Jamie needed a day to work on her masters paper so we chose today. It was seriously rainy today, so it was a decent one for half the clan to stay home.

Duke, Ruthie, Mia and myself piled into the car and drove an hour down the highway to Diamond Head. As we drove, I quietly asked Duke if we were still on for this, and we came to a quiet consensus that we should stick to the plan. As we got there, I noticed I was the only person in the car who hadn’t packed an actual jacket. I bought a $3 piece of plastic poncho and we started the hike.

It was lovely! Although still a little busy, despite the rain. I didn’t take any photos because I didn’t want to bring my camera out in the rain and I didn’t think to bring my snorkel camera because …I didn’t think. So I have no photos. Ruthie, on the other hand, has a ton. 😛 It’s a hike that isn’t to strenuous, and has a good pay off in a view of Honolulu. Today, the view was obscured by clouds, but was still pretty stunning!

Tonight we’re putting the kids to bed and leaving Ruthie with them and going out for sushi!

This was a simple day. We woke up, everyone made their own breakfast, and the surf looked a little bit better so we packed up the gang and walked 3 minutes down the road to the nearest beach.

It’s quite pretty! In an overcast and dreary kind of way.

And the snorkeling is way better than I had seen on my first trip, as that trip was all churned up from the surf. The rocks in the middle have a bunch of great little fish living on them!

It was still cold out, so we got cold and then Mia realized she was cold and everyone went home to take a bunch of hot showers.

That afternoon we drove up to Hale’iwa because we wanted to share our love of this little town with the Hudsons. We wandered around, they bought some stuff, we had shave ice.

We’ve played 3 rounds of Codenames the last two nights. It’s the clear winner for board games. It’s a good one, but my need for new and interesting isn’t held by just one game.

More photos! This first set from the 21st when we were leaving our apartment.

And then some photos from the Dole plantation yesterday!

This will be the photo of our vacation if we don’t find a better one with the children smiling. 🙂

I’m sorry about the back-and-forth timeline, but I found more photos on my snorkel camera from the 20th!

This was the day we went kayaking in the morning and snorkeling at Sharks Cove in the very cold afternoon.

We woke in our new home with Ruthie and the Hudsons after having a good evening doing a little bit of planning.

The weather is forecast to get sunny and warm starting Sunday and Monday, but this day and today it’s raining and “cold” by local standards.

We went to the Dole plantation! When this was first proposed a month ago or so I wasn’t interested – it seemed like the worst kind of tourist trap. Now, 3 weeks into our trip, I was interested in almost anything that might be a little bit different.

It was about a 40 minute drive up the island to the plantation from Laie, where we’re staying now. We drove past Pipeline again, and got stuck in traffic again, and the waves were super cool to watch while we were in that traffic.

At the plantation, it’s free to get in, but costs money to go on the train and go into the maze and the garden, and there’s a building marketplace where they will sell you all kinds of fun pineapple themed items. So in the end, you pay for what you want to do.

We went on the train and Ava was happier than the last time she was on a train, but towards the end getting a little cranky. We tried to get her to sleep in the carrier on me, but she was having none of it. Miranda ended up taking her back to the car to try for a car nap, but ultimately just brought her back after a little rest. We went into the maze, and while doing that slow walk, Ava fell asleep for 40 minutes.

We had lunch there, and the food was pretty below mediocre. And we ate pineapple ice cream, which was pretty good.

We dropped Miranda, Ava and Ruthie off at the apartment at the rest of us went grocery shopping so we could have some food in the house for eating.

Duke and Jamie made breaded chicken, sweet potato fries and broccoli, which was excellent.

That night, after Ava and Mia had gone to sleep, the 5 remaining played Codenames. Likely not for the last time.

This morning everyone did breakfast on their own – I made something resembling steel cut oats, but also resembling an oat-like jello.

I don’t have any photos for you right now. I went for a swim in the evening and took a couple of the beach we’re a short walk away from, but the piece I need to get photos from my camera is in Ava’s room where she’s sleeping. Another time!

These photos are entirely from Ruthie’s camera, a 5th source of photos for me! I did absolutely no editing on these, these are as #nofilter as they come!

Kayaking!

And then to Sharks Cove!

I woke at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I didn’t realize it at the time though, I thought it was much later so it seemed normal to get up out of bed and go sit in the bathroom so I could use my phone without disturbing Miranda and Ava. Almost 2 hours later, they woke up. Oops.

After breakfast, Ruthie and I went out to the apartment beach one last time to go swimming. I found my rock and saw 4 turtles and then back to Ruthie on the beach who was trying to dig a hole in the sand that was constantly being filled by water. I helped her for a bit and was reminded of a time when I didn’t absolutely hate sand. I hate sand. We went in and got to packing!

We were done packing pretty quick and decided to drive into town for some lunch at the Red Barn Farmstand — excellent food, it’s being added to the list of yes places — and then found a snow globe at a souvenir shop for Ruthie, and tried to find a baseball cap for Ava because her new Hale’iwa outfit really needs it.

We had to cancel shave ice because of timing, and we went back to the apartment to load up the car and leave for the last time. We barely fit all our stuff in the car – we’d gained a high chair, Ruthie’s suitcase and backpack and a cooler and 2 small boxes of food since we got here! The only thing that saved us taking 2 trips was I figured out how to disassemble the high chair.

We drove down the road with Miranda in the back seat trying to get Ava to sleep while I drove. It wasn’t easy, but somehow she managed it! I didn’t believe.

2pm we stopped in Kahuku for some light shopping and shave ice. You don’t cancel shave ice.

