Hawaii
Ok, so much for yoga teaching school this week. We decided to take an impromtu trip to the big island with some friends. What a relaxing time.....well, let me preface that by saying we took the kids... One a teenager, that wants to all of a sudden do things on his own, explore " the island" mom. The other, that is a preteen that wants to literally be in the pool the whole day, where she proceeds to burn her whole body from resisting sunscreen.
I must say, though that It was fun to sleep in, casually go down and sit by the pool with our $7 coffee. We saw humback whales, dophins and a ton of tourists. I enjoyed going into town at night and listening to the local music and getting some really good, authentic Hawaiian food. Some things I think were a must for my family on this trip, my daughter Ellie's skooter. I had no idea that you could take a skooter on the plane and check it in as a stroller..huge blessing and great last minute thought on my end. The other is the fact that my teenage son brought those expensive headphones ( you know, the ones that all the " ballers" wear) that he got from his father for his bday. I thought at the time, what a waste of money, but man, those things came in handy. The beauty of modern technology for a 14 year old and his mom. He could literally tune us out and be in his own teenage world.
And with any vacation, there are always suprises along the way. One was the fact that my preteen daughter's body decided to start her period on this trip. I being the usually prepared mom that I am, of course did not come prepared for that one. You would think that an 11 year old that originally started in Decemeber would not have consecutive periods off the bat. Well, so much for the pediatricians comment about how she probably won't have one for months...let's just say that my BF Mark was even more amazing when he pulled into a Walmart in Kona for pads, beer and flipflops. That's a true BF!!!!
The other suprise came when we were suppose to leave on Thursday at 12:50 pm. If you know me, you know that I am a very organized and prepared mom. I get things ready, know where I am going way ahead of time and almost always am a couple minutes early for apts. Well, when you throw my beloved BF Mark in the mix and the fact that my teenage son wanted to go snorkeling at 10 am...things got a little hairy. We literally were running to the rental car and throwing our stuff in as we were leaving. Unfortuanltey, we of course had to return the snorkeling gear...Mark of course, thought we would be cutting it close but he assured me that we would just be coming in hot... As soon as we got onto the 2 lane highway that connects Kilua Kona to the Kona airport ( literally 10 miles), I knew there was no way were going to make it. We got as far as 2 miles, c/o stop and go traffic and looked at eachother and said, "another day in Hawaii?" Duh...that's a no brainer. So after calling my ex-husband and explaining that he didn't need to come and get us from airport and pleading with my two children that we were having to stay, we got a whole extra day in beautiful Hawaii. Now that's when I am so thankful for Mark's job and the perks of being a 75k gold Alaskan flyer!! ALOHA