A Break for Aloha

In the middle of all our moving craziness, we took a much anticipated trip to Hawaii to join my parents at Ko Olina.  It seems only fitting that I would interrupt blog reports of our move to toss in some pics from our trip.

I have said it before, and it holds true again: Before we had kids, we never understood the "resort" vacation - always wanting to travel with backpacks, so we could move around and explore as much as we can in a new place.  Now that we have kids, we like nothing more than going to Ko Olina, putting our clothes from suitcases into drawers, and parking ourselves for 6 solid days.  My dad puts his beach chairs in the same spot every morning and Scott and I try to take turns trading naptime oversight in the condo while the other gets some beach time alone.  This trip, we managed one excursion... to Safeway, but otherwise never left the resort. 

Granted, Ko Olina is really a group of resorts, so we walked every morning, explored the Marina, wandered through the new Disney Resort down the beach, rented paddleboards one afternoon, and even tried some of the "resort sponsored activities."  Kids story time and family water balloon toss were both a bust (but free); the spray on tattoos were a hoot... but you really can't expect us northwest white folks to keep the area free of sunscreen, so they didn't last long.


The best event by far was the lagoon fish feeding.  Owen and I took a LONG walk to get there by 7:30 one morning.  I expect to watch the staff throw food in the fish pond.  Instead, we were given fish identification charts and got to wade into the ocean with handful after handful of fish food.  The fish swarmed and jumped right at our feet!  Definitely a winner.

Not a winner was the stomach flu that hit Josh, Scott, and then my Mom over the course of the week.  Never fun to be sick, but at least when you're sick in Hawaii, you get to recover by lying on the beach. Scott also ended up spending a good portion of the vacation trying to coordinate the house purchase in Portland, but free wifi by the pool made that a much more pleasant task than it would have been from an office in the city!

We all loved getting some water time in the middle of winter.  Owen was a real fish and LOVED the ocean.  Josh was a big fan of the pool and the sand entry at the pool, but pretty frightened by the ocean waves and consequently the beach itself.   We enjoyed lots of soccer and football on the grass instead. Hopefully next time we make this wonderful trip, he'll be up for building sand castles. But really, you can't complain about a week at Ko Olina. It is a magical place!