SAM.

6 year olds.

the red eye. {DAY 10}

DAY 10: FRIDAY FEBRUARY 7th

{max's birthday--except we told her it wasn't}

...

the red eye is what the Hawaiians do to the tourists as some kind of sick joke.

thank you for coming and spending all of your money here!

our gift to you is the red eye!

oh, and by the way,

remember how your same EXACT flight over here took 5 hours and 45 minutes?

and your children were awake

because it was during the day the entire time?

and your dvd battery died because it was such a long flight?

well,

as a special added bonus

to show our love and appreciation for your tourism the last 10 days,

the red eye will be shortened to 3 hours and 45 minutes on the way home!

this is going to be so exciting because it will leave at 9:30pm,

and then by the time your children finally fall asleep after take off,

they will get anywhere from 2 hours to half an hour of sleep,

leaving you with about 10 minutes of shut eye 

before the captain come over the speaker to tell you it's time to land!

just in time to arrive on the west coast before the sun even comes up.

wait, that's not it,

there's more!

because you were today's lucky winner we have an exclusive tourists package to offer you today!

you will be so excited BECAUSE...

instead of having an hour layover as shown on your ticket,

you will get to enjoy an extended 3 hour vacation in the world famous los angelos international airport!

don't worry about none of the vendors being open because it's so early.

once normal human hours begin {about 2 hours after your arrival to LAX} 

you will have the opportunity to buy 1 bottle of water for $5 AND one pack of $3 gum 

while you your and your children walk around like zombies 

and talk really short to each other about everything.

don't feel sorry for me?

yeah, me neither;)

our kids were even champs!

not a peep from one of them.

still, i hate the red eye.

ain't nobody that loves the red eye.

it took us three days before we didn't fall asleep standing up to recover.

we walked in the door from the airport,

put chase to bed,

and sean and i fell asleep on the couch for 3 hours.

we still don't know exactly what max and brennan did for those 3 hours.

however,

we do know for sure that two nights later max, 

still being on hawaii time,

was flooding the upstairs bathroom toilet instead of going to bed.

memories:) 

above: 

LAX before any shops opened.

above: 

the unknowing birthday girl.

above:

the ride home from the airport.

the epitome of exhaustion.

he couldn't even hold his arms to his body he was so tired.

don't you just want to squish and kiss his cheeks?!

 the

e

n

d

.

no wipe--remember this {DAY 9}

"aliens have 3 feet. some have 4." 

-brennan

...

DAY 9: THURSDAY FEBRUARY 6th

we woke up to perfect damp air.

sean and i jumped at our last chance to run together.

it was so hot and humid that i had to turn my pants into shorts.

it felt amazing.

there is no place for running like hawaii.

it was so damp and warm and humid that the frogs were out.

lots of squished frogs.

on the way home there was a fresh one.

stop eating.

right now.

.

.

.

.

did you stop yet?

.

.

.

close your eyes if you're still eating.

.

.

.

.

don't say i didn't warn you.

.

.

.

.

last chance to bail.

.

.

.

we took this picture for brennan:)

he wants me to print it for the wall by his bed.

boys!!!

take.me.baaaaack.

:):):)

right when we got home we went into a dash of a frenzy 

to get us all to the beach before the rain started to pour.

crackers

sandwiches

cokes

my last can of guava

swim diaper

no wipes {remember this}

towels

sand toys

more cokes

chocolate covered macadamia nuts

cookies

sunscreen

binky

chase's milk

chairs

all of our beach necessities.

it was a well oiled machine by now.

so we throw chase in the stroller,

made brennan carry his own boogy board,

and high tailed it to the beach.

right as our toes touched the sand it started to sprinkle and the sky got dark.

we were bound and determined to spend the day at the beach and be positive about it.

no need to waste time putting on sunscreen.

this was gonna be great!

so chase and i found a spot under a tree,

and everyone else went right into the water.

i laid out all of chase's sand toys under the cover of the tree after he displayed dislike for the raindrops on his naked back and then proceeded to rip off his diaper.

at

which

point

i

realized

i

was

gonna

need

wipes:)

which i didn't have.

remember?

like i was gonna need wipes for chase leg,

half of the beach bag handle,

my left foot

and his bum.

and i didn't have wipes.

and there was no way we were walking back to the house for wipes.

so i sat there under the tree with the rain drops falling through the leaves and tickling our face,

and i thought,

"this is gonna be a great day at the beach. why does chase's poo sometimes not smell?"

