Hawaii wrap up

It feels like months ago, not just a week, since we were in Hawaii. Our first week in Texas has been crazy! More on that coming soon. But first I have to record a few more memories from Hawaii before I completely forget. Here are a couple of "only in Hawaii" moments.

Enjoying a refreshing (non-alcoholic of course!) tropical beverage

Yes, that is a Coco's Curry house! In a mall in Honolulu! They do it a little different than in Japan and it wasn't quite as good but it was great to eat at Coco's one more time.

A beautiful quilt done in the traditional Hawaiian style

Elliott has to be really tired and off schedule to sleep in the stroller... which happened a lot during our vacation!

I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but Chad lived in Hawaii from 1990-1993. But he didn't do most of the "tourist-y" things that we did on this trip back then. Another new experience for him this time was climbing Diamond Head.

Diamond Head my be ugly but there's a beautiful rainbow.

The view from the top- crazy and crowded Waikiki in the background. Climbing DH only took about an hour, a little easier than Mt. Fuji!

DH was used for many years as a military observation post and was prepared to defend Oahu. This is one of the staircases leading into the fire control center.

It's funny what your kids enjoy most on trips. My mom remembers that one year on our family vacation, the thing my brothers and I enjoyed most was swimming in the hotel pool and eating peanut butter sandwiches in the hotel room. Similarly, one of the highlights of the trip for Abbey and Elliott was eating on the lanai. (Also known as a balcony but in Hawaii you have to call it a lanai!) Since Elliott is such a messy eater, we enjoyed most of our in-room meals out there.

Abbey gives cheese pizza with a 5th floor view a thumb's up

Don't be fooled, Elliott is only fussing because her spaghetti was all gone!

That's it for posts on Hawaii. All in all we had a good time and we are thankful for the opportunity to go without paying the airfare! But there were a lot of things I wish I had known ahead of time about Hawaii/Oahu in general and our hotel in particular that would have made the trip go much more smoothly. Fortunately the girls are too young to remember those things and the pictures all say we had a great trip! Aloha!