On A Beach In Hawaii

Mr.Andrade & Sam packing

Sam trying to understand why she's awake.

Zombie mode.

Waiting to board.

Sam being a groucha.

A little something to ease the edge.

  

Good entertainment I must say.

Our small kitchen.

Nice place to call home for a bit.

Too cute. 

Sesame Street, it follows us everywhere.

Our living room. 

La camita. 

Sam's toilet. We can't leave home without it.

It was wonderful seeing this before bedtime.

Waikiki to be exact. This past week the family and I went on our summer vacation. We had decided sometime last year this would be our destination. Mr.Andrade had been there in the past (several times) but I had never been.

We arrived at LAX about 3 hours early. Mr.Andrade swore we had to be there a day before or else we'd miss our flight (kidding). We spent the night packing away (actually Mr.Andrade did) and managed to sneak in a couple of hours of sleep. The flight to Hawaii wasn't too bad. I think it was a little over 5 hours. My main concern was Sam. She's at the age where she wants to walk around and tends to want to throw tantrums. We had kept her up the night before (purposely) knowing she was going to have to wake up super early the following day. The plan seemed to have worked. It took her a minute to fall asleep but she eventually did. She didn't wake up until the plane was preparing to land.

When we arrived in Hawaii I was still having a hard time believing I was there. I wasn't as excited as I felt I should be. It seemed everyone was more excited about my trip than I was. Mr.Andrade asked me a few times if I was excited yet? I felt bad saying no but I didn't want to lie. Maybe it was the lack of sleep or the reality that we really in Hawaii hadn't sunk in yet. We pick up our luggage and were greeted with real leis. They weren't the artificial ones but fresh flowers. They smelled glorious. Still, not super excited but it was starting to build up.

We wait for our shuttle to pick us up and drop off at the car rental place. It felt like an eternity. Not helping my anti-excitement attitude much. I swear I must have seen like 5 Avis shuttles pass by and no Enterprise (our car rental company). Alas the shuttle arrives and the driver seems to be laughing his tardiness off, again not helping my 'tude. We arrive at Enterprise and and the representative was trying to convince me to get a bigger car because apparently we had "too much luggage" and didn't think it would fit in a compact car. I declined the offer and told him a compact car would be fine. We ended up getting a KIA Forte which I ended up loving. No really, I did. It wasn't even fully loaded and had better features than my Orange Bang! Anyhow, we get in the car and are preparing to drive off and there it is. THE EXCITEMENT! It finally arrived! As we were driving off I noticed that radio was playing in the background with some awesome reggae island music. I know we have this on the mainland but something about driving off in a rental, in Hawaii, with reggae music playing, was all I needed to ignite the spark. I was finally beyond excited. I was ecstatic!

We arrive at our hotel (Outrigger Luana) and were pleasantly surprised when we seen our room. It was a small studio. It had a stove, fridge, microwave and a couch that turned into a sofa bed. It was perfect for our little family. We had a city/beach view from our room. We couldn't have asked for more. We rested for a bit and then went off to the grocery store to stock up the fridge. We got a lost for a bit but of course we didn't mind much, we're in Hawaii who cares! We enjoyed the scenery and eventually found the supermarket. We headed back to the room to allegedly rest and take a nap. The nap turned into bedtime since we didn't wake up till the following day. We were all pooped out from the lack of sleep. There was also a slight time difference. I kept asking Mr.Andrade if he felt we wasted the day, he kept assuring me that we didn't. I guess he was right, we were on vacation and we could pretty much do as we please. And we did.