"i should have brought wipes."

"leaves?"

"where are some leaves?"

"no, this is a job bigger than leaves."
then i was all,

"seaaaaaaan! can you helllp me for a sec?"

and he walked up and was like,

"oh, OOOOOOHHHH."

and then i'm all,

"there's no wipes."

and he says to me,

"ocean."

and i say to him,

"you're brilliant."

and so he washed that baby all clean off and my foot in the salty ocean below.

and we wrapped that angry pissed off baby in a towel,

and it was just so so awesome:)

and then i held chase on my lap in the beach chair,

under the rain dropping tree leaves for an hour

while we watched sean and the kids build sand castles and boogie board in the rain.

and then the skies started to turn blue off on one side of the beach,

and the rain stopped.

so we lathered everyone up with sunscreen,

pulled the chairs out from under the tree

and basked in the sun for two more hours:)

the kids found a crab on the beach

and i caught it in the shovel for them.

it jumped off of the shovel, 

and then we watched it run away and try to hide,

and then we caught it again two more times.

the kids finally lost interest,

and i did a few times without them.

that crab and i stared each other in the eyes

and it was magic.

then brennan made a body surfing friend with a 65 year old hippy with long dread locks

and they body surfed for awhile in our spot.

sean caught a few waves on the boogie board,

and max build sand castle

after sand castle

after sand castle.

the blue rio bird toy was swept away in the ocean which almost ruined it all,

but then he washed back up on the shore and the world was right again.

until ariel with the cut off tail disappeared forever,

and then max cried for 10 minutes and it was time to go.

baths.

naps.

packing.

burgers and taro fries.

airport.

security.

red eye.

to be continued...

above:

#pottybreak #max

above:

sean enjoying the good life.

brennan waiting to body surf it in.

brennan making alien footprints.

above:

count the gibbies 1, 2, 3.

until we meet again.

if there was no rain, there would be no rainbows. {DAY 8}

"only one kind of bug bite gets itchy at hawaii.

and that's the kind that i have." -brennan

...

DAY 8: WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 4th

it rained the hardest i have ever seen it rain anywhere.

i said this earlier this week.

this storm today made that look like a drizzle.

having an umbrella to open the gate to the house was basically useless to me because i was DRENCHED from the waste down by the time i go into the car.

ok it wasn't useless.

it kept the front of my shirt dry.

i thought we would all be washed away,

and the car would end of floating off to sea.

it was awesome rain.

i can't imagine a hurricane being stronger,

and then we started talking about what hurricane Iniki did to the island in the early 90's,

and mom told us stories that people had told her when she lived here about how they survived it,

hiding in their bathtubs and stuff like that,

and what they did as the eye of the hurricane came back a second time,

and took out the entire island.

i was so nervous to be in a car driving in this rain,

and was in a panic most of the way to the other side of the island.

poor sean was such a good sport with my back seat driving and telling him when he should slow down because i just knew this time we were going to die if he didn't.

you're a good man charlie brown;)

now when i said i was "soaked" earlier,

i meant that my entire body, 

except for the front side of my shirt, 

was put into a bucket of water,

taken out dripping,

and there i was.

dripping, soaking wet to the bone, WET.

i just couldn't believe that i was so wet in such a short amount of time.

i didn't walk more than 20 feet in the 2 minutes i was out in the rain.

the slope of the driveway ran water over my feet up to my ankles.

the road to our jungle house had red colored mud waterfalls 

running down the sides of the hills and all across the road.

we drove through small ponds everywhere we went, 

and i swore that if it kept up raining like this the road would be closed on our way back to the house, 

and that we should just turn around and stay on our wrap around porch all day 

and watch the rain from there instead.

such a cautious bore!

i know:)

especially since this time i knew for sure god was flooding the earth,

and we were going to die because everyone had already boarded the arc without us.

well,

after all of that,

i'm so glad we DID in fact leave the house 

because while we ate fish and chips at Breneke's in Poipu

we

saw

more

WHALES!

