Hawaii 2009

Tau "had" to go to Hawaii for work so Noa and I decided to tag along with him. It was an amazing trip and we had so much fun. Thanks to all our family and friends out in Hawaii. It was sure great to see you all. Here are some of the highlights of our trip:


When we first got to HI we stayed in town at the Alamoana Hotel, then we stayed at Turtle Bay for five days, and the last three days we stayed with our friends Rachel and Brigham Jonson and their family. Every place we stayed was amazing. Here are some of the views we had from our windows.


The first Sunday we were there it was Warren Johnson's 1st year birthday. It was so fun to watch him eat his b-day cake. At first he wasn't sure if he would get in trouble for getting dirty and then after a few tests and no scoldings, he dug in.

At first I don't think Warren was too sure about having Noa touch him, but after a little warming up and as long as Noa wasn't in Rachel's arms, Warren and Noa were like two peas in a pod. When ever Noa heard Warren, he wanted to be right by him. Here's a clip of him trying to tell Warren to come and play.

Warren would always come sit by Noa and would use Noa as his pillow. It was like they were connected; if one fell asleep so would the other and if one wanted their bottle the other had to have theirs. They even cried at the same time for the last five minutes of one of our excursions because they were both so exhausted and hungry. Rachel and I just laughed because there was nothing we could do, but drive faster (I guess you had to be there).

Tau had work during the day so I just hung out with Rachel, but on one of his work days they treated us to the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC). It was very fun to go see the changes they have made to their villages and show, however, I will not be taking my family there again until all the children are above the age of 6. It was a very long day for poor Noa.


While we were in Hawaii we got to see a lot of family too. My Uncle Kelton, Aunt Kathy, Falon, and Auntie Florence let us come tour their warehouse and then took us to lunch at a Korean BBQ where we got to cook our own meat. Tau and I even ate cow tongue. They also took us to Costco to load up on caramacs and chocolate covered macadamia nuts. Yummo! Thanks Uncle Kelton! We also met up with Tau's Uncle and cousins and long time family friends Kimo and Annette. It was so nice to meet them and hear stories about Tau when he was a youngster. Thanks for showing us a good time in HI.

Other place we visited included the swap meet, roadside shrimp shops, matsumotos shaved ice, and the Punchbowl Cemetary ... very cool and historical ... Tau and I loved the trees there. It kind of reminded us of the tree of life.


And of course you can't go to Hawaii without going to the beach. It wasn't the best weather while we were there, but we were determined to go.

Noa hated the water, but he sure loved the sand.

Mmm mm ... Finger lickin' good

Here's a little clip of us torturing him:

Since Noa didn't want to go in the water and Tau and I really wanted to go snorkeling we devised a plan to keep Noa safe. He thought it was pretty funny and we got to go see some fishies.

Ha ha j/k were not that bad. Noa was so traumatized from the water he fell asleep and our friends watched him while we went out. It was a very fun beach day.

Noa really was a trooper. We took him everywhere and his schedule went out the window, not to mention jet lag. He had to learn to fall asleep where ever we were no matter what was going on and he got pretty good at it. He even slept through the entire PCC night show and all the drumming. Learning how to be flexible and fall asleep anywhere really payed off on our way home. We ended up staying at the LAX airport for 10 hrs (voluntarily - free money rocks!) and we wouldn't have been crazy enough to do it if Noa wasn't so good. He just slept on the floor of the airport with his daddy and watched Baby Einstein on the ipod.


All in all it was a great trip. I already wish I was back there. I know Noa misses hanging out in just his diaper and his buddy Warren. I miss our friends too and I'm going to miss Noa's curly top (the humidity made him look like Cramer on Seinfeld). This summer I got a pass to Seven Peaks in hopes of getting Noa to like cold water (I've spoiled him with hot showers). We'll see how it goes.