Complete December 22nd album on our Smugmug --- password: turtles
After an insane 2 weeks of overprogramming with class party insanity, St. Anne's Christmas Pageant rehearsals and show, Mom's 70th birthday and a bunch of other activities, I finally got us packed and ready to leave for the airport about 1.5 hours before it was time to leave. I was seriously up for over 30 hours --- and exhausted...
Anyhooo... enough whining... :)
Jon stayed over the night before so that he could take us to the airport at the buttcrack of dawn... (seriously folks - we left before the sun came up - around 6:30'ish) 5 rolling suitcases, 6 backpacks, 1 carseat, 2 boosters and a stroller later, we were ready to go...
We got to the airport as the sun was coming up. It was a bit chilly (it had been in the 40's) so I took the kids inside while we waited for Stan to get our stuff checked in...
It took us a good 20 minutes to get through the security checkpoint... It's not that it was busy - there was hardly anyone there when we were about to go through - we actually made pretty good time with all the stuff they had to put on the conveyor and dealing with all the kids' shoes n' stuff... The delay happened when the security folks decided (against my warning) that they'd put the stroller through the scanning machine... dumb dumb dumb! It got stuck and it took 5 people to get it shoved out. Thankfully with no damage to the stroller! (I told them it was too bulky but they didn't listen!) They still made us wait another 5 minutes as they swabbed it down to make sure there were no explosive dust on it... Happy that they were doing their job but OMG... it was painful to sit there and watch them deal with my stroller stuff as the line got longer and longer!
So we get to our gate to find that they'd moved us to another gate... why??? Because just moments before we got there, the attendant made an announcement that our flight that was to leave at 8:45am would now be taking off at 12:15pm! WTF!?! We found out that there was nothing wrong with our plane... the delay was because they wanted to install the tamper proof vents on our plane and it would take a few hours... Could they have done this maybe when the plane was scheduled to be OUT of service? They were very nonchalant about it - they just said, "Sorry about the inconvenience... we know it puts you out... but it was our turn to have the vents switched over..." UGH! I think I would've been more understanding if the delay had been weather related or if there was a serious problem that would've hampered our ability to fly safely...
Thankfully, we came prepared with lots of things to keep the kids busy... We fed them (pizzas and pancakes at 9am!), hooked 'em up to outlets so they could play their DS games and at one point busted out Stan's laptop to watch multiple episodes of iCarly. Multiple potty visits and walks around the airport took up the rest of the time until we finally boarded and took off --- at 12:45pm!
Our flight to Hawaii was smooth and uneventful. The kids were fabulous - they played DS and watched movies, drew/colored and read. Melody was even more terrific... she slept for the majority of the flight and when she was awake, she played with the little boy who sat in front of us (2 years old) and waved at everyone that walked by.
Stan and Kaili went to Alamo to pick up our rental car while the rest of us waited at the curb... (MUCH smarter than the way we did it last time loading and unloading multiple times!) We called Wawa and Tee, texted with Uncle Jon & Nettie and enjoyed the sunshine.
We got to the hotel (Hilton Hawaiian Village) and decided, since it was later in the afternoon than we anticipated, we'd hit the beach and pool the following day. The goal of the day would be to eat and rest... I know I was exhausted... Stan was, too! The kids on the other hand --- boundless energy!
While Stan checked us in, the Fab 4 and I hung out in the Rainbow Plaza. We enjoyed the beautiful structures (Japanese inspired), the gorgeous foliage and the adorable bird in the cage in the center of the quad that chiped and fluttered around...
After we checked in, we got a call from Sherwood who had been worried about our flight delay. We decided to meet up with them at Zippy's at Ala Moana for a quick dinner (at 7pm). It was nice to see the GrandKwongs and Great Gram after such a long day of travel.
Here is a very special snapshot of Mellie meeting Great-Gram for the first time. They hit it off famously! Grandma was so cute... she told me about how she prayed for us and how proud she was of Melody for being so strong... Millie (Mildred) loved Mellie (Melody)... VERY special!
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