Heading To Honolulu!
We begin our day by rising at 5 a.m. CST and tell Zac we are doing something special for breakfast. It doesn't take long for him to realize he is not going to school today and that something is afoot. Perhaps Katy and I have a bit TOO much of a propensity to surprise him, because he seems to be catching on. Anyway, this lovely pic to the left is Zac having breakfast at the airport in Omaha, with absolutely NO idea where we are going or who is going with us (or who has gone ahead, for that matter!).
Let's transition to the plane, on the way to San Francisco, our first stop on the way to Hawaii this morning. A gentle 3-1/2 hour flight...OK, that's a lie. It was B-U-M-P-Y for much of it. Dang mountains. Anyway, before we took flight I nabbed this pic of Zac and Ryan, ready and rarin' to go. Zac's cousins knew where they were going, due to an unfortunate spilling of a long-kept secret, but Zac still had NO idea at this point (same thing we did to him when we went to DisneyWorld two years ago). :)
OK, here we are in, ahem, sunny San Francisco where they had this very odd looking sort of play area for kids. These discs move and light up every once in a while. As an adult you look at it and think, "What the heck?", but as a kid, apparently this is a game board. The cousins all took their turns enjoying the area and ran themselves ragged (OK, not really, nine year olds don't get tired) spending a good amount of the time we had to wait for our next flight keeping busy. And yes, we had TIME. Four hours, to be exact. Luckily we found some decent food options for lunch, which was indeed lunch time for us even if it was about 10 a.m. for the west coasters.
We have arrived! Zac had already been sent to sit in the van Puddin' was circling aimlessly in around the airport, while we all waited on the magical baggage carousel to send forth our bags. This is the point where I mention that, of the two bags we checked, I actually let one of them pass me twice before I realized it was ours. So, you know, I've got that going for me, which is nice. Nell had leis ready for us, which I have to be honest, I expected to be fake. But once the water hit me I realized nope, these are real. Very nice. :) This is also where we learned, shortly after, that Honolulu traffic at 4:45 on a Friday is not a good idea. By the way, that's 4:45 Hawaii time, 9:45 p.m. CST. So yes, by the time we arrived we had been working at it for a LONG time. It is indeed a long day to get here from Bellevue, but with the time change last weekend, we lost an extra hour, hence the five hour time difference. Woohoo! In fact as I write this, we are doing our best to make it to 9 p.m. (2 a.m. our time) in an effort to adjust to the time change right away. So far, so good...kinda.
And now, our hotel. Took this pic while we still had some daylight, you know, what with the long travel day and all. Actually took this, I think, around 6:15 or so. They call it a partial ocean view. I call it, "I can hear the waves". I also call it, "This is a REALLY loud area and I hope it quiets down." Gosh is it busy here. :) So far no dice on that, but I am sure the days of quiet beachside resorts are long gone from this particular area of this beautiful place. :) More to come tomorrow night, I hope.
We begin our day by rising at 5 a.m. CST and tell Zac we are doing something special for breakfast. It doesn't take long for him to realize he is not going to school today and that something is afoot. Perhaps Katy and I have a bit TOO much of a propensity to surprise him, because he seems to be catching on. Anyway, this lovely pic to the left is Zac having breakfast at the airport in Omaha, with absolutely NO idea where we are going or who is going with us (or who has gone ahead, for that matter!).
Let's transition to the plane, on the way to San Francisco, our first stop on the way to Hawaii this morning. A gentle 3-1/2 hour flight...OK, that's a lie. It was B-U-M-P-Y for much of it. Dang mountains. Anyway, before we took flight I nabbed this pic of Zac and Ryan, ready and rarin' to go. Zac's cousins knew where they were going, due to an unfortunate spilling of a long-kept secret, but Zac still had NO idea at this point (same thing we did to him when we went to DisneyWorld two years ago). :)
OK, here we are in, ahem, sunny San Francisco where they had this very odd looking sort of play area for kids. These discs move and light up every once in a while. As an adult you look at it and think, "What the heck?", but as a kid, apparently this is a game board. The cousins all took their turns enjoying the area and ran themselves ragged (OK, not really, nine year olds don't get tired) spending a good amount of the time we had to wait for our next flight keeping busy. And yes, we had TIME. Four hours, to be exact. Luckily we found some decent food options for lunch, which was indeed lunch time for us even if it was about 10 a.m. for the west coasters.
We have arrived! Zac had already been sent to sit in the van Puddin' was circling aimlessly in around the airport, while we all waited on the magical baggage carousel to send forth our bags. This is the point where I mention that, of the two bags we checked, I actually let one of them pass me twice before I realized it was ours. So, you know, I've got that going for me, which is nice. Nell had leis ready for us, which I have to be honest, I expected to be fake. But once the water hit me I realized nope, these are real. Very nice. :) This is also where we learned, shortly after, that Honolulu traffic at 4:45 on a Friday is not a good idea. By the way, that's 4:45 Hawaii time, 9:45 p.m. CST. So yes, by the time we arrived we had been working at it for a LONG time. It is indeed a long day to get here from Bellevue, but with the time change last weekend, we lost an extra hour, hence the five hour time difference. Woohoo! In fact as I write this, we are doing our best to make it to 9 p.m. (2 a.m. our time) in an effort to adjust to the time change right away. So far, so good...kinda.
And now, our hotel. Took this pic while we still had some daylight, you know, what with the long travel day and all. Actually took this, I think, around 6:15 or so. They call it a partial ocean view. I call it, "I can hear the waves". I also call it, "This is a REALLY loud area and I hope it quiets down." Gosh is it busy here. :) So far no dice on that, but I am sure the days of quiet beachside resorts are long gone from this particular area of this beautiful place. :) More to come tomorrow night, I hope. 
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