aloha means hello and goodbye

a vacation with kids is never a vacation, it's a trip. we went to hawaii in july. it was an incredible experience, but also it was no walk in the park. traveling with kids will try all your faculties and patience. 

the first flight went great, the second flight was the opposite of great. the airline rebooked us on a different flight than we had planned on taking so instead of breaking it up into more shorter flights and we were (barely allowed) to board a non-stop 7 1/2 hour flight at the last minute.  i had 20 minutes to get all the food we could get at the airport mcdonalds while thomas tried to convince the airline to rearrange some seats so that we could at least have a couple of family members together on the flight. the gate agent finally relented when two of the 6 of us started to have an emotional breakdown. i was one of the the emotional breakdowners. a boy whose name rhymes with breagan was the other. autism anxiety is real. parental autism anxiety also deserves it's own classification.

happy, pleasant flight from atlanta to denver! functioning WIFI, snacks aplenty! bags full of activities still deemed fun:

me after the flight from denver to honolulu:

airsickness(me), terrible ear pressure pain(also me), spotty at best WIFI, multiple bags of $3.50 m&ms(goodbye savings), thomas(trying to get extra work done on his laptop) and reagan at the very front of the plane, herschel

(pooping his pants multiple times) and i in the middle of the plane and athena blythe and scarlett in the very back of the plane. sounds like smooth sailing. i prayed a lot. there were no pioneer children singing on this flight.

but we made it and for that i am grateful.

first glimpse of beautiful, incredible hawaii:

we met up with family at a lovely house my mom found for all 26 of us. it was perfect. lots of space. close to so many things on the north shore.

we had family pictures at the lai'e temple. 

the best picture we could get of my darling sister and i:

giant athena blythe and her two tiny cousins june and gwen

scarlett has decided that she's going to BYU-hawaii. she has my blessing. by that point she will want to be as far as possible from the rest of us.

we missed the last tour of pearl harbor but we were able to tour all of the sights and read every single informational placard, just like the offspring of doug beck should. it's always humbling to hear about the feats of courage and bravery and selflessness. 

we went to a really great beach called waimea beach park. the water was beautiful, the sand soft but absolutely hotter than hell burning your toes off sizzling. i had to make an emergency bathroom RUN and all i seriously thought my most embarrassing moment was going to happen on the most beautiful beach in hawaii. i made it. but barely. thanks to my extended family for watching my kids during that ordeal. there's your TMI story of the day. 

i was able to go snorkeling and it was one of my top 10 favorite things i've ever done. 

athena blythe got lost on the beach again. it was frightening again. she made it almost to the other side of the beach and found two nice ladies who helped her find me. i wanted to throttle and hug her at the same time. 

possibly my favorite meal of hawaii:

nutella covered deep fried banana

not pictured was my other favorite meal, garlic butter shrimp as big as the hawaiian zit on my forehead. 

reagan did his best puppet show to date. 

scarlett also sang and she has the voice of an angel.

one morning a bunch of fun people did a hike. my hiking partner wasn't into it. 

we happened upon a dog NOT on a leash and that was the final straw for reagan and me. someday i'll go back to hawaii and hike all alone and i'll love it. 

mark's family was probably embarrassed to be seen with my crew. i was less than thrilled about the situation.

polynesian cultural center was great. except for the fact that thomas had a work emergency that he has to stay back for an take care of and i had to take the crew on my own. the extended family was there supporting but it was still kind of terrible on my own. hersch was being awful and i had to spend a lot of one on one time with him. thankfully, lot of extended family took in my others while i talked hersch down from a cliff.

herschel really loves volcanoes and the only thing that calmed him down was this ceiling in one of the gift shops. 

oh, there i am! calm, cool, collected!

our dinner luau tickets got messed up so we weren't able to eat with the rest of the family. i cried. reagan cried. miraculously, that was the moment when thomas was able to come and we ate all together in the PCC restaurant. just keeping it real, fam. not all trips are smooth sailing.

my favorite part of the PCC was the big show in the evening. herschel fell asleep on my lap and i was able to watch the whole thing in peace. thomas took athena blythe on her multiple bathroom breaks.

scarlett found this weird thing and cracked it open. it was rather unpleasant. 

we had another beach day but it was more rainy and oddly cold. it is never cold in the South in summer so the cool air at the beach during the storm was surprising.

the kids were unfazed by weather.

paddle boarding was super fun but also mega hard. 

my personal highlight of the trip was playing, "keep it going!" in the backyard pool. our record was hitting the ball in the air 77 times without missing.

the night we had to say goodbye to june. autism group hug.

we went to dinner again at the PCC. georgia man made an appearance.

cousins making pizzas.

finally, it was time to go. thanks to grandma sandy for making this happen. it was great to see the cousins build relationships. herschel loved the boy cousins so much that i signed him up for soccer because liked playing with them so much.

uncle dave's family. clearly my picture taking was subpar if i was taking pictures as everyone drove away.

san francisco airport at midnight

sums up the red eye airbus flight from san francisco to atlanta. herschel annoyed thomas the whole time. 

17 hours of travel and we were back in atlanta just in time to drive home during rush hour.