Paradise. Pt. 1
Is it actually true?! On April 20th, we took off on a plane to our current favourite little heaven on earth. Oahu, Hawaii. This was the first time travelling that getting to the airport felt easy, seamless and well.. not rushed. It was glorious. We were so early. We arrived at the airport around 1:45pm for a 4:50pm flight. My parents even drove us so that we didn’t have to pay for parking for the week we were gone. It already felt like 5 star travelling!
Every time we travel as a family it always feels like something goes sideways and we have to rush and bend and pivot. So this time, we were determined to just be early, relax and enjoy the slow pace we gave ourselves in that moment. Jokes on us though.. as the saying goes, we crossed our T’s and dotted our I’s and it felt so good, until we went through customs. Brian got randomly selected to have his personal bag searched. No problem.. there’s just electronics in there anyway. Should be easy. They took our whole family aside and started swabbing his entire bag. The contents, inside every pocket, over every device. I immediately got a pit in my stomach. They tested the swab and an alarm went off. They signed a little paper and told us that Brian would need to go for a pat-down… first off.. what?! And then, internally, Im a mess. When I get nervous I make inappropriate jokes .. and then, it just blurted out. I felt it coming and I couldn’t stop it. “Sorry like… a full pat down.. with hands.. all over his body?” The woman smiled and said “yes” probably sensing my shock. And then I said “Ok wow.. I’m kinda jealous, I want to pat him down” no one laughed… *** Insert wanting to barf, looking so wildly suspicious and a completely red flushed face** I made it so much worse lol. They sent the kids and I through the regular customs line and took Brian aside to do all the things. The kids asking constantly if everything is ok, whats going on with Dad, what did they find? Urg, I had no answers but just prayers it would be fine trying to keep my nerves calm and my mouth shut so I don’t make any more inappropriate and badly timed jokes.
I contemplated mentioning this but for the sake of the hilarious nature of this story.. When the guy did the full body scan of Brian (after the full body pat down) he said “Im sensing an object in your sensitive area.. do you have anything in your pants?” Brian had joggers on and literally nothing even in his pockets at this point of the process so he said “no”. The guy then asked Brian to “pull his pants up and tight”.. oh boy.. this feels weird … Brian said the guy definitely saw Brian’s smirk when he said it. Im sure this filled Brian with confidence. His own funny joke that only he laughed at. The guy let him go after realizing the “object” was just a part of Brian’s body. Im dead LOL.
After his pat down, scanned X’ray and additional bag check they gave him the all clear. Brian asked if it was ok if he asked what they detected in the first place and they said “a cleaning chemical, often found in hand sanitizer but also other things”. We’re assuming chemical bombs maybe? So crazy. Time to burn this bag!
In this moment. I am SO glad we were as early as we were. We still had ton’s of time to relax and get something to eat and time was not a factor of our stress in that moment. Phew. It does make me a little worried about his bag coming back home. Like, should we go buy a new backpack that doesn’t have a weird chemical on it?! Im kinda freaked out.
Anyhow, we made it onto the flight! Happy kids, happy parents and all so beyond excited to arrive in our favourite place on earth.
We arrived in Hawaii at 7:50pm local time (11:50pm Calgary time) and after grabbing our bags and our rental car and driving to our place on North Shore it was 10pm local time (2am Calgary time). To say it was a crazy long day would be an understatement.
In order to pull off Hawaii on North Shore at the best snorkling beach on the island as a family of 5, we have to sacrifice the place we stay. All other places are up to $2000 per night which simply isn’t doable for us. So.. our place is as far from classy as you can get! It's small, uncomfortable and even had the grossest Beetle-bugs in there. I thought I was going to die. Definitely a mind over matter type situation! We cleaned out as many as possible and got jammies on and went to bed.
We got up with the sun the next morning. One of my favourite things about the Beetle-bug-house was that it was directly on the ocean. We could keep the patio screen door open so we could listen to the sounds of the waves crashing into shore. The light ocean breeze, so dreamy!
Because we arrived so late we didn't have any groceries yet so we headed to the south side of the island for breakfast and then to the lagoons while we were there! It was the perfect spot to get familiar again with snorkleing. It was so calm, so hot and pure magic!
And then, when all 5 of us were swimming around the water, two big Monk Seals came swimming into to the lagoon and right around us! Monk seals are endangered animals and super rare so the fact that they came swimming right up to us on day 1 of our holiday was awesome!
We loved being here. We relaxed, soaked in the refreshing salt water, sticky sand and laid under the heat of the sun.
