Braxton's Day at Work

I know that I have been posting about our Hawaii trip, but this conversation happened today and I had to record it!

Because of graduation, daycare has been closed Thursday and Friday. After some begging, we finally came up with a plan. The plan for Friday is that Lilly is with Grandma Virginia and Braxton went to work with daddy before school. Since Chad is on Helpdesk phones today, I wanted Braxton to get his turn.

Me: Hi Braxton, my computer is broken.
Braxton: OK, first you need to check the hard drive.
Me: I checked the hard drive, it is OK.
Braxton: OK Great, now unplug the 'puter.
Me: I unplugged the computer.
Braxton: Great, now plug it back in.
Me: It is plugged back in.
Braxton: Now type "fix 'puter"
Me: OK, I typed fix 'puter
Braxton: OK, it should come up on your screen with a button that says FIX, push it.
Me: I pushed the fix button.
Braxton: Is your computer fixed?
Me: It is, thank you so much!

He is obviousily being raised by computer geeks!

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Hawaii Day 4 ~ Bishop Larry & Hickam Beach

Sunday morning we decided to walk to church for the 6:30 mass. The church was right in the middle of waikiki shopping area and about a block from our hotel. The mass wasn't very busy, so we were able to get in and get good seats. The kids were very good all through mass. I would have to say though, that there were two things that stick in my mind other than all of the statues wearing leis. First, Bishop Larry. For some reason, this just struck me as funny, chad thought so too. We are so used to hearing Bishop Fabian that I guess Larry seemed so informal. Second, in their announcements, they mentioned that they were selling T-shirts for $5 after mass to celebrate the feast of Damien. Again, struck me as funny!

After church we were walking back to hotel from Church, we heard someone calling Chad's name. Did I mention that very few places on waikiki have actual doors or windows? everything is just open. Aunt Sue and Granny were eating breakfast at Cheeseburger in Paradise, so we decided to stop in and have some breakfast. For a cheeseburger place, they had pretty good breakfast!

After breakfast we walked down to the beach, of course! It was a beautiful day, but we decided to go to a different beach that we thought would have more shells. We all took off and somehow my car missed the exit. At that point, we decided we would just head back towards the hotel and go to the Waikiki aquarium. It wasn't that impressive, but the kids did get a kick out of it. At one point, Lilly wanted to see the hermit crabs they had out. The lady put one in her hand and she kind of freaked out and dropped it. Whoops!

Lilly and the crab that she dropped!

One of the seals at the aquarium!

After the aquarium, we decided to see where the rest of my family had ended up. We gave them a call and decided to go to the beach on Hickam Air Force Base where Geneva lives. My mom's friend Ruthie decided to join us, it was great to meet her! Chad decided to rent a kayak and we all took turns in the kayak, Braxton included! After a while Ralf's kids, David, Sara, and Iris joined us at the beach! We had a great time swimming, but somehow my dad's glasses ended up getting broken. I am sure it was Lilly's fault, she didn't swim much, but spent a lot of time playing in the sand (and suntan lotion) by all of our clothes. Sorry Daddy!

Chad and Geneva after their kayak journey!

Lilly really wanted to kayak, but she was too small!

Braxton kayaking!

After the beach we headed back to

Geneva's house for some yummy L&L Hawaiian BBQ. It was so yummy! We headed back to the hotel and went to sleep. What a great day!

Hawaii Day 3 ~ The Coastline

Saturday was Day 3 in Hawaii. We decided to drive along the beautiful coastline and end up at Geneva's Favorite beach! Kailua Beach park. This is where she had her re-enlistement ceremony when she re-enlisted in the Navy. Beware, this post will probably have TONS of pictures!

Lilly lived in a swimsuit almost the whole time we were there!

Braxton LOVED the beach!


The mountains were amazing!

We met up with Geneva, my parents, and my Grandma in the morning and headed out. We left Waikiki on the Pali highway, after a while my parents decided to stop and get some breakfast. here are some of the pictures from the car driving down the highway and the mcdonald's parking lot.


Can you imagine all of these houses on this hill? My first thought was "that must suck in winter, oh wait..."

