Friday, June 22, 2012

Hawaii: Heading Home

Sunday was our last day in Hawaii.  As most of the flights to the mainland, our flight out wasn't scheduled until 7:30 in the evening.  While we were walking to breakfast, Evelyn was telling us she was hungry (she's finally started using some of the signs we've been working on - and she uses "nana" as her word for hungry).  When we finally got to the restaurant we were eating at and I got her banana cut up, she was SHOVING them into her mouth. 
I guess she was hungry.
 Daddy shared his pineapple smoothie with her...she loved it!
 Chowing down on a bagel while we finished our breakfast (macadamia nut pancakes...y.u.m.)
While we were at breakfast, we found out that our flight home was delayed by about an hour.  We were still ok making our connection in Houston, so we weren't too worried.  We then went back to our hotel to get everything packed up in order to check out on time.  The baby gear rental people were coming at 10:30 to pick up everything we rented for the week.  I seriously can not recommend them enough, it was so awesome to not have to pack some of these things, and their prices were very reasonable.  We probably would have paid more than what we did to rent the stuff had we checked the pack and play and another bag for all of her stuff.  Hooray for Paradise Baby!  I know there is another place with cities nationwide called Baby's Away...seriously, best thing we did. :-)
Evelyn loved the safe in our room.
 She also loved pushing her stroller around like a walker...
One last view of the beach as we left the hotel...
We had to be out of our hotel by 11:00, so we spent most of the day trying to find things to do to pass the time until we needed to be at the airport around 5:00.  We drove for a while to give Evelyn some time to get a morning nap in.  We also needed to stop at WalMart to get a new pluggie string - all of the pacifiers but one got packed (at least we hoped that's where they were!), and we needed something for the trip home.  While we were driving, we found out that our plane was delayed for 3 hours now, meaning we would miss our connection in Houston.  I spent most of that trip on the phone with United again (total of about 3 hours now...) getting our connection worked out.  After WalMart and one more lunch at an L&L Drive Inn (seriously yummy), we headed to Hilo Hattie - a major tourist stop for souvineir shopping.  Evelyn found this drum and wouldn't put it down, so we ended up buying it.  It's one of those hand held drums with the little beads that swing to play it.  Right now it's going to be a supervised toy because I'm afraid she'll try to eat the beads and choke on them.
Hey guys, check out my drum!
We then drove some more so she could get an afternoon nap in, then found a park for her to play at.
She loved climbing all over the play structure.
We got to the airport around 5:00 because we were told we still needed to check in on time for our original flight...plus, what were we going to do - keep driving around Oahu?  I think had we known earlier that this delay was happening, we would have paid for a late checkout in our hotel and gone to the beach again or something!  We got our rental car turned back in and got on the shuttle from Hertz back to the airport.  Dan asked me if I had some cash to tip the driver, which made me remember I had put my wallet under the car seat at Hilo Hattie.  Fantastic.  I frantically told the driver we needed to go back...we should have known this was going to be the first of many things not going as planned on this trip home!  Fortunately, they hadn't moved the car and we got my wallet with no problems.  We then got checked in - Mahalo to the nice man who didn't charge us for our bags that were 51 and 52 pounds.  We also got meal vouchers for the delay from United (gee...thanks).
Dan was really thrilled about them.
After dinner in the airport, we found a spot to park for a while so that I could re-charge my phone (using the GPS to get around everywhere driving totally drained it).  Evelyn helped pass the time by being cute and walking with the stroller.  Dan and I both paid $1 for a 5 minute massage from one of those chairs.  Not bad, actually.
Hi guys.  I like walking.
They finally opened up the waiting area for our flight (in the Honolulu airport, some of the gates have a separate waiting area that only opens up a little bit before the flight...ours was one).  We headed in there and found a big window with a bench along it.  Evelyn loved crusing along the window and watching the plane and people outside.  There was also another little girl who was 15 months old playing, so they kept squealing and laughing at each other.
Come on, plane, let's go!
 I just love this little diaper butt picture...
We finally boarded, and left - about 3 and a half hours past our normally scheduled departure time.  This was also about 2 and a half hours past normal bedtime.  Those of you who have kids know that this is never good.  She left the "over-hyper I need to go to bed" stage in the waiting area and entered the full meltdown, screaming stage as we got on the plane.  And the bassinet the lady promised me was going to be there.  It was not.  Actually, the gate agent told Dan she could put us in 3 middle seats so we would have the extra seats, but we had already checked her car seat.  Hindsight, I think I would have PAID them to retrieve the car seat.  So we settled into our bassinet-less, not economy plus that we paid extra for seats and tried to calm the 1 year old.  About 3 and a half hours later...she finally fell asleep.  Props to Dan, no MAJOR props to Dan for holding her the last 4 hours of the flight home so she would stay asleep.  We didn't make a lot of friends on that flight.  We had a fairly quick layover in Houston, then onto Corpus and our own house and beds. 
Here's what a little girl with 4 hours of sleep looks like...
 And here's what a little girl with 4 hours of sleep on the short flight from Houston to Corpus looks like...
We got home and hoped to keep Evelyn up for a few hours.  We had decided to get her onto Colorado time on the way home - she and I would be heading to Colorado a week later.  So rather than get her onto Texas time, only to change her again in a week, we opted to push her back an hour with everything.  So we figured a regular afternoon nap around 3:00, followed by a later bedtime would help her get back on track.  It did.  She took a 3 hour nap, then went to sleep around 9:00pm and didn't wake up until 10:45am the following morning!  Poor Dan had to go back to work that day.  I had woken up when he left and turned on the monitor so I would hear her when we woke up...the next think I knew, I woke up and it was 10:45!  She was a little fussy on Tuesday, but by Wednesday was pretty much back to her normal routine (in Colorado time). 

It was such an awesome trip - we really had a great time with our little family of three.  NASPSPA is talking about hosting somewhere in Italy in 2015...I think Grammie will have to come town to watch the kids for that trip! :-)  So thankful that we are blessed to have the resources to do something like this!

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