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!
