Hawaii--Days 7 & 8

Sunday morning we woke up and had a little church in our room. We like to visit churches when we're on vacation but having no car made it a little difficult here.  So Young loaded up a children's Bible story on his ipad and built a Bible study around it for the family.

After church we packed our lunch and headed to the beach!  Jennie rented a paddle board for an hour but got a little tired after about 45min and gave us the rest of the 15mins to enjoy.  It was just enough time for me to realize I'm so out of shape!  But Young and the kids loved it and could have played on it all day!

We headed over to the pool in time for the lunch pool party going on with Micky.  We also got life jackets for the kids this day so they could go into the deep end and really enjoy splashing around for pool party. In hindsight, we should have done life jackets days earlier...even though the kids can swim, there was always that threat of them going too deep that kept me on my toes each day and kept them clinging to me in deep water.  They loved the freedom the life jackets gave them and ended up keeping them on all day.

It was Young's first day off to enjoy the pools and the kids wanted to share it all with him.  They dragged him from pool to pool, in the lazy river, in all three hot tubs, down the water slides and in and out of the beach several times.  I'm not sure how relaxing Young's "relax day" was, but the kids LOVED having him around all day.

I was trying to follow them all around to take pictures but lost them on the lazy river at some point.  I just sat down thinking they would pass by sooner or later...and it was hot!  I put a towel over my head for a little shade and that's when Goofy spotted me.  I guess I was looking so goofy, he decided to stop mid photo session and come over to mimic me.  He called the Disney photographers over and had them snap a few photos of the two Goofy ones by the pool!

We finally got the famous Hawaiian shaved ice!  We missed it when we took our North Shore tour because of the rain but the Aulani has their own shaved ice booth.  Cameron had been seeing everyone eat it all week long and had been asking and asking.

We signed the kids up for a special program at the Beach Club that night, a surfing party with dinner, dancing and crafts so Young and I got to have a nice sunset dinner together.  We enjoyed the sunset together and then headed out for a romantic dinner...have I mentioned how much I love the Aulani hotel??

The next day was our last day, Daddy was back working, and it was the kids chance to do what ever they wanted one last time. Cameron chose the snorkeling and Timo chose going back to the Beach House to play video games.  The Aulani has their own snorkeling reef which is great for beginners.  It's small, no under current, no waves and you can walk in, swim out as far as you want but still be close to the steps. Both Timo and Cameron had wanted to snorkel but when we took a little tour and watch a few people go in, Timo changed his mind and decided to stay on shore...which is why I let him go play video games while Cameron and I went out.  It was easier to keep up with one child at a time.  I had bought an underwater camera in anticipation we would snorkel so we were ready.  Cameron loved it!  She was such a trooper, learning how to put her face in the water and breath and we saw some beautiful fish. We took some great pictures with our water camera, only to lose it, bummer. But we had fun and look forward to do it again some day soon!

Young and Jennie decided to rent a cabana on their last day so they could sit outside to work and enjoy the beautiful weather.  After snorkeling, I picked Timo up from the Beach House and met Daddy for lunch. Some little perks came along with the cabana...drinks, fruit, snacks and lunch!  Timo and Cameron got exposed to some yummy new fruits on our trip!

We hit the pools again, one last time.  The hotel has a huge splash area for kids with smaller water slides and it's amazing.  The kids played there the first day but didn't really go over again until the last day.  It's like they rediscovered it and stayed there most of the day.

Since it was our last day/night, we didn't make any plans, we just let the kids play and swim as long as they wanted...the pools were open till 9pm!

Young took the evening off work and  we had dinner in our cabana before we had to vacate it and hit the big water slides and hot tubs for some night time swimming.

It's not often that the kids ASK to go to bed but it happened this night.  They were worn out!  I hope they enjoyed Hawaii as much as we enjoyed sharing it with them.

The next morning we woke and got busy packing to make our flight...leaving was very hard for Cameron, and Timo was constantly asking when we could move to Hawaii.   Looks like my kids have been bitten by the Hawaiian bug too!