The time has come to start the (many) blog posts about our amazing Hawaiian adventure. We left Saturday, May 24th... first day of Memorial Day weekend.
Upon our arrival to the StL airport, I was greeted by an excited and energetic Carson. You can see Papa Wade in the background trying to get all of our luggage checked at one time. It was an event... and all I can say is, I don't think they do that very often ;)
We got the 5 kids and 6 adults through security and the kids went nuts looking at the airplanes at the gate. The other two sets of grandparents (my folks & Dax's folks) had separate flights. They're apparently very wise.
The first flight was a quick jaunt from StL to DFW and Owen was able to sit in between his two idols; Carson and Olivia. This vacation was off to a great start for Owen. Jumbo jets and cousins. What could be better?!
Before our trip, Carson worked very hard on the seating arrangements for the family on all of the flights. A true engineer in training, he had a master excel spreadsheet that was quite organized and seemed thoughtful beyond what I would expect out of most 9 (almost 10) year olds. Great job C!
Papa Wade was gracious enough to get Amelia her own seat, so we were able to contain her in her car seat for a large portion of the trip! She was already antsy and taking down her hair when I snapped this shot.
This is a THRILLED little boy.
Lindsey and I packed and packed and packed toys and snacks and activities and art. I packed waaaay too much, but I just wasn't sure how to get a 1 and 3 year old through 10 hours of flying. I really anticipated that Owen would play his leap pad...even purchased about $40 worth of games and headsets, etc. Turns out all he really needed were cars, fruit snacks, and play doh. He was phenomenal on the flight, and he was practically giddy over using the restroom on the jumbo jet. He couldn't believe it was SO BIG that it had a bathroom! I love seeing things through a kids eyes. When we had just about 30 minutes of flight time left, he had a little breakdown about hating the jumbo jet. Fortunately it wasn't too long after that the pilot started descending and we could see the beautiful and perfect topography of Maui.
This might be my favorite picture of the whole vacation (not really), but it is priceless. Mima Wade snapped this on her phone. This is upon descent in to Maui. Millie slept a total of 15 minutes of the 8 hour flight and was just on the brink of sleeping again when we landed. This pic really sums up most of us at the end of the flight =). I have to give major kudos to this kiddo too. Despite her lack of nap she was really content in her seat.. mostly stuffing food in her face, but whatever works. We had lot of other tricks up our sleeve, and they seemed to work well.
Here's Maui Millie, refreshed after collecting luggage, getting a diaper change, and hopping in the rental car with Mima and Papa Cooper. They landed in Kahului about 15 minutes after we did. Perfect timing.
Although that much travel with little kids was certainly an adventure, the real adventure was about to begin!!!
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