We stopped at the first lookout area and it was AMAZING! There were divers coming up who said that had seen eels while they were down there. we took tons of pictures as you can see!

The divers went back down while we were there, this was their marker.

A stop on the coastal highway

Chad and Lilly having a great time!

Lilly and Aunt Geneva
I love this picture of Braxton and Aunt Geneva!

Chad and Braxton checking out the landscape! They walked all over the lava rocks!

Me and my Sis!

Ashley & Emily...So Cute!

Grandma Marilyn, Gwen, and me!

One ship or two? We can't decide.

Next we stopped at the Blow Hole. This is a place where, when the waves are high enough, water gets into a certain area of the rocks and then shoots out! Unfortunately, the waves were not high enough for the water to shoot out, but it was so beautiful we didn't mind! We did see a sea turtle in the ocean, we didn't get a very good picture because he kept moving. :)

Wouldn't this guy's life be the best? Get up, go fish in the ocean. AWESOME!

What a beautiful way to see Hawaii, but I am too scared to try it!

Braxton & Emily ~ Best Friends

Mr. (or Ms.) Sea Turtle

I want to live on one of these islands!

Finally we made it to the beach, but the parking lot was PACKED! We decided to get some lunch first, it was delicious!!! Then we walked across the street to this beautiful beach. There was kind of a hill that you had to go down to get to the water but it was so worth it! There were flower petals floating in the water, I was told it is a hawaiian tradition that honors the dead. Either way, it was neat to have flower petals floating around while we swam.

The view from the restaurant parking lot. Amazing!

Lilly and Braxton (chad too) had a great time digging a while, it was so big Lilly could stand in it! There was a neat island about a mile out or so that people were kayaking and swimming too. It looked like fun, but I am not brave enough to do that in the ocean! I like my feet to touch sand.

This is the only picture I have from Kailua Beach, we were having too much fun!

This is the entrance to the tunnel that goes through the mountain. From what I have heard, the locals didn't want to tunnel to be build and the tunnel is curse. A number of people died while building it.

After the beach we headed back into town. Since it was still early, we decided to walk around Waikiki. There are so many shops and neat little places! We ended up at the International Marketplace by accident. As we were walking we noticed that there a little alleyway with more shops. Little did we know that it went on for quite a while! We thought we would have some dinner there, but we weren't quite so sure about the international cuisine that was offered. We walked a little more and realized that there was a road with people driving right through the middle of the marketplace! I would have to say that the best part of the marketplace was the dirty look that the candle lady gave Emily when she tried to pay $2 for and $8 candle. It was funny!

This guy (yes, he is real) would dance when someone put money in his bucket. We saw him riding his bike to work one day in full costume!

We left the marketplace and continued our walk down to the Waikiki shopping center. There we found quite a few options for dinner. The sign said there was an Arby's and Braxton was going into Chicken Nugget withdrawls. We didn't find the Arby's but we did find a Church's Chicken (Sorry mom!!) I am not all together sure what Emily and Ashley ate (I am not sure they knew either) but I do know that neither one of them enjoyed it! After a brief trip through Godiva for the girls, we headed back to hotel. Once the sun goes down (and it goes down quite fast in Hawaii) we were all so tired!

Waikiki at night. All of the shops lit torches.

We had to get to bed early for Church on Sunday, but more about the t-shirts for sale and Bishop Larry in the next edition!

Hawaii Day 2 ~ The Beach and the Birthday

Did you know that there is a 5 hour time difference in Hawaii? Meaning that at 11am in nebraska, it is 6 am in hawaii? Because of that, we were up and on the beach by 6am Friday morning. It was so beautiful! It was already warm, and not many people on the beach. The only people we really saw were joggers and people doing yoga. I think I could do yoga every day if it was on the beach.

After a while of finding shells and getting our feet wet, we went to McDonald's and got some food. We got pineapple with our meal, it was so neat!

Then we treked to the ABC store to get some stuff, mainly suntan lotion (for almost $12). There is an ABC store on nearly every corner. at one point, we could stand in one location and see 4 separate ABC stores. Also, Lilly loved the birds. There were pigeons everywhere and Lilly loved chasing them and yelling "BOO!" there is a video down below.

