Hawaii Recap

After quite a whirlwind, I'm finally back to work and hopefully back to a nice, regular routine.  But it's time for a little recap, for memories sake.

Travelling with Allison generally went really, really well.  Better than I expected, actually.  The process all started in the weeks prior to the trip.  We have a video called "Shae by Air" that chronicles a little girl flying with her Mommy, and tells of all the things a kid should expect while flying (waiting in line, not kicking the chairs in front of you, ears popping, etc).  We'd been watching this pretty often with Allie, and it seems to have paid off, as she was uniformly well behaved on the flights.

The morning of the flight, Diana went in an gently woke Allie up at like 3:50am for a 4am departure time.  We basically had no idea what to expect.  She might not even wake up, but we'd have to load her into the car asleep.  She might wake up totally pissed off, and we'd have to fight to get her loaded up.  Instead, she woke up with "Pink toothbrush in suitcase!  Go airport!  See airplanes!"  She was pumped.

We hit all our marks with regard to getting into the car, dropping off luggage, Diana, and Allie.  I then parked the car in long term parking and took the shuttle back to meet them.  Everything was going according to schedule until the curbside checkin guy saw that we had paper tickets.  These were provided to us via Diana's dad's frequent flyer miles, and were the old-school style booklet tickets, not your usual e-ticket.  For whatever reason, we couldn't check in with those at the curb, so needed to wait in a line inside.  We eventually got it sorted out, but we were glad to have planned for some cushion time at the airport.

Fast forward to our return trip.  It was a red-eye, so we're checking in around 7:30pm, past Allie's bedtime.  While in line, we discover that we don't have our paper tickets anywhere.  With an electronic ticket, you simply give your last name and show some ID and you're all set.  With paper tickets, if we can't find 'em, we're either buying new tickets or doing paperwork and paying a fee to replace them.  So I rush on the shuttle to the rental car return, and thankfully find the tickets in the car.

So, the moral of the story is that paper tickets suck.  Avoid them if you can.  (They WERE provided to us free-of-charge, so I'm certainly not complaining about THESE paper tickets… just paper tickets in general.  :)

The flight home was rough.  Allie was tired, which resulted in generally happy, almost manic behavior.  Not a bad thing, but with two REALLY tired parents, it was a little rough keeping up with her.  The plan was for her to sleep in her carseat on the plane.  It all looked like it was going to work out until the TVs came on.  The flight had TVs down the center aisle of the plane, and Allie basically couldn't look away.  With the rest of the plane dark, she TV lights were like spotlights shining down on us.   She stared and stared, and if we tried to block her view, she really complained.  She finally closed her eyes, but woke up an hour later and basically sat glued to the TVs the entire flight.  I generally can't sleep on planes, and Diana spent most of the time trying to get Allie to sleep.  We finally made it to SF, and took turns keeping up with Allison, on one hour of sleep, running and laughing and playing in the airport.  The plane trip from SF to SD was fine, and finally in the car and home, totally zonked.

My worst fear was screaming, struggling to get out of her seat and run around, and none of that came to pass.  There were a few tears once or twice, but in general, very smooth travelling.

The house and property in Kauai was amazing.  One main house for Baba and Yaya.  One medium house (just a big bedroom and attached bathroom) for us, and a little screened in single room bedroom for Diana's sister.

Mornings were up with the sun and heading out to the beach for some snorkeling and hanging out.  Allie spent a lot of time in the shallow water with Diana's infinitely patient mom.  They had a great time splashing in the water and playing around.  The rest of us snorkeled and sat on the beach and read books, etc.  Then back to the house for lunch, naps, and generally more hanging out in the afternoon.  Very familial and cozy and comfortable.  Good times.  I played 10 total games of Babel against Diana's dad.  He beat me 7 out of 10 times, but it was a lot of fun.  One evening, we played a round of the family edition of Cranium that they had in the house.  Diana and I went around the board almost twice before the other team (Diana's parents and sister) made it around once.  We're a pretty good team in that game.

Allie did great on the trip, and had lots of fun playing with everyone.  She certainly wasn't starved for attention with so many doting relatives around.  She generally napped and slept well, though she would wake up sometimes at night a little freaked out, maybe not knowing where she was.  There were little streams running through the property, and she had a great time throwing sticks and leaves and watching them float away like little boats.  There was also a mangy cat that hung around, and she'd present the cat with leaves, sticks, flowers, and anything else she thought the cat might like.  If the cat moved away, she'd pick up whatever it left behind and trail after it.

We got home at around 10am.  After a brief nap and packing, I headed back to the airport for a 1:45pm flight to Vegas for Iwan's bachelor party, to be discussed in a future post.