Island of paradise - Part 1

Where do I start... Okay, at the beginning of this year, Danny and I decided that we were gonna go to Tonga for Malik's 1st birthday which is in October. Then few months ago, my parents decided that they are coming up here so that plan got cancelled. Then we planned to go to New Zealand to visit my sisters and their families. Then the airline tickets were super expensive and with me starting school up again, that wasn't the smartest thing to do so we settled on Hawaii. We looked for a week and found reasonable airline tickets on cheapair.com so that's how we got here.

There has been so much happening in our trip that I don't even know where to start I guess I will start with our flight. Our flight was super early at 7am but we are so grateful for Sipa for taking us to the airport at 5 oclock am. I didn't sleep the night before because I had to pack and Danny was at work. Danny and Sipa got off work a little earlier and we took off to the airport. Our check in went smoothly until we got to the security. They literally emptied Malik's diaper bag and went through everything. They threw away my favourite toothpaste because it was too big to be in my carryon bag. But they took everything out of the diaper bag and ran them through their scanner a couple of times before giving it back to me to repack. Danny kept asking me what I packed on his diaper bag. I guess it was my fault for packing so many baby food. But after talking to Mary about how expensive the food in Hawaii, I decided to pack all the baby food we had in our house. They finally gave us the "Okay" and we continued to our gate. We didn't have to wait that long before we started boarding. It was the little plane, where they have 2 seats on each side of the plane. Malik did all right but by this time I was so tired and ready for a nap. People around us were trying to play with Malik and about 30 minutes into our flight, Malik fell asleep and we all knocked out until we got to San Francisco.

We had an hour layover before our 5 hrs flight to Hawaii. The hour went by quickly because we were still eating our breakfast when they announced that we were boarding. The flight was allright. It was a full flight so there was no room for me to put Malik's down on like I was hoping for. Danny was so helpful on entertaining Malik for the 1st 2 hours or so of our flight and the rest of the flight we all fell asleep until we got to Hawaii.

We got out the plane and waited for about 30 minutes or so for the stroller and the car seat which I think was a very poor service. Anyways, we finally got to the baggage claim and got our luggage and off to the rental car place. And we were there for 2 - 3 hrs waiting in this long line. I will never rent a car from Advantage. I was very disappointed with their service. As soon as we got our car (PT Cruiser), off we went.

The drive to North Shore was beautiful. Danny and Malik were in Heaven. They kept saying wow, wow, wow the whole drive. The beaches were so beautiful and the breeze was perfect. It was green everywhere and so many trees. Danny said it reminded him of his mission in Panama. I was just happy to be back in the Island.