Back in November, while Mark was away, Kacey and I had a reunion trip in Hawaii! We decided that it was "halfway" for each of us since she was still in Okinawa (aka we just used it as an excuse to go there). Kacey flew Space-A while Caroline and I flew commercial.
The only unfortunate part of this trip was when I got home and accidentally deleted all the photos from the trip from my memory card. Yes. It really happened. It's the first time EVER that that's happened and I was devastated! I paid for a recovery program and got some of them back, but most of them are gone forever. The memories are there... and, luckily, I took a bunch of pictures on my iPhone.
We went to a surf competition on our first full day there. It was cool to see one in real life and not just on Blue Crush (haha, I used to watch that movie every day). We didn't really know how it worked so it was pretty fun to learn as the morning went on!
We got up pretty early (thank you, jet lag) and were able to get a close parking spot and a pretty good spot on the sidewalk to watch! Caroline did great, too. She's a great little adventurer.
Hawaii is the land of the food trucks and I ain't mad about it. I only remember eating a one restaurant and it was small and might as well have been a food truck. Cheap eats and delicious food! We really wanted to try to save money where we could and the food truck route is the route to go. I'd actually like to know the ratio of people to food trucks because I think it would be pretty high!
We wanted to take one day to do some touristy stuff and chose to check out the Dole Pineapple Plantation. Shockingly, we had a really great time! I only say that because I'm usually not big on the, "HEY YOU'RE IN XYZ" spots.
It wasn't terribly busy, it was a beautiful day, and the fact that there was "pineapple everything," made it a great opportunity for souvenirs!
Kacey and I really wanted no pressure on the trip to go everywhere and see everything. We've both been to Hawaii before so we wanted a relaxing trip instead of a tourist trip. With Caroline still being pretty tiny, I tried to manage expectations for both of us. So, Kacey and I went in with a "one a day" agenda; we'd try to do one thing a day and chill the rest of the time.
My dad hooked us up with a cute AirBnB with a nice backyard and Kacey brought her hammock so she hooked it up between two palm trees like a Hawaiian dream. Caroline bathed outside, we chilled in the hammock, Kacey cooked a lot, and we all took a lot of naps. Bliss!
After some shopping, sightseeing, and more napping Caroline decided that she loved Kacey as much as the rest of us do and they lived happily ever after... Ha! It was a great trip, for sure.
