It's Sunday morning, January 5th, and my first blog of the New Year. We have been away on a wonderful family holiday and for the new few days, I'm going to share my holiday on the blog. So we need to go back into 2013 and start on Christmas Day!
Wednesday, December 25th
Merry Christmas and Aloha!
For us, Christmas Day started in Calgary, in snow, but ended in Oahu in the warm sun. The Traynor family graciously offered to take us to the airport, despite being Christmas morning, despite being early in the morning, and despite there were 5 of us and would need two vehicles. And to my surprise, all four of the Traynor's showed up at 8;30 a.m. to transport us.
Being the organized one (OK, a control freak), I had printed the boarding passes the day before and everything seemed to run smoothly. So I was a little surprised when at the self check-in booth, my passport/boarding pass was rejected. I was even more surprised to discover the reason behind my rejection. Seems the name on my boarding pass didn't match the name on my passport. WHAT? My passport didn't include my middle name. You would have thought I had learned my lesson from our last trip to Seattle, where the same thing had happened to Bill. So now instead of getting in the short and fast line, we ended up in the long, long slow line. Let me rephrase that, my travelling buddies eagerly accepted my offer of going into the fast line (without hesitation I might add) and baled on me. They went to the short line and I was left on my own to sort out my own mess. As predicted they made it through their line way ahead of me. I was touched when Bill returned to stand with me as I was checking in at the counter. That emotion was quickly extinguished when I discovered he just wanted my Tim Horton's card so he could order breakfast. I finally met up with the gang at the pre=gate Tim Horton's. Seems I was mistaken. Only Bill and Patrick were getting breakfast; the rest of us were on our own.................
Both flights went fairly smooth. There was a bit of turbulence on the flight from Calgary to Vancouver, and when I looked over at Patrick, he and Ethan were playing out their LOST scenario. Note to self; pretend they belong to someone else.
We arrived in Hawaii on time and were greeted by the warm ocean breezes and all that accompany those. We picked up our large rental car, which still seemed small once we loaded people and luggage into it. Ashley was voted to be navigator (plus she called shot gun) so she and the GPS were in charge of ensuring Bill found theway to the hotel. One of the benefits of being on a an island is that despite a few wrong turns (that might have been caused by the backseat drivers) you will eventually end up near your destination. Our Hotel, the Aston Wakiki Banyan was ready for us, and we made our way up to the 14th floor. After unloading the bags, changing into weather appropriate attire and making dibs on the beds, we headed out for a relaxing dinner. Without a destination in mind, we zig and we zagged from our hotel and ended up at La Cucaracha . Mexican food it was going to be. First things first, we needed to have a toast to the start of a wonderful vacation. A pitcher of raspberry Margaritas and 5 glasses. Oops, seems the drinking age in Honolulu is 21..... Sorry Patrick. (4 months to go)
We still made the toast (we couldn't convince Patrick to have a virgin Raspberry margaritas), and thus began Patrick's new mission, "to see how many times he could get a drink without needing identification.) Patrick and Ethan ordered some entre concoction that was so hot, it had both of them sweating and making the funniest faces. I'm not sure if pure stubbornness or the fact the food was delicous (despite it's heat), but they both finished their meals.
Despite this "glip", since returning and reflecting on the holiday, we've decided this was one of the best meals and more enjoyable evenings of the holiday.
After dinner, we strolled around, bought a few munchies for the hotel room and headed back to our room to unpack and prepare for a wonderful visit to the Islands.
Stacey
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