Friday - Mahalo

Have you ever wanted to fill yourself up with so much of one thing that it’ll last you a lifetime? That’s how I think we felt on the morning of our last day in Hawaii. Four days were now gone that were full of wonderful experiences, awesome views, relaxation, and romance. There were still things we hadn’t done and wouldn’t be able to do. That was okay, but we didn’t have anything planned for our last day. We had to check out at noon but we didn’t need to be at the airport until 7pm. We finally decided to go to the beach for the purpose of … going to the beach. We had about an hour at the beach floating, swimming, jumping waves, body surfing, getting sand in places that aren’t comfortable, and relaxing even more.

As we were driving around deciding what to do with our time, Oliver noticed a bird and did a U-turn to go find it. While he did that, I stepped out of the car and sat on a little dune watching the ocean and this little family enjoying their own section of beach. I enjoyed imagining how nice it must have been for the mother at that moment-her children were contentedly playing in the sand or in the water with their father and she, pregnant, sat under a breezy shade tree on a low chair with the dog by her side.

Our decision making brought us back to Maalaea to the Maui Ocean Center. It was fun to see some of the same fish from our snorkeling excursion but closer up and to take better pictures of them. We finally saw turtles! Even if they were in a small tank and not in a natural habitat. The best part was the end. They have a very large tank full of all sorts of aquatic life-manta rays, sharks, bigger fish like tuna and such. It was cool to stand almost at the floor of the tank and look UP into their world. We sat and watched for quite awhile. After the aquarium, we made our way back over to Kahului, ate some dinner and drove around a little finding the bird preserve in that city before heading to the airport and waiting in a long line to check in.

We had a great time. The weather was amazing the whole week. We had been blessed to have a great babysitter so once we got there and heard the first update, we knew we didn’t need to worry about the boys. We had to try and relax and sleep on our plane ride home, but were just as excited to come home to our happy children as we were to go to Hawaii in the first place. Everyone should get the chance. And here’s a question for you to contemplate, what is it like for those individuals who have lived in Hawaii their entire lives, to know that their home is one of the biggest tourist locations in the United States? I need to ask someone who knows…

(I just needed to add a little note about Oliver’s favorite pastime, birdwatching-we did a lot of that, and just know that he didn’t mention it as often as he could have or talk about how excited he was to see birds he’d never seen before.)