Saturday, May 20, 2017

Hawaii Four-O

Randy's parents are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary this year and surprised us all with a trip to Hawaii for Christmas to celebrate. To say we had been greatly anticipating the trip is an understatement. We went during the last week of March and had such an amazing time.

We left from Seattle and met up with the rest of Randy's family in Honolulu.



Our kids were all awesome travelers. I was worried about how the baby would do, but fortunately, she really loved sitting on our laps at this point, so while I didn't really do much during the flight except hold the baby, she was well behaved.


Madeleine was also a really big helper and kept the baby entertained a lot.


We spent the first five days of the trip at a house in Kailua. It was right by the south end of Kailua beach, which was the perfect beach for our kids to play on.


Getting used to the heat. 




Ready for the beach.




Marion and her aunt, Kim.


Most of the family walked to the trailhead for the Punchbowl hike, but when we got there, Diane and Jonathan were already tired and I foresaw a long, whiny, hike ahead of us. So, I turned around with our youngest three and Randy and Madeleine pressed on.





Some group shots after church on Sunday.



Marion was extremely clingy with me the whole week, so this was proof that at one point, she did let Kim touch her.


One evening, the kids had a bunch of contests in the back yard and Randy's dad was really fun and participated with them.








On Monday morning, we went to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona memorial. We had checked out books from the library and prepped our kids on what had happened there so they would know what was going on and hopefully be reverent. They did an awesome job while we were there.






After the memorial, we headed up to the north shore of Oahu to see Haleiwa and some of the places I remember as a kid.


We went to Matsumoto's shave ice, which has gotten quite the facelift since I last went. I have to admit, I kind of miss the old charm.


We used to go to Pizza Bob's on our way into town when we came to visit my aunt and uncle.


Lunch at Kua Aina's.




Unfortunately, the day we went to the north shore happened to be a state holiday, so there ended up being some pretty horrendous traffic and the drive back was pretty miserable. The kids all conked out for a while, so that was good.



On a couple of the mornings, we walked down to the beach to see the sunrise.





We saw a large, dead pufferfish.





Stopping at a roadside stand for some coconut.











This picture was taken from the balcony of our rental. The beach was just across the street. It was perfect.





We had lots of great family time together and had fun celebrating 40 years of marriage for Randy's parents.






















For the last two days of the trip, we stayed at Disney's Aulani resort in Ko'Olina. The kids absolutely loved it.




Okay, I know this looks like a lot of the same picture, but I had such a hard time picking which of Jonathan's faces is my favorite (I'm choosing to think of it that way and not that my son was determined to ruin all of our family pictures).







All of the Peck grandkids.





Diane picked out this (adult) baseball cap as her souvenir. It may not fit her literally, but it fits her figuratively.


We didn't get a lot of pictures from the resort because it's mostly a waterpark and I didn't have my cell phone out a lot. Here are a few from lunch one day:






The kids went and made space goo one afternoon.




The early morning crew hanging out in the lobby.


And another morning:






We did a character breakfast one morning to celebrate my niece, Lainey, and Jonathan's birthdays.







Grandparents and all the grandkids:


The whole family:


On our way to the airport, we made a stop at some gardens with these beautiful monkeypod trees:













This is our last picture of the trip. Randy was both sad to go, and we were pretty done with the Honolulu airport at this point.


What an amazing trip. We are already plotting to go back again. Thanks for the wonderful time, Bob and Jeanie!

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