the

closest

we

have

seen

the

entire

trip.

they kept flipping just their tales out of the water.

holding them there for a minute.

perfectly up.

perfectly down.

like they were waving at us in slow motion.

it felt like we were in a movie.

you could see their tales so clearly,

and they just kept popping them out

over

and

over

and

over

so many times,

that for a second you would start to take it for granted

and look away,

until you'd slap yourself out of it,

and never take your eyes off of them again.

i won't ever forget what those whales looked like from our table looking out on the beach.

with the baby pineapple growing beside us.

that dark silhouetted tail flapping up and down.

whale watching at its finest i tell you.

much to my surprise,

we drove home and the arc had not come,

the animals were not marching 2x2,

and the roads did not wash away. 

christmas miracle.

when we got home the sun peaked out for a few minutes 

and painted the sky with a beautiful rainbow,

and we all hailed the skies for raining down 

such a magnificent work of art.

to celebrate our survival we invited our friends on the island over 

for leftovers and a movie/popcorn night,

where 5 boys jumped on the bed and made brennan's room sweaty and smelly 

from wrestling all night. the grown ups and max ate tim tam's and chocolate mint ice cream 

over some good old fashioned conversation.

it was a ball.

by the end of the night we waved goodbye to our friends in the rain,

and gave hugs until we met again.

i can't believe it's time to leave tomorrow.

i'm going to pray for a sunny beach day to send us on our way.

and hope we can sit on the beach all day before we have to leave.

just one last time.

to bid the beach and salty air a proper goodbye.

thank you brennan 

for these super awesome pics:)

above:

6 sweaty pajama'd boys.

max is no dummy.

she kept her distance:)

{the 2 babies are within weeks old of each other. so fun!}

slice {DAY 7}

DAY 7: TUESDAY FEBRUARY 4th

it was sunny at hanalei bay.
for a few minutes;)

shave ice shack closed.

for the third day in a row.

tragic.

boogie boarding addict brennan spent 3 hours at it at the hanalei pier.

he swerves now.

fancy.

so fun to watch.

chase is a man of steel.

who likes to ride boogie boards to the "wa-wa,"

but who does not like it when the waves take him out.

ignorance is bliss, hahahahaha.

max is possessive over her sand holes and digging equipment.

mostly just over the holes she digs.

she doesn't have to have it all to herself,

but she does like her own personal space.

she yelled "privacy!" at lot at chase today.

it was so so funny.

we all drank fresh coconut water from a coconut that fell off of the palm tree this morning.

just off of the pier.

that our new hawaiian friend cut for us with his big fat knife.

it was the peak of my day.

SLICE.

just like that he was taking the top off,

3 inches from max's face.

hole on the top.
the coconut.

he paid brennan a $1 to try it.

and then he actually did it.
both of them.

max made us pour it into my empty water bottle before she'd drink it.

sean and i drank it right out of the top.

then grandma.

i wished we had it on tap at home.

then our hawaiian friend drank the rest we left inside.

and scraped out all of the fresh coconut for us to take home.

baths.

naps.

luau.

hula.

flame thrower we know.

heat on your face he was so close.

flames that curved around him like snakes on a tree.

best taro rolls of my life.

kailua pork on a whole new level.

coconut cake. WOW.

and my virgin pina colada with pinapple and flowers in it.
sean all to myself.

dream 

come

true.

driving home at 9pm in an island city that's already completely asleep.

with no street lights.

sean is the master kauai driver man.

i can't stop thinking about the flame throwing luau.

we are living in a dream.

don't

wake

up:)

"did you see what brennan did to me?!"

hahahahahaha

ruuuuude!

look, after 7 days on the beach,

you just give the baby what he wants.

and it's a great moment of freedom and independence.

for everyone:)

note: my hair just called,

and told me to come back.

it was on their bucket list to burry me.

i called this good.

CHECK!

above: freshly sliced coconut,

wrapped up and ready to go.

see big fat knife?

above: just give him a water spicket 

and he'll die a happy man.

THE LUAU

my favorite drink:)

 ...

i miss the way i slept on Kauai.
and the way everything just glowed.

take
me
back:)