Aloha Suckers!

Last month, we took our first REAL family vacation to HAWAII!!  Needless to say, it's going to be hard to top!

Mike's sister and her family are living there right now and we'd been throwing around the idea of going to see them for a few months.  When she called and said they might be moving soon, we bought tickets!

I'm really overwhelmed with ALL the pictures and trying to decide how to fit them all into a post.  I finally decided to break it up over several and that made it seem a lot more feasible!

I took this picture on my iPod at the airport in Gilbert.  Mike posted it on his Facebook with the caption, "Grant says 'Aloha Suckers!'".

 

We flew Allegiant and it was WAY cheaper than any airline flying out of Sky Harbor and they were so nice and accommodating to traveling with our kids.  Plus, my aunt is a boarding agent for them and happened to be working that day so we got a pretty personalized send off!

Another fun thing about Allegiant is that you walk up a ramp to board the plane. I don't know who was more excited about that-us or Grant!

Six hours was a LONG flight!  Especially since Grant didn't take a nap and they don't show movies. Both kids did GREAT though and we passed the time by doing things like making forts, playing on the iPod, playing with toys, books, talking about Hawaii, and looking out the window.

When we landed, Grant informed the whole plane VERY loudly, several times, "WE IN HUUUWAII!!"

Waitin' for Aunt Jenny to arrive in the "dirty bubble" (their van).  Poor Jen was extremely gracious enough to be our chauffeur pretty much everywhere we went!

As soon as we got to Jen's house and had our stuff put away, we started off to the beach (which is about a 5 min. walk from their house!).  

Along the way, some person on a motorcycle stopped and was talking to the kids.  It took me a second to figure out it was Nate.  Haha!  Remi made friends with him right away.

 

We went first to one of the lagoons/resorts and they had these ponds with all kinds of fish.  

Here's Grant asking for permission to go swimming with it.

"Can I want to swim with the sting ray?"

First time in the ocean!

 

 F
irst of MANY attempts at a good family picture.  I'm SO frustrated with my camera!  I have so many blurry pictures from this trip.  Any suggestions for a good point-and-shoot one? Because I'm hoping this one will be making its way to the trash soon!

Betty spent a lot of time in the stroller on this trip but she was such a trooper about it!

Pretty sweet first day!