Aloha!!!

So what do you do when your husband has a business trip in Hawaii?? Go with him of course!!! I am thoroughly enjoying the benefits of a free flight :) I had never been to Hawaii before, so it was a great time to escape the freezing Chicago temperatures and relax on a beach! We brought the kids along and it was such a great trip! We stayed in Waikiki, right near the beach and the International Marketplace. Our first day there we decided to take the kids to Pearl Harbor, which they really enjoyed. They were kind of bummed that they couldn't see the USS Arizona a little better (I admit I was too), but they liked to see the other battleships, submarines, missiles, airplanes, and torpedos. They learned a ton, and Jaxon was basically reciting the entire presentation for us in the car later that day. I told him he should teach his class about it! This picture is the USS Arizona's anchor. The boys thought it was pretty cool:)

We had a nice time at the beach, boogie boarding and playing in the water. Jax even decided to give snorkeling another shot and decided it's not so bad!! Yay! Araleigh mostly enjoyed playing in the sand and burying her brothers or herself. And she would chase the birds away if they came too close. Dave did get her in the water for a little while though, and it was tough to get her back out! Maybe next time we'll have to take family surfing lessons!

While Dave was working, the kids and I did a little exploring and found this fun statue. The boys love to pose with large statues, so I figured, why not?

Then we got caught in a surprise downpour, so we rushed into the mall where we found glow in the dark mini golf. Since it was dark and there were really loud sound effects, Araleigh was pretty much terrified the entire time and clung to me like a little monkey. Around hole 17 she finally felt safe and got down to hit her ball a little, and of course as she got her ball in the 18th hole, the volcano "errupted" and she was out of there as fast as those little legs could go!! It was ok, though, because she found a hula dancing class! She whipped her little shoes off and joined immediately! She was so cute and all the participants loved her! It was kind of the trend of our trip, actually, because all of the Japanese tourists and shop owners thought she was the cutest thing ever (a little blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl in a sun dress is pretty hard to resist!). I had several tourists ask me "I take picture?" and they would snap a shot of my little darling. Soon she'll be on Japanese billboards everywhere. She also got a few free flowers for her hair, which she graciously accepted. She enjoyed all of the attention, as always!

So now we're back to reality, it is snowing today, and not even the good kind. It's the "snow dust" that comes down when it's too cold for the big, soft snowflakes. Maybe we'll have to make this a monthly thing...