{Hawaii and Guam Family Vacation}

Sooooo, we decided kind of last minute that we wanted to fly to Hawaii to see Mandi and Luke and their kids! They were going to be there for 10 days on vacation and getting there on Space-A is FREE for us...why not go? It's a great way to see family. I just wish they all lived in Hawaii. We could HOP there often. :)

 

On the flight there we flew on a C-17. They say its the cadillac of military planes. It was very large. We sat in seats up against the walls on the side of the planes. And in the middle they had patients set up who they were taking to Hawaii to get medical care. It was nice because watching them do their thing the whole flight there kept me busy and made time go by fast. Before we took off they asked Gavin and Tanner if they wanted to go sit in the cock pit with the pilots during take-off. They came back with big smiles on their faces and said it was really cool sitting up there during take-off. I wish i could have done that! The flight certainly started off right. I was so excited for them to have the chance to do that. The downside is that the plane is extremely loud. You can't really hear anyone talking unless they talk in your ear. I guess that's nice when the boys decided to whine or when Jaydon started crying. I didn't hear it. :) It was a 9 hour flight to get there.  We left Okinawa around 1 p.m. on a saturday and we arrived in Hawaii around 3-4 a.m. on Saturday morning. We were stuck at the terminal until about 7 a.m.  We went through some difficult strtuggles for the next few hours trying to rent a car. Everything was sold out, but we finally got lucky after a few hours and found a minivan.  We went to check into a hotel, but we tried checking in at 10 a.m., and they said it wouldn't be ready til 1 p.m.  We were so tired so we all slept in a running van for two hours on the side of the road until we could check in at 12:30. We didn't have a phone that would work in Hawaii, so we went through a small ordeal to get a phone as well. :)  After we got through that first half of the day we were in heaven. I was LOVING being in America, in Hawaii, feeling like i was home. Paradise home. It was so nice to be off our small okinawa island, just to be on another island. haha!

 

Mandi and Luke stayed in Kailua, a not so touristy spot of Oahu. This picture below is of our drive going there.

 Here we are at the house they were renting. It was soooooo fun seeing the kids and our kids LOVED playing with their cousins. It was awesome. Truly. And this house had a fenced in yard, so everytime we went over there they would all just play and play together and we didn't have to worry because it was fenced in. We did lots of chatting and catching up.

 This is a beach in Kailua. It was a lot less congested than Waikiki. And there was lots of kite surfing going on. It was fun watching.
The water in Okinawa is just as pretty, if not prettier, than Hawaii's water. Our water in Okinawa is a lot more crystal clear. Part of that is due to the fact that we have lots of coral reefs surrounding our Island in Okinawa. The water in Hawaii was a lot more mucky because its all sand getting stirred up and around.

 Another difference between Hawaii and Okinawa is the sand and palm trees. The sand here in Hawaii is beautiful. It's so smooth and perfect. Okinawas sand is rough on the feet, and again, its because we are surrounded by coral reefs. We have tons of shells and coral on our beaches.  The palm trees in Hawaii are taller than the one's here in Okinawa. In Okinawa we have the cute regular sized palm trees. Hawaii has the really tall palm trees.  ALSO, all the mountains of Hawaii look like our northern part of Okinawa. North Okinawa has lots of mountains, just like Hawaii. It's beautiful.

 Hawaii felt more relaxed and more Hawaiian than Okinawa. I really liked the feel there. Oh i miss America. :)
Here's my sweet niece , Karsyn. I had to capture some pics of her.

 We have been doing great eating our plant based foods. We strayed a little bit while in Hawaii. We went to a burger joint. YUM! I will admit it, i still got a veggie burger. I liked it though. I didn't need a real one. I did a quick fun walk through at Macy's. Didn't buy anything. WHY?! I don't know why. sheesh. Probably because i need more time than my boys can handle. :) We also ate some Hawaiian food...Poi, and the pork inside the banana leaves. Those two together were my favorite part of the traditional Hawaiian food. I really liked it.

 On the beach at night!

 Waikiki beach. This beach was crowded. We ARE NEVER crowded like this on our beaches in Okinawa.

 Tanner trying to body surf.

 Tough boy...

 I thought this was hilarious and luckily i caught the picture in time. They were digging away...

 Our first two nights we stayed in a Ramada, but our last night we stayed in a really nice military resort called the Hale Koa. I wish we could have enjoyed it for more than just one night. This was our view to the right.

 This was our view to the left....

 And our view from our room down below....

Overall, we only stayed three nights in Hawaii. Sadly. We had to make it back by Friday, and unfortunately we have to go when Space-A is available. We arrived Saturday morning and had to leave Tuesday morning.  We really had a blast , and are already planning our next trip for next october/november again.
We left Hawaii and flew to Guam. We stayed in Guam for 24 hours.  I wasn't impressed with Guam. Guam is an Asian tourist spot. It's american territory, but down on the tourist strip along the ocean it's about 98% Asian tourists. I didn't really know what to expect in Guam, but i guess i didn't expect that.  Guam really wasn't  impressive. The ocean looked like Okinawa, but the island wasn't near as nice as Hawaii or Okinawa. We didn't see much of the island at all, i guess. BUT what we did see....blah.  Let's just say i know what it looks like and i have no desire to go back. :)
We finally made it home Thursday later afternoon. Our flight to Guam took 8 hours and our flight from Guam to Okinawa took 4 hours. LOTS of flying. It really wasn't bad though. It wasn't bad at all. I could handle that by myself, which gives me hope that our Space-A flight to America in March will be not so bad. It will just be me and the boys.
Space-A is such a nice option for us.  It does require LOTS of patience..patience waiting to catch a hop and patience waiting on the plane  and waiting to get on the plane and to get off. It takes a lot more time than a regular commercial flight. BUT they do give you an option to buy a meal for the plane. It's not like a wimpy meal you would pay for or get on a plane. We pay $4.00 for a meal and we recieve a box with a sandwich, chips, some kind of granola bar, oreo cookies, a drink, and some kind of fruit, etc. They make sure they give you plenty. Its really nice.
It was a really fun vacation. We had lots of fun together.