ALOHA

Last summer, Nate's sister, Rachael and her kids came to visit. We had a great time and decided that we would visit them this summer. Visiting them is much more exciting than visiting us, because they live in Hawaii. So Nate set out on a deal-hunt for cheap tickets. He found United's "Denver Deal of the Decade" and boy, was it. We got our tickets to leave the day after we thought school got out (in typical Michelle fashion -- I was uninformed and school actually ended a week earlier.) We had considered going in August. I'm so glad we went in May (no A.C.)

Nate and I had both been to Hawaii several times. His mom is from there, my family stopped there on our way to or from Japan a few times, and we went on our Honeymoon there almost 9 years ago. This trip was different for me because I saw Hawaii from a local perspective rather than that of a tourist. It was so fun to stay with family -- it definitely added more depth to our trip and made it extra fun for our kids to have cousins to play with. We don't get to see enough of the Colmans, so it was really nice to spend so much time with them. It also saved us a boat load of money, which we're very grateful for.

For posterity's sake, I am going to document our trip day by day. Feel free to stop reading the never-ending Hawaii posts whenever you get bored, jealous, or any mixture of the two :).

Thursday, May 27 -- Ready to go!

Johnny's first plane ride.

All three kids did really well on the 7 1/2 hour plane ride. WAY better than I had imagined.

Friday May 28 - Johnny found his feet the first morning we were there.

Harrison loved the Venus Fly Trap,

which has A LOT of food choices there in the tropics (read -- Michelle didn't love the bugs).

Friday we went to Sherwood Beach (15 minutes from their house). Johnny enjoyed Sherwood, and every other beach we visited on our trip, from this seat.

Elizabeth and Faithy got along quite well (most of the time!)

Cute cousins!

Friday night we went to a graduation party for a girl in their stake. Apparently people go into debt and/or sell their cars to fund these things (true story). There were tons of people there and even more food. The culture is so food oriented. It's my kind of place. Although, if I stayed much longer, I would have needed to invest in a mu mu.

The other cultural difference we noticed at the party was all the cheek kissing. It was nice to feel the warmth and love from everyone. I had to laugh picturing that happening in our ward. I just can't envision getting and/or giving kisses to my bishop, or my friends' husbands.

There were two live bands at the party. They were both great! They did Hawaiianized versions of lots of great songs, including a favorite of mine "Brown Eyed Girl." Here's my brown eyed girl with one of my brown eyed boys at the party.

Stay tuned (or don't) for lots more Hawaii posts.