Days Two & Three

Day Two

We got up and spent a couple hours with my grandparents before heading to Shakey's where we met Troy's parents, sister and her kids. Our niece, Alexis, just graduated from high school (Congrats Lexi!) and is headed to my alma mater in August (Yay PLNU!) and Troy's parents were down from their new home in Washington to celebrate. It just so happened that our trip overlapped with theirs and we were able to see his family for lunch. The boys had a great time playing with their cousins and eating pizza.

We headed back to my grandparents house in the afternoon and my aunts, uncles and cousins stopped by to see us. We had a great dinner with everyone and went to bed early. Our alarms were set for 4:20 am.


Day Three


We got up and headed for airport. As we pulled up, Garrett recognized that we were at an airport and said quietly, "Do we have to fly to Barstow?" Kiddo loves to fly and he'd have been happy if were going straight back to Salt Lake, as long as it involved an airplane. We told him we were flying and he was thrilled. As we stood around waiting to board, we must have heard the employees announcing the flight to Maui at least a half dozen times but Garrett stayed pretty oblivious. At one point I thought he was catching on when he asked what she was saying. "Oh, there are all kinds of flights being announced to all kinds of places." I explained and then showed him the different terminals and said where some of the people were headed.

We boarded the plane.

We walked back to our seats in the very back row.

We sat. And we buckled our seat belts. And we waited.

Finally, someone said something on the speaker about our direct flight to Maui. Garrett looked deep into my eyes and whispered, "This flight is going to Maui."

"What?" I said.

"They just said this flight is going to Maui."

"Well, we're going to Barstow," I told him.

"Do we have to drop people off in Maui first?" He asked, completely confused and being filled with increased excitement.

"Um...I don't know. We're going to Barstow," I said again.

Ever so quietly, not quite daring to believe it, he whispered, "Are you taking to me Hawaii?"

I smiled at Troy over Garrett's head and nodded. Affirmative.

And then a little boy bounced off the walls for the next five hours.

We landed. We met my brother and his wife who had already been here for several days. We got a rental car. We went to WalMart and Costco. We drove up to where we're staying in Kahana. We unpacked. We walked on a sea wall. We saw giant sea turtles from no more than three feet away, feeding on the algae on the sea wall. We had dinner and talked and laughed. We went to bed with the sound of waves crashing on the shore.