After a while, Granny and Sue joined us at the beach, then Mom, Dad, Geneva, and Grandma joined us. We decided to go to Cheeseburger in Paradise for lunch, it was pretty yummy! As we were finishing up, Ralf and his parents came to join us. After much debate, we decided to head to base and maybe go to the beach there. We all loaded up and headed to base. Did I mention that security has to check you onto base? Each time we went on, we had to give him IDs for all of the passengers in the car, except Braxton and Lilly.

We got on base and everyone was just beat! We ordered mexican from Geneva's favorite mexican place. Did I mention it was also her 26th birthday? We had mexican food and cake in celebration. I hope she had a great birthday!

Lilly's first steps into the ocean!

Lilly the Mermaid!First ever steps into the Ocean! At least for Braxton & Ashley!

Kim & Chad on the beach


Braxton & Granny

Happy Birthday to Geneva!

All Tuckered Out!

Lilly LOVED chasing the pigeons on the beach!

Hawaii Day 1 ~ The Longest Airplane Trip Ever!

Wednesday night we finished packing and decided to lay down for a little while. Around 9 o'clock we set the alarm for 2am. yep, that's right. 2am. Augh! The alarm went off, Chad and I got up to take showers, got the kids up (they slept in their clothes for the trip!) and headed to the car. By 3am we were at Emily's house to pick the girls up. They were ready to go. We stopped at the gas station, filled up, got a fresh donut and some caffeine and hit the road!

We made it to Omaha with no problems, however finding the airport was a different story. Somehow we took a wrong exit. Luckily we took tomtom with us and she directed us to the airport, even if it was the back way. we parked at a long term parking lot and took the shuttle to the airport.

The airport was empty and we checked in and made it through security with no problems. Then it was time to wait. Braxton and Lilly both loved watching the planes come and go. Finally it was time to board, we were one of the first people on! Braxton loved the take off, or as he puts it, the part where we go really super fast! The trip seemed to take forever even though it was only 3 hours or so. Lilly sat by me and slept most of the way. Braxton sat by Chad and watched movies and slept a little bit.

Finally we made it to Phoenix (remember, this was the short flight, ugh) and had a 3+ hour layover. We decided to leave security and go walk around. I thought Omaha was a big airport, but Phoenix was practically a mall! it was huge! There was a burger king and other places to eat. We decided to eat some breakfast at Chili's then walked around a little bit. I bought a new book at Borders for the plane ride as I had forgotten mine in the van in Omaha. Finally it was time to get on the plane to Honolulu. They showed the movies Bride Wars (pretty cute) and Inkheart (yuck!). We slept a little bit, we read a little bit and it seemed like we flew over the ocean forever, it was so blue and we could see waves from the airplane! Finally land came into view. It was so beautiful!

Ralf met us at the airport with leis. Flowers for Chad and I, shells for Emily and Ashley, and candy leis for the kids. It was so nice! We waited for Granny and Aunt Sue to get there, and finally Grandma, Mom, and Dad. Within an hour we were all on the island and the fun began!! We went back to Geneva's house and waited for her to get home from school. We were able to meet Ralf's kids and play with them for a little bit, we had some fun with them. The kids got along great! Finally we made it to our hotel to check in.

Ah, the hotel. We finally got checked in and got to our room. we were on the 11th floor not facing the ocean. In fact, we were facing some somewhat scary condos. After a while, there was a commotion downstairs. Chad went out on the balcony and saw 6 cop cars and 2 firetrucks. At this point, we aren't sure that we are in the best hotel. I called Geneva and talked to Ralf, basically we decided that it was Waikiki, there was that stuff everywhere so we stayed. Boy are we glad we did. It turned out to be a wonderful hotel that was within a block of the beach. but more on that in Day 2 post!

Warning: Extremely Long Blog Post Ahead

We are back from Hawaii (boo hoo!!!) and I want to do a blog based on each day. I want to be able to preserve it! We had such a great time and it was so beautiful, we will be going back again. Thank you Genny and Ralf for all that you did for us! We love you!