3pm we got into the new place, and it’s pretty stellar. Better than I expected. The living room is huge and is only lightly separated from the dining room, which is only separated from the kitchen by an island. The bedroom is large and even better — our friends are here! They spent the day with some other friends who were (by coincidence) staying in Oahu on the west shore in a resort. They had the misfortune of driving via the North Shore and so ran into exactly the same traffic that we ran into the other day (and also today, although it wasn’t notable for us today).

We ordered pizza and I pulled beer out of the fridge and we relaxed into dinner after a long day of travel.

I put Ava to bed and she slept. Miranda and I were so worried, since our last experience going into the last new place was harrowing. Tonight, I sang our new Hawaii song, sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, fed her and put her down and she…passed out! So exciting.

Which is why I now have time to sit and write 2 days worth of stuff. I’m a fast typist anyway. 😛

No idea what tomorrow will hold! We’ll be discussing that after Duke finishes putting his daughter to sleep!

I hate being a day behind because I feel like I’ll forget what happened. So no photos today, although I think we have a bunch of photos.

This was our only full day in Hale’iwa with Ruthie so we wanted to make sure we made the best of it! We started out by going kayaking up the Hale’iwa river, which Miranda and I had done a week ago. It’s a nice little paddle and the weather was cool, but not cold. It was very refreshing to jump into the fresh water river!

We had lunch at the Beachhouse again. I had the poke bowl because I was disappointed that I hadn’t had poke yet, and I’ve been in Hawaii for 3 weeks. Their poke was excellent! It was served with “sea asparagus” (never heard of it) and red onion (I picked it out) and a spicy mayo and a bowl of very well done rice. (rice is so easy to do poorly, I notice good rice). I ordered the Maui Brewing Pineapple Mana Wheat ale, which was disappointing because I’m trying to drink a different beer when we go out and I remembered after it arrived that I’d had this the last time. Also, disappointed because this beer needs a pineapple wedge badly and they don’t serve it with one.

That afternoon Ruthie and I drove out to Sharks Cove to go snorkeling! I really wanted to show her this place because I love it and it’s super accessible. Unfortunately, by this time the weather had gotten quite cold. If you weren’t in the water, the wind was howling and was pretty cold. If you were in the water, you were just slowly getting cold. Ruthie also had some technical issues with her mask and hair and snorkel which made her experience less awesome. She endured like a champ though, until we both decided we’d had enough of being cold.

Back in the car, we turned the AC off and turned the heat on in the car. Madness.

As we drove home we hit the North Shore traffic — traffic slows to a crawl as people pass the Banzai Pipeline, one of the most famous surfing sites, and it backs up for about 20-30 minutes behind it. Miranda was at home with Ava and we were trying to arrange getting dinner, but hitting up against Ava’s bedtime and Ruthie and I were just looking forward to getting home and taking a warm shower!

We warmed the car up enough that by the time we got home, it was ok to drive to a food truck area and get some food.

Photos later! I’m going to write about the 21st before I get to the photos!

After getting in at 11:30pm on the 18th, and then having a not-deep-sleep until 5am, Ava woke me up and I didn’t think I’d be able to get back to sleep so I got up with the family, and accepted I’d have a headache all day.

It was a lazy morning. Lunch was early, and we’d selected a place that we hadn’t been to before that looked neat, but when we got there it was closed on Mondays! Back to Google, with drove to L&L Drive Inn, in the middle of Hale’iwa. It turned out to be kind of a Hawaiian Asian fusion place that looked similar to Canadian Asian Fusion places that we avoid like the plague back home, so we walked one storefront up and into Dat Cajun Guy.

The food here was excellent! And one of the guys was so enamored of Ava that he hung around our table talking with her and us when our food came. I think he realized he was being slightly awkward, and walked away, because after we’d finished eating he came back. He was a really nice guy and we enjoyed talking with him about her and his 2 (soon to be 3) kids, just the timing was a little off, before lunch. 🙂

We drove to Honolulu after, while Ava slept in the back. At the airport we circled the area for a while trying to ensure Ava stayed asleep. She woke almost as we realized that Ruthie’s flight was an hour early. I don’t even know how that happens. We rushed to a parking spot and into the airport to try to figure out where to meet her.

We got a phone call from an 808-local number. It turns out that Ruthie, as an Unaccompanied Minor (or “UM” in the lingo) was not allowed to leave the airplane gate without her designated adult. We didn’t know this. So the phone call was from Alaska Air telling us this. Miranda had to go to a ticketing agent, get a boarding pass, go through security to meet Ruthie at the gate so she could leave!

We needed to go back to Walmart to get some milk and Ruthie a swim suit (hers had met an unfortunate end in her school locker), so we had lunch at Chili’s again. The food was pretty consistently mediocre, except for Ruthie’s pasta which she declared was the best pasta ever. She also loved all the trees in Hawaii. I really love seeing a place that I love from a new persons eyes, so it was fun looking at what she was excited about.

Back at home we were really close to Ava’s bed time so we hung out for a bit before putting her down. Finally, around 5:45ish Ruthie and I went out to the water for a swim. It was pretty cold and I was exhausted from my late night, but I need to get a swim in every day, so I was determined. Ruthie was determined because Hawaii. We snorkeled a bit and I tried to show her some fish, but they kept being just out of her vision (it was super murky because the surf is up again), but she enjoyed just being in the water, which is great because just being in the water is pretty fantastic.

This morning Ava slept in until 6, we’ve had breakfast and we’re now just waiting for her to wake up so we can go kayaking! It’s overcast and apparently going to get up to 24c today.