leaned down, picked up Ariel and pushed her face against the window and held her there as if saying, "You have to see this." Deke and I laughed so hard until our sides hurt. After a minute she took her down from the window and put her back on her lap and then she looked back out and started pointing and showing me things. I can't believe that she was so impressed that she made sure that Ariel got a chance to see the view. She is so funny and so smart. Is she really only one? Finally after six hours of plane including a million trips to the on plane bathroom for one of the three, a boring on plane movie that wasn't kid friendly and every fun "sitting in a chair" game we could think of we arrived in Honolulu. The kids had been amazing on the plane, Emma hadn't made a peep other than a couple of times trying to socialize with the people to the front, back and side of us. They all did awesome. When we arrived at the Honolulu airport it was dark, pouring rain and super humid. We went a picked up our rental car and were excited to be given the option to up grade for only $5 a day to a seven seater versus a five. Not only that but it was brand new with only twenty seven miles on it and had all the bells and whistles. Seriously I really liked this car. Avery loved that the license plate had a rainbow on it. Brenn and Kimbre met us and we headed to the north shore of Oahu where we would be staying. Again it was dark so we really couldn't see anything, I was so excited to be able to see things. We got all settled in with everybody at the condo and crashed for the night. The next morning all of us were up early excited to finally get a chance to look around and when I looked out back I realized why. This is the view of our backyard: AMAZING!!!! Palm trees, a gazebo, a hammock, boogie boards, and outdoor shower oh and yes right over the fence down a few stairs is the beach.

The condo was older but still nice and definitely gave you that island feel. The ceiling had all exposed wood beams and the views out any window were gorgeous. It is so green there, in fact just so colorful in general. The north shore was definitely more country feeling with only a two lane road going up and down it.
I had to take a picture of the tiki's on the post at the front of our driveway. I couldn't believe that we were finally here, in Hawaii with our whole family for eight days and to see Brenn get married.