We had lunch at the best restaurant called "Off the Hook" located at the Disney resort. Penny had pasta (her favourite meal!), Bentley and Carter had burgers and both said it was the best burger they've ever had and Brian and I had club sandwiches! So So incredible! Gluten Free breads and buns are so hard to master but these guys have! Would absolutely recommend!
We headed over to Costco and target for food and snacks. The plan was to eat out of a cooler as much as possible this trip and we did just that!
Once we drove back to north shore and unloaded the groceries we walked over to the basketball court. This was just down the road from our place and definitely a highlight of the kids trip. They loved hanging out here. I mean, a basketball court on the ocean.. they could live here!
We played here for hours, until the sun set. It was such a beautiful night.
After the sun set, we walked down to our beach, set up twinkle lights while Penny and I sat on the sand and watched the boys try snorkelling at night with bright flashlights. They said it was a littler unnerving but cool!
On Tuesday we woke up early to do some sunrise family photos before the rain was scheduled to come that day. It was the prettiest spot and I was excited about it.
Our kids are old enough to know the drill for family photos but this year was.. well, awful. Like.. perhaps worse than it's ever been. They were uncooperative, fought, and all hell broke loose. It rained on us and we called it quits before getting the photos I really wanted for the year and when we left I cried. Brian pulled over to chat with the kids and I got out of the van and walked straight into the ocean water up to my knees and literally cried alligator tears. I felt sad that the one request I had didn't work out. The pictures are fine but the feelings attached to them remembering the experience wasn't as nice. I'll share the photos in another post, another day. For now, it remains just a moment on our trip.
We needed a reset. We couldn't let this negative moment dictate the rest of the day. So, we drove 20 minutes back to our place to reset. Once we all had a moment we decided to grab the iconic, cold, fresh Dole Whip at the dole plantation. They stood with fake smiles at the beginning but were filled with real smiles by the time that cup was empty into their bellies.
We took a big breath and continued on our day. We ended up at Ka'ena Point and we are so glad we did! This place was unreal! We walked along the shoreline and explored the tide pools. We found crabs and hermit crabs and tiny fish.
We swam for hours at this remote paradise beach. There was hardly anyone there. The water was crystal clear, the waves were prefect and it really did feel like heaven on earth. These photos aren't even edited, it just was that teal of water and a "picture-perfect" place.
We stopped for shave ice before heading back home and finished the night off at Three Tables beach (aka: our beach).
The waves were bigger than usual on this afternoon and the kids played in them for so long. Brian and I just relaxed on the beach listening to chill music watching the kids eat Hawaii up! We did pizza for dinner and called it a day.
We had been anticipating Wednesday for so long. Brian had booked us a deep sea fishing charter for first thing Wednesday morning. We met at the docks at 5:30am (local time) The water was calm, the moon was still out and we headed out onto the water with high hopes of catching a Mahi Mahi!
First things first, we were catching the live bait! In retrospect, I wish we would have left earlier and caught more live bait (because it's kind of a race to get to the big fishing spot before all the other boats). That live bait worked perfectly for catching the big fish attention!
We drove what felt like an hour into the ocean. Kids were falling asleep. It was long!
We had fish on the line almost immediately with that live bait! And then there it was! A Mahi Mahi! We were all super excited!
We had another Mahi Mahi on the line, Brian worked so hard to reel him all the way to the boat deck but our guide had a lapse in judgement and tried to pick him up and into the boat with the line instead of the hook and the line broke at the very last second and the fish got away. Too bad but "That's fishing" as Brian would say.
It took us hours to get even one more bite. We trolled the water for 2 hours longer than we were suppose to just to try and then.. we got it!
Both Penny and I and Carter and Bentley were working on reeling fish in simultaneously and then WE GOT SHARKED! The shark ate Bentley and Carter's fish completely! Penny and I were trying to reel it in so fast, it was so hard! The shark got the bottom of our fish too but luckily we were still able to get it onto the boat and he didn't take too much meat! It was crazy!
The charter was amazing, the guides (Nick and Jordan) were awesome. The only thing that could have made it better would have been to have a few more bites here and there because it sometimes just felt like an extra ling boat ride around the water lol. But we were so happy with what we got! They fillet they fish for us and sent us with so much meat that we knew wouldn't go to waste!
We drove over to Turtle beach to see if we could see any turtles. Last time we took the kids here there were dozens of turtles all over the place and we snorkelled alongside them. This time, we only saw 2 turtles on the beach sleeping. They are so peaceful and cute!!
