aloha!

It seems like much has happened in the past several weeks, although these days, the days seem to be flying by. I am already dreading returning to work in January. Blech.

We just returned from a 9-day trip to Kauai. Greg and I went to Kauai 8 years ago, after I graduated from law school, just before I started studying for the bar--read, no kids. It was a much different trip this time, with our brood of three in-tow. The day started out in a bit of a lurch--after staying up until about 2 a.m. packing, Greg and I went to bed with our alarm set to 5:10 a.m. Darryl was coming to pick us up at 6:30 a.m. for our 9:15 a.m. flight out of O'Hare. Well, the alarm either didn't go off or we didn't hear it, since we woke up at 6:00 a.m. when Naomi started to fidget in bed. The irony is that all summer, the kids, especially Nicholas, had been waking up before 6:00 a.m. and this time, they were both sound asleep when I ran to wake them up. We managed to make it out the door just before 7:00 a.m. and made it to O'Hare in plenty of time, despite a little bit of rush hour traffic.

The kids did fabulously on the 9-hour flight to Honolulu--Naomi slept pretty much the entire flight, minus a couple of poopy diapers; Sophia watched her shows and took a decent nap; and Nicholas watched the in-flight shows and went to the bathroom about 20 times. For whatever reason, that kid loves airplane bathrooms. After that, it was just a mere half-hour flight to Lihue. We met Greg's dad there and despite the fact that it was almost midnight in Chicago by the time we got there, we headed off to Costco to pick up a few snacks and things for our stay. In Kauai, there is a Costco and a Walmart--although things are bit more expensive, it beats having to shop for random things you need at a gift shop (like Benadryl and bug spray--I'll explain later).

We stayed at Poipu Beach, which is on the south end of the island, where we stayed the last time we were there. We had a 2-bedroom condo from which we could see the ocean and walk to the beach. Our stay was pretty low-key: we went to the beach, went to the pool, snorkeled, boogie-boarded, built sand castles, chased away chickens on the beach
(there are a lot of wild chickens and roosters roaming around Kauai...they come right up to you and really, they are everywhere), took naps, ate lots of really good ice cream from Lapperts (and for $96 plus the cost of ice cream, you can have it shipped straight from Hawaii to your home!)--all in all, mostly just some kick-back island living. Naomi did get her feet into the ocean and sand...she didn't cry or anything, but it's hard to tell if she liked it or not.

We went to Spouting Horn, where the tide comes in under a lava shelf and shoots water up into the air in a big spray. There are some vendors that sell stuff by there and Sophia got a little shell necklace that she wore everyday.

We also had brunch on Sunday at Kilohana Plantation--a real plantation that grows its own fruits and veggies (and pigs) and serves 'em up in their restaurant. The kids went on a horse & carriage ride with the grandparents and then we went on a train ride around the plantation where the kids got to feed the pigs (who live on leftovers from the plantation restaurant--that's some expensive feed!).

One downside to the trip was that Nicholas and I battled mosquitos the whole time. For whatever reason, I have always been a walking buffet for mosquitos. When I get bitten, the bite swells up into a big hive and itch like crazy. The mosquitos in Kauai were hardcore--they came at you over and over. A couple times, I was sitting on the bed with Naomi and I'd see a mosquito flying straight at me. Really. And one night, as I was half-asleep, I heard one buzzing around my head. Seriously. I was worried that the kids, especially Naomi, would get bitten and swell up like me, but for the most part, they were ok. One day, Nicholas woke up with 13 mosquito bites on his legs and one on his armpit--and he had pajamas on. Sophia, on the other hand, who was sleeping in the bed next to him in nothing but her underwear, had no bites. I think on average, I got about 4 or 5 bites a day. While I do remember mosquitos from our trips to Hawaii, I think it was worse this time because it rained almost everyday that we were there, so there was lots of standing water puddles for mosquitos to breed. Blech.

The other not-so-fun part of the trip was that Naomi absolutely hated being in the car. From the minute we got in the car at the airport to the minute we got out of the car to fly back home, Naomi screamed her head off in the car. So much so that we all decided that the poor thing was lying on a bed of nails. I guess that after driving on the potholes in Chicago, she had no appreciation for the smooth, newly-paved roads between Poipu Beach and Lihue.

The flight home was a little bit shorter, but it kind of hit us hard when we got home. There is a 5-hour time difference between Chicago and Hawaii and we left there at 2:15 p.m. on Wednesday and arrived in Chicago at 5:50 a.m. on Thursday. We were all a little messed up on Thursday and it took us a couple of days to get ourselves back on track.

All in all, it was a nice trip to a very beautiful place. The kids had a great time and Nicholas said he wanted to stay in Hawaii forever. One of the nicest things about the trip was that the kids got to spend a lot of time with Great-Grandma. Poor Great-Grandma had to sit next to screaming Naomi most of the time that we were in the car, but she was sweet and just talked to her and held her little hand the whole time. I don't think the kids had ever gotten the chance to spend so much time with her and we were grateful for the opportunity.