Aloha! We are back from our vacation in paradise! We spent 10 days in glorious Kauai, Hawaii with Brant's entire family, and the vacation turned out to exceed our expectations, hopes and dreams. In other words, we had a fabulous time!! I'm so excited to blog about our trip, but to be perfectly honest, I'm also a bit overwhelmed at the thought. I have over 250 pictures to sort through and pick out the very best for the blog, and I just can't do it very well, but I'm going to do the best I can!
Brant, Maddie and I woke up in Princeton, NJ at 3:30am, on May 25th. It was terribly early, but we had enough adrenaline pumping through the veins to get us moving! We caught our first flight without a hitch in Newark, heading to Seattle. This was going to be my final exit from the east coast, and it was very fitting that while gaining altitude, we spotted the Empire State Building peeking through the clouds and glistening in the sunrise. Wow! What a way to say, "So long!"
Maddie had a great first flight, making friends with everyone she possibly could. For waking up so early, we were convinced she would snooze on the 5 hour flight. Wrong. She was such a little ham! It was really cute, but also kind of disappointing, because we were hoping to catch some naps in ourselves, in order to make it through our big travel day. She loves to play peek-a-boo (love is actually an understatement. She ADORES to play peek-a-boo!), and she was flirting and playing this game with a gentlemen sitting behind us. We could overhear him tell other passengers that it wouldn't be too long before she ended up in the seat with him. We took him at his word and passed her back! The two of them were SO happy to be together, and she didn't seem to notice that I was even around. He held her in his lap for about 45 minutes, letting her pull the cords on this headphones, play (and chew) on his i-phone, etc. It was awesome! I would continue to tell him, "Let us know when you'd like to give her back. We don't want to bother you." His response would be, "No, you let me know when you would like her back!" Brant and I enjoyed the little respite from her constant motion in our laps!
We made it to Seattle, where we had about 6 hours of layover time before our next flight. Our dear friend Kelsie, and her daughter Isla, came out to the airport to spend a few hours with us. It was so, so wonderful to see both of them, and so sweet of them to come all the way to Seatac just to hang out inside the airport! After we said our goodbyes, we headed back to our terminal where we were soon joined by the rest of the Himes' crew. It was such an exciting reunion, full of Hawaiian anticipation! :) Brant hadn't seen any of his family members since December, so it was really special for us all to be reunited in this way.
Our flight out to Kauai was long (another 5 1/4 hours), but particularly long because we were all anxious to get to paradise!! It was a difficult flight for our little family, because our bodies were telling us that we were 6 hours later than what the time really was. When we arrived in Kauai and went to sleep for the night (only 9:30pm local time), it was 3:30am to us, which in turn meant we had been awake and traveling for a total of 24 hours. UHG!! Team that up with an 11 month-old baby and you can imagine what fun we were having!
To get 11 individuals from various locations in the country together in Kauai, at the same time, without a glitch, is an amazing feat in and of itself! We had set the vacation scene up for success!
Read on to my next posts for our Hawaiian adventures, and pictures, too!!
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