Hawaii...Finally

I don’t know what we were thinking when deciding it was a good idea to have Rachel’s graduation party 3 days after Italy and the day before leaving for 6 weeks. We had so much rain the days before that Dave had to shuttle kids back and forth to Brentsville Park. That worked, but Dave ended up missing a lot of time visiting with the few adults that came. I was trying to go light on food, so we actually ran out. It started pouring half way through and everyone got moved to the basement. Rachel left her phone in the rain, so it had to get packed in a bag of rice. But, overall, it worked. It was stressful, but she appreciated it and the kids all had fun. I wouldn’t recommend it. And, sadly, no pictures. 

Sunday, we cleaned up, finished packing and got ready to go. We made it to Baltimore around dinner time. We are at Ruby Tuesday’s and had a horribly slow waitress. The 7-top that got sat after us was leaving before we even had food. Luckily we had nowhere to actually be. When I went to check into the hotel, they did not have our reservation. We did a Park Sleep Fly deal where they keep the car for the time we are gone. It meant it wasn’t easy to just get a room. But, they took care of it. A little bit scary for me, as I was embarking on six weeks worth of reservations. Hopefully this is the only real hiccup. We also couldn’t all fit on true right shuttle so we decided to have Dave drive me, the kids and our stuff to the airport and then back. He could fit in the shuttle himself. This actually worked really well. 

3:50AM came very early but we were on a mission. Since Dave dropped us off at the airport, I had to manage us for check-in and we went through security. It was chaotic but we made it. Here we are grabbing breakfast before the flight. 

We definitely brought too much luggage. I keep forgetting to take a picture of it all together. I tried to limit everyone, but we have a lot of stuff. SCUBA and snorkeling stuff takes up quite a lot, but we have discovered we have too many clothes. Oh well. Luckily we have lots of helpers...

To clear up overhead space, they offered to check bags to the destination from the gate.  We were thrilled to take them up on that offer - relieve us of the 6 carry-on bags we had. 

The plane rides were long but uneventful. On the long route, they had in flight entertainment with movies and games. Pretty advanced, so Charlie and the boys were pretty entertained. Some of us didn’t sleep much though. 

We made it to the Big Island!  2:30 Hawaiian time, 8:30 Eastern time. Got a car and drove to our condo. 


We had a little trouble finding a good place here in Kona, so we splurged a little on this place. We figured it was our introduction to Hawaii and only for a few days, so we should pick a place with a few. Boy, did it. It was beautiful. We had a quick dip in the ocean followed by a snippy trip to the grocery store. Dave was making steak-um sandwiches while I tried to keep the kids from falling asleep (an enormous task). We finally alll crashed after almost 24 hours awake. Thankfully we are here for a month.