Hawaii

We had such a wonderful time in Hawaii! The kids loved seeing all the sea life and getting super spoiled by their tutu and great-aunts. The ocean views were amazing, the weather was gorgeous, and the abundance of family time was priceless. 

It's nice to be back at home, but it sure was tough saying goodbye to paradise. 

On our first day, we fought the jet lag by heading out on the Makapuu Lighthouse Trail.

The view was breathtaking and made us feel much more awake than we were.

The next day we came back to check out the beach and tide pools nearby.

Then we headed across the highway to Sea Life Park. 

It turned out to be Lilly's favorite part of the trip!

She loved seeing the dolphins, and feeding fish to the sea lions.

She loved it so much we went back for a second visit and had just as much fun feeding turtles and birds and watching the sharks swim around.

Also, this happened.

We figured we'd lost the shoe to the dolphins, but instead we got an awesome story out of it!

All the trainer had to do was ask, and after a couple failed attempts (darn shoe-sized leaves!), the shoe was returned, unscathed, in the mouth of a dolphin. A DOLPHIN! No wonder Lilly loved the place so much! It felt pretty magical.

Henry was pretty thrilled to be there, too.

We also paid a visit to the Waikiki aquarium, where Lilly regurgitated all the sea life knowledge she has gained watching Octonauts on Netflix.

Since our kids are weird and don't like the beach, we also spent a lot of time playing at home in the pool. This is the very pool I spent my own childhood playing in!

Lilly did warm up to the beach enough to build sandcastles one day, but Henry was having none of it. 

So this was our one obligatory beach day, and we lucked out and got to see a monk seal!

Last year, Lilly would run screaming from the room every time Len Len came around, but this year she was really brave. The nightly walk became a favorite ritual.

Some other highlights . . .

Shaved ice!!!

Farmer's Market

Getting spoiled by the same Aunts that spoiled me when I was her age. :)

And Pickleball! 

My Aunt introduced us to the sport, and it is so much fun!

Plus we had a great little fan section.

 By the way, 

Fun+Sun=

(Sorry, those pictures aren't really relevant, I'm just a sucker for a sleeping baby.)

The most important part of our visit was getting to see my grandmother, and this year we got to celebrate with her on her 87th birthday!

 

She became Henry's best buddy.

And she still had enough spunk to teach Lilly how to Hula dance!

What a great time we had with all our Ohana! 

After all these years, Hawaii still feels like home to me.

Is it too soon to start counting down to our next visit?