Aloha, baby!

Writing from our condo in Waikiki. We're on the 30th story of the building and you can see Diamond Head and the turquoise blue ocean in the distance. In the mornings, we have a beautiful view of the sunrise. Thus far, we've had a surprisingly smooth trip. We brought David along to help us with childcare and it's been working out well. It took a little while for him to adjust to the rigors of babysitting, but I think that he's getting the hang of it.

Panorama of a sunrise from our condo

Our condo has one bedroom and a common area with a sofa bed. David sleeps on the sofa bed while Nik, Kai, Sora and I are all sleeping in the bedroom. Originally, I thought that this might be a recipe for disaster with all four of us in one room, but the nights have been amazingly quiet. The hum of the air conditioning unit is loud and keeps Sora practically sleeping through the night, Kai has been behaving himself as well; we plan on investing in a white noise machine when we get home. ;)

We arrived on Monday. On the way to Honolulu, Sora slept most of the flight and flying is one of the rare times that we allow Kai some tablet screen time, so he was also well-behaved. Once we arrived, we got a late lunch of udon--delicious, but difficult with eat with two cranky, jet-lagged kids. We tried to get out to the beach, but Kai was getting tired and cranky, so we had to cut our beach time short.

The next day we started off at with a trip to the pool. We got poke for lunch and then got shave ice at our favorite spot on Oahu.. Kai was also a fan (must be in the genes). :) We then drove to the Pali Lookout and then on to Pearl Harbor. Kai loved following around the wild chickens at the Pali Lookout.

Kai loves his shave ice

Kai and Sora tolerated the visit to Pearl Harbor well enough, though it was difficult to pay attention to the exhibits with the kids in tow. Kai wasn't interested in any of the displays, but had a blast running around, chasing pigeons and enjoyed the boat ride to the USS Arizona memorial.

The sunken USS Arizona

We met with our friends Kelly and Lee for dinner at a bowling alley. We skipped the fine dining prix fixe meal, in favor of some tasty fried chicken and ox tail soup, but it's an interesting concept: fine dining at a bowling alley.

On Wednesday, we drove up to the North Shore, stopping for for some take-out Hawaiian food along the way.. absolutely delicious Kahlua pig and haupia (Kai loved it all), though nobody was really fond of the poi. We also stopped at the famous Matsumoto's Shave Ice since we were nearby.. unfortunately, it doesn't really live up to the hype as the ice is relatively coarsely shaved and the flavors are just syrupy with no distinctive taste.

There was high surf advisory, so we contented ourselves to just watch the waves, while Kai played in the sand at Waimea Bay. We then went to Turtle Bay where the waves were calm and we could actually get in the water.

Chillin' at Turtle Bay

We had a "fancy" dinner on our way back from the North Shore and luckily for us, Sora slept through the entire meal.

A sleeping baby equals happy parents

Yesterday we visited to the Honolulu Zoo with the kids while David hiked up Diamond Head. The gibbons were putting on quite the show, swinging around and howling back and forth to one another. We also saw lemurs, a tiger, elephants, giraffes and zebras, but Kai's favorite (by far) were the turtles. :P We had a picnic lunch of onigiris and musubis, while Kai ran around the small playground on the zoo grounds. Kai loved the Spam musubi.. apparently, Kai seems to love all Hawaiian foods. :P It was an exciting day and on the way home, Kai completely knocked out while sitting up in the stroller.

Today was more low-key and we dedicated the day to going to the beach and had a lot of fun playing in the sand and surf.

Sora on the beach

Father of the Year :)

We're heading back home in just a few days and it's hard to believe that our little vacation is almost over. :( Sad to be going home so soon, but we'll be back!