Dec 27th – Jan 3rd
I asked the kids for their favorite memories from the trip and they are scattered in the blog. We did a lot of cool excursions, we had a lot of rain but we had a lot of fun. I got seasick for the first time ever. My favorite memory was on New Year’s eve – we all told our favorite memories from the year. I loved hearing about them.
The Jeep Photos
The Helicopter Tour (B and I bailed on this one – since he’d be sick the rest of the trip and there wasn’t room for me)
The zip line..
Lelu & Jake
TT got stuck and Master D took off without him
B’s favorite memory was from our zipping and hiking down to a pool of water and all of the kids jumping in – especially when the other family in our group’s kids didn’t jump in – but I don’t think we have a single photo from that.
We ate here on our way back from zipping
TT’s favorite memories: (I’ve put his in backwards order from how he told it to Lelu
Wait a second…. I caught the wave of my life boogie boarding and that was my favorite memory. No one saw it but I was carving the wave on my boogie board.”
The Catamaran
Master D Fav Memory:
Picture this. You’ve been stuck on a catamaran on apocalyptic whitecaps in the middle of the ocean for over an hour. Wind whips icy water into your face. Nowhere is safe. The upper deck swings like an arrhythmic pendulum. The lower deck reeks of the pooper. A dozen drunken adults and three sober adult children (Dhane, Arielle, and Tallon) are on the top deck belting 1992’s “What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes with reckless abandon, screaming at every bouncing crash of a wave. A jolly fat intrepid Hawaiian man steers us away from certain death.
Down below, unbeknownst to the three kids up top, Jake and mom suffer mightily. Alongside a Chinese man that doesn’t speak English, they spew their guts to the wind. Ayden comforts her mother and husband as seagulls dive to greedily gobble what once inhabited those humans’ stomachs—nothing goes to waste.
Oh, how I loved this chaotic insanity. We made it out alive. Aubri and Dad missed out.
Aub’s Favorite Memory
My favorite memory from our NYE Hawaii was the day that Dad and I had to protect everyone’s food in our cabana by the pool when it started pouring rain and everyone else scattered. We covered ourselves with towels and hunched protectively over the quesadillas and fish tacos, lifting the cover over our beach chairs to drain rivulets of water as the rain started to pool and drip through onto our heads. Some would say we were luckier than Mom, who tried to run before the rain came and ended up facing the worst of it before she even got to the lobby of the hotel!
**it rained many times on our trip – in this rainstorm I got completely drenched running to the lobby.
Surfing Day
Jake’s Favorite Memories:
“Watching early morning sunrises with Ayden
Boogie Boarding with Dhane & Tallon
Playing basketball in the pool with random kids
Bonding with Kristin on the catamaran (although I hope to never go through that again)
The helicopter tour was really cool for me. It was my favorite excursion
The surfing lessons were kinda fun after I got over how stupid I felt out there
Our hike was also really fun”
Lelu’s Favorite Memories
Ending 2021 in Hawaii couldn’t have been better. We packed the trip with some amazing excursions. Our first was a helicopter tour of the island. I will say, it was rather windy so I felt like the helicopter was rocking all over the place HOWEVER the views made it completely worth it. Jake had never been on a helicopter before so this was for sure his highlight. We then did a zip-line excursion which I HIGHLY recommend. It was my favorite excursion. The tour consisted of 3 massive zip-lines, a swimming hole, and some off-roading. It was a complete blast!! Our third excursion was a Catamaran tour of the island. It started off great… complete with a rainbow, snorkeling, dolphins, whale watching, and we even swam with a sea turtle. But ended with Jake & my mom HURLING off the back of the boat… There were some ROUGH seas out there. Poor guys. We spent the next day taking surfing lessons. Very different to surf in the ocean versus on the back of a boat…. lol. Our last day Arielle, Tallon, Jake & I went on quite the adventure. Tallon found a hike on alltrails and failed to tell us that it was rated as “difficult.” Now, I would consider myself an avid hiker, however, I wouldn’t consider myself a dangerous hiker. Long story short, this was one of the more dangerous hikes I’ve been on. The hike started at a sketchy watershed. No other cars were there except one that I swear a homeless man was living in- already off to a sketchy start. We then proceeded to be chased down by nasty little dogs that looked like they had rabies. Their owner came around the corner and warned us that if it started raining, to turn around immediately because we would most likely get stuck or even worse, washed away in a flash flood. Awesome. We proceeded anyways. The hike ended up being amazing. It was extremely difficult to find our way, but we miraculously made it to the waterfall. Tallon and Jake backflipped off. It was pretty amazing & I am happy that we did it.
I couldn’t pick one thing
Rel’s favorite memory:
my most favorite memory from when we were in hawaii was definitely when me, ayden, jake, and tallon decided to go on a random hike. it was a rainy day and the reviews warned us of flash floods and that the trail was very hard to find. once we got there we had no idea where the hike even started and there were two ratchet looking dogs barking and following us. when we started i was honestly terrified we were gonna get killed in a flash flood. the first little bit was not too bad but then we had to cross the river, climb rocks, and it was soooo muddy. we had to duck under tree branches and climb over fallen trees and basically fight our way through the jungle. the hike wasn’t that long in distance but holy crap it was hard. we literally had to climb up a waterfall at one point. the entire time it was so scary but so pretty and so cool! once we reached the top it was this beautiful view with waterfalls going all the way up the mountain into this little pond thing, it was amazing. it was totally worth it. then we had to go back down, which was even scarier because all the rocks and trees we climbed up through we had to go back down through and it was so slippery. we also were all starving because we just ate breakfast and it had been a long time since then. finally when we made it to the bottom we decided to get mcdonald’s cause we were so hungry and it was honestly the best meal we had while we were in hawaii. 10/10 experience, 10/10 would do it again.
TT’s first favorite memory:
“My favorite part was the hike through the bamboo forest. I liked jumping off the waterfall & drinking from the stream.”
“I liked the river crossings and the car that had no tires”
Happy New Year!
TT came very close to catching this rooster on our last day.
