Spending time in Hawaii was wonderful, and I am so grateful for the chance we had to get to take this trip.

Thursday was our last day in Hawaii, and we tried to sleep in, to no avail.  After getting ready, we headed for Kono’s – a barbeque place with great breakfast burritos, and so we got some to go.  As we were sitting there and waiting for our order, a bird overhead pooped on Kevin’s head!!!  What??!!  He went back to the hotel and cleaned up, and then I met him with our food.  Then we walked over to the beach to eat our breakfast while enjoying the view of the ocean, the palm trees, and Diamond Head.

After breakfast, we went back to the hotel and got packed up and checked out.  Our last activity was to go to Pearl Harbor.  I had been trying every single day to get tickets for a tour of the USS Arizona Memorial, but it was practically impossible.  The second they would become available, they were gone.  It was truly a miracle that it finally worked out, and it was especially cool that we just happened to be there on the anniversary of D-Day.

After wandering around the grounds and the museums for a bit, we went and watched a really cool movie about the history of Pearl Harbor and the attack on it.  By the time we finished with that, it was time for our tour, and so we got on our ship.  (From the ship, we had a great view of the submarine  and the battleship that you can also tour.)

Visiting the USS Arizona Memorial was one of the most amazing and somber experiences of my life.  Seeing the ship beneath the water as a silent tomb for all those men was indescribable.

The whole experience was one of quiet contemplation, and starting with the ship ride over, and continuing throughout our time at the memorial.

One of the most poignant things to me was the memorial wall with all of the names of the men who died on the Arizona.  But what hit me even more, were the two stone boxes in front of it, where they interred the remains of the men from the ship who survived the attack after each of them passed away (listing the dates of their deaths).  It made me cry to think of it, and how those survivors must have felt when almost all of the rest of the crew died.

There were booeys to show where each end of the Arizona was, since you can only see so much of it, which put into perspective just how giant the ship is.

We finished our tour just in time for us to go get some lunch before we had to head to the airport.  After a week of trying new places to eat, we were content to just have Chick-fil-A and not have to make any real choices – ha ha!  Before we went to the airport, we also stopped by Madison’s apartment to give her all of the leftover water bottles and cans of Mountain Dew that we had bought at Costco when we first arrived.  Good times. 

All in all, it was a wonderful vacation, but I had three main take-aways from our trip.

1. If you are visiting Oahu, don’t stay in the city.  I knew this before we came, but because of our vacation package, we couldn’t choose our hotel, and so we were in the heart of Waikiki. It was just so busy, too many people, and not what you would imagine for a lowkey Hawaiian vacation.  It also cost a ridiculous amount of money to park our car.  Which brings me to . . .
2. There is NOWHERE to park in Oahu.  Everywhere you go, parking is an issue.  Everywhere.  It was a very stressful part of coming back to our hotel each day, wondering if we could find a place to park.  There were a couple of times that we were going to try a fun restaurant, but when we looked it up and saw that it only had street parking, we gave up and went somewhere else instead.
3. The food is good, but super expensive.  I wish out hotel had had an actual kitchen/kitchenette in our room, instead of the fake one (microwave and a mini fridge) we turned out to have.  It would have been nice to be able to get a few groceries and not have to eat out for every meal.  This is something I also knew before, but once again, lack of ability to choose our hotel (and the fact that the hotel had advertised as having a kitchenette, but if it doesn’t have a sink, a kitchenette it is not).

Even though there were a few hiccups, it was a wonderful trip and we loved it. I had a few favorite things:

1. The Polynesian Cultural Center
2. The USS Arizona Memorial
3. Snorkeling in Sharks Cove
4. The views from Diamond Head
5. Any time we got to just sit and chill on the beach
6. The amazing fruit smoothies, Dole Whips, and the virgin Pina Coladas  

We flew out around 5:30pm Hawaii time, and we flew into Houston at 7am the next morning.  We tried our hardest to sleep on the plane, and I even took a sleep aid, but it did not work.  I was so exhausted, but my body ached and there were three different babies within a few rows of us that took turns crying and screaming loudly the entire flight.  Not the most conducive for getting any rest.  After a quick layover in Houston, we were on our flight to San Antonio and home.  

We returned home to our boys, completely exhausted, but happy to be home.  It was such a wonderful vacation, and we couldn’t have done it if Derek hadn’t been there to take care of Arthur.