The Haight Family: Hawaii

After 5+ years Jared and I took our first vacation since our honeymoon, discounting any weekend trips. This also includes our first family vacation, with Ellie and/or Ryan. Nana and Pop Pop also came with, which was helpful to have them around to assist with our two crazies!

Our week started off on Saturday with a flight to Honolulu. Both kids were great on the plane. We've contributed this to the fact that we didn't get to sit next to each other on the plane. This allowed Ellie to do what she wanted without being pestered by Ryan. Pretty impressive when people around you give you compliments on how well behaved your kids are.

Ellie and Daddy napping on the plane

Ry and Nana playing on the plane

On Sunday we headed to the Pearl Harbor Memorial. It was super windy so unfortunately they wern't allowing trips out to the USS Arizona memorial. We were there 4+ hours, but it would be incredibly easy to spend 8+ hours there as there is so much to see and do. We wern't able to bring a stroller due to the rules of the memorial, so I packed Ryan around all day. My back was miserable after that!

Tree of Life

USS Arizona Memorial

Names of those who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor

Map of Oahu and the various military bases

Ellie showing how big the missle is

Navy plane

Ellie checking out the pariscope (it was set up to see the ship in the harbor)

Ellie showing us the controls of a Coning tower (subarine)

Ellie showing her pose in front of the Coning Tower

More goofy girl poses next to machine guns

Submarine in the harbor

Then we headed to a neat swap meet at the Aloha Bowl (Univ of Hawaii football stadium). It was huge and really great prices on a lot of tourist items. Ellie picked out some cute necklaces for her friends at daycare. Again, because we didn't pack a stroller, we packed Ryan around - Pop Pop did most of the heavy lifting this time (thank goodness for my back).

For lunch, we went to a restaurant at one of the piers called Niko's. It was recommended to Pop Pop by a co-worker. Little did we know that it's actually been featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives! That explains why it was busy at 2 pm!

At dinner, we met up with some friends of Nana's and Pop Pop's who came from Warden on the flight with us. We went to a restraunt called Giovanni Pastrami - sooo good. A random find in Hawaii by our thoughts, but much of Honolulu is very mainland oriented. Lots of high end/designer shops and franchise/chain restaurants. Jared and I had a Pork Ruben which was amazing. I think everyone else had the Pastrami Ruben, also amazing.

Monday we had our flight to Maui. Another great flight by the kids. We headed to Costco immediately after landing and stocked up on snacks, fruit, snorkel gear, etc. So much stuff that they don't carry at the mainland stores like Vasi's Crab and Seafood dip! Tons and tons of macadamia nuts - various brands and preparations. What's really interesting is that their food court has the exact same items as the mainland stores and the exact same prices - polish dogs are still $1.50!! A quick drive to Kaanapali to our hotel - the Sheraton Maui on Black Rock.

For the rest of the week we enjoyed the warm weather, despite the wind. Lots of snorkeling for Jared, Pop Pop and I. We saw several sea turtles and Jared and I even saw 4 spotted sting rays! We had been told that Black Rock had the best snorkeling by lots of friends - that was certainly the case. The boys did trek out to another site and while different, they still thought we had the better of the sites at our doorstep.

View from our hotel

On Tuesday we headed to a neighboring city for a luau we heard about from a guy at Costco. It was at a local bar called Life's a Beach and for 10 bucks we had all you can eat dinner. While not a traditional luau it was still great food and Cindy and I had the best Pina Coladas ever - they were obviously made from scratch.

There was a great little shopping village just down the boardwalk from our hotel called Whaler's Village. We spent a little time there shopping and snacking. Ellie helped Nana pick out several oysters at a pearl shop. Boy is she a lucky little pearl picker. Nana ended up with two silver/blue pearls (2nd most rare type of pearl), a huge white/pinkish pearl, and even a 'perfect' pearl. The gals at the shop valued the perfect pearl at $120 bucks, not bad for a $15 oyster!