For at least 8 months, we have talked and planned and counted down the days to our first Graham-Adams reunion. It's been two years since my brothers and I have been in the same room at the same time. I can't remember the last time we were together as siblings with our spouses. The cousins have basically never met. To kick off a tradition of reunions, Mom and Mark announced that we would be traveling across the ocean to the tropical island of Oahu. Since David doesn't get a break from his work as an journeyman carpenter until at least October - when he and many others are seasonally laid off in Alaska - the reunion was scheduled for the end of October. We pulled Morgan and her cousin Kade out of school for a week. Mallorie missed two days of preschool and both girls missed music class. I crammed seven days' worth of clothing for five people into 2 suitcases (and I'm still proud of myself for such an accomplishment) and loaded everyone into the Pilot at 6:30 Friday morning to begin our adventure. A delay in Boise, a quick stop for an expensive pizza lunch in Seattle and 5.5 hours on a big plane...we were in sunny, humid Honolulu. The kids, who are always champs while traveling, had a blast. Each seat had its own television screen complete with numerous movie options; I'm pretty sure the kids' brains were mush by the time we arrived to our destination.
Honolulu is large and the traffic crazy. The airport and rental car locations are in quite a sketchy part of town. We stayed the first night in west Honolulu, a short distance from Waikiki Beach and the thousand-dollar shopping district - Gucci, Coach, and Tiffany's, among others. We like to play the license plate game on our trips and we figured the sightings would be limited. After all, not many people are going to bring their cars across 2,000 miles of ocean. To my surprise, one of the first out-of-state plates we spotted was New Mexico! I was so excited, I had to take a picture.
We met up with my parents by this time and let the kids burn off some excess energy bouncing on the beds in the hotel before hitting up Hard Rock Café for dinner. Jet lag was kicking in so we went to bed early...and managed to sleep until 5:30 the next morning! (Meridian is 4 hours ahead of Honolulu)
Chadwick went for an early morning run and made it to the top of Diamond Head Crater for the sunrise, one of 6 people venturing out at that time of day.
We tried to visit the monument later that morning, but the trails are only open a few days a week now and the parking lot was at full capacity by the time we arrived. Onto Plan B - Punch Bowl Cemetery. Rounded like a bowl, the cemetery was filled with Chinese Banyan trees with the most amazing configuration of their trunks. There was a tribute to the wars fought in the Pacific Rim and surrounding areas....the history was overwhelming! Made me want to start reading more about WWII in particular.
The next stop was Moanalua Gardens, once home to Prince Lot Kapuawia who later became King Kamekameha V. It is the current home to one of the largest Hitachi trees (also known as a monkey pod tree). They were amazing! Flat on the bottom and thick with leaves, it made a wonderful shade. The whole park was beautiful and we enjoyed wandering around, chasing birds and spying fish in the small pond. We met up with Sean, Beth, and their son, Colin and wound our way to a Wendy's for lunch. As a side note, this restaurant had the most awkward parking lot ever.
Mom and I peeled off with our grocery list in hand and hit up Walmart (where we had to purchase re-usable plastic bags for $0.10 a piece) and then to Costco. A word about the food planning: it was pretty much a disaster in my book. I tried really hard to create a list so that we didn't have to spend time other days grocery shopping. I can do that at home, don't want to do that on vacation. In Hawaii. Well.....we hesitated to purchase too much since we didn't want leftovers to take on the plane. We also didn't know how much of what food people would actually eat. Turns out, the boy cousins are all super picky eaters, my other siblings went to the store on their own for things like lavender water and beer, and we ended up at the store at least every other day. Huge bummer for me.
Our VRBO was located in Makaha, on the west side of the island. If our first night was spent in the land of Gucci, the rest of our stay was spent in a much more humble, real-world area. Reminded me of the south valley of Albuquerque, to be honest. Homeless abodes dotted the shorelines, bars covered the fronts of doors and windows along the one road that ran north-south on the western shore, and I lost count of the rusted, broken down vehicles along the driving and walking paths.
I dubbed the trip, "From Gucci to Ghetto."
Mom and I were anxious to see the house as we wound our way through a run-down neighborhood and were pleasantly surprised when we pulled into the driveway. The large house had an amazing view of the ocean, enough bedrooms for each family and plenty of bathroom locations as well. The kitchen was on the small side but was offset by the large dining area. The wrap-around porch on the main level was utilized multiple times daily by the cousins for playing "monster," a game in which Spencer was the monster chasing the others round and round and round. Said game often started as early as 7:00 am, something I'm sure the neighbors appreciated! The outdoor pool was well used, sometimes multiple times per day.
The remainder of the families trickled in throughout the late afternoon and evening. By Sunday morning, all 16 of us had made it safely to the Beach House for the remainder of the vacation. And the fun was about to begin.
