Friday 1.7.2011

Aloha!

We made it to Hawaii on the 3rd of January. What a whirlwind trip THAT was. We packed out of Alabama the week of Christmas & headed up to PA, enjoyed family & friends there for almost 2 weeks, & then headed down to Atlanta on the 1st of Jan to fly out. Hectic to say the least, but we all made it safe & sound. Alex did great on the non-stop flight... until hour #7 when he had had it with flying. So I decided at that point to go ahead & let him walk the aisles to stretch those little legs of his.

Big mistake.

The boy all of a sudden decided he was the newest member of the US Track Team & started sprinting up & down the aisle. He had freedom! But he was still in the process of learning how to run, so I had to race after him making sure he didn't fall or crash into another passenger while simultaneously running & looking back at me, laughing hysterically. Oh, but I have the Lindale birthing hips (thanks Mom!), which makes it a lot harder to navigate those teeny, tiny aisles especially at a face pace. We were quite the site. & after two laps, I finally caught him & wrestled him back into his car seat.

The next few days were spent getting settled at the Navy Lodge, Hector checking into the ship, & starting the housing process. Finally, on Friday we managed to get out & start exploring O'ahu.

It is freaking gorgeous.

We meandered through the mountains up to the Windward side, checking out the North Shore & the pipeline (which had HUGE waves, but not as big as they usually get. It was amazing.). It's just like you'd expect for Hawaii... at pretty much any point as your driving the coast, you can pull over & hit the beach. Here's Mikayla on one of them with Chinamen's Hat in the background:

Seriously. What a great day for me to forget my camera... :(

& Alex felt sand for the first time! Oh, he was NOT thrilled with the texture. (But has since gotten used to it, thankfully, or this would be a very long 3 years...) & one surprise for me is the temperature of the water. I'd forgotten how much colder the Pacific Ocean is; although thankfully it's not as bad as San Diego. That will take some getting used to, but hopefully it will warm up in the summer months. But there's so much to do here! Everyone we talk to has given us recommendations & "must do's" for our time here. Thankfully we've got some beach babies, so it won't be hard to spend most of our time outdoors!