Hawaii Christmas 2013 Part 1 - Resort Time

It all happened so long ago, it's hard to remember how this trip even came to be.  If the stories can be believed, I think the original idea came to light during the David Earl Christmas of 2012.  Someone pulled out the blog books I made of our family cruise a few years before.  Dad, feeling nostalgic and probably a little vacation deprived (I think he had been in town for a month straight) decided he would try to get us all on vacation together again.

Well, timeshares are what they are and when you wanna stay at the Ko Olina Marriott in Oahu, sometimes you gotta go when you can go.  And the week before Christmas was not a popular one for our crew and all of their current schooling pursuits.  So our whole family vacation turned into my family with children, Kristy and Trevor, and my parents.  So basically, all the good ones.  Just sayin'

And after a sleepless night of last minute packing and finishing up of stuff, we got up nice and early and got on an airplane with our four young children.  For six hours.  Over an ocean.  

I dreaded the plane ride, and with good reason.  It really didn't go that badly, especially if you ask the people around us who were probably horrified to be sitting by us.  But it was six hours of having your parent switch on non-stop.  Jon and I did a lot of trading off, but somehow, he kept getting sleeping/tv watching kids and they were not doing that when they were with me.  Jon even dozed off a few times.  Still not sure how I kept getting the short end of the stick but I totally did.

But we made it!  We got our rental car and headed to the other side of the island. Our rental car, by the way, was awesome.  They gave us a Chrystler Town and Country which had a built in DVD player.  There is nothing that makes long car trips easier than a built in DVD player.  Thank you oh wonderful rental car people.

 Ko Olina is really a secluded area built around these four man made lagoons.  On a kid free vacation, being that far away from everything would probably have not been very fun.  But it could not have been more perfect for the crew we were traveling with.

The kids spent hours digging in the sand by the lagoon.

 We even brought a little bit of Vegas to Hawaii with us.  Presenting our Luxor.

 And then we took 'er down.

But by far the majority of our time was spent in the pool.  My dad organized a few games of pool basketball for us.  If you have never traveled with my dad, you might not know what this entails.  When my dad wants to play pool basketball, he doesn't settle for just dividing up the family and getting a little game going, he wants some competition.  So he starts recruiting.  He goes wandering around the pool looking for people, or if there is anyone casually hanging around the hoop area, he usually challenges them to a game and then goads them with innocuous insults until they join in.

It used to humiliate me to no end.  Now I think its awesome.  Being an adult is really great for moments like that.

My favorite story was his attempt to put together a volleyball game.  There was just no one around the pool, except for this Japanese family playing basketball that didn't look even the slightest bit athletic.  But, dad wanted a game so he pulled them over.  They spoke only just a little bit of English and it was clear immediately that they did not know a single rule to the game of volleyball but we just went with it.

They thought the whole thing was just hilarious.  At one point, the mom stopped playing so she could video tape the game.  It's fun to think that I will be in these people's home movies...

Scarlet and Rhode absolutely lived in the pool.  After every break, they would beg an adult to come down and swim with them.

 The hotel even put on a small luau show for us.  Jude didn't let me stick around for long but the kids had a great time.

Our lagoon.

 And while everyone got their swim on...

 I did a whole lotta this.  Jude and I did some great lounge napping/poolside reading.

 The sand entry pool was a popular hang out place for the kids.

 Asher is a little fish in the pool and couldn't enjoy anything more in his life than digging in the sand.  And he really was having the time of his life until about halfway through the week when he got sick.

 So the first half of the week, he spent getting into as much trouble as possible until he was allowed back into the pool again, where he would play happily.  The second half involved a lot less naughtiness but a lot more crying in his feverish state...

 Scarlet, always the family ringleader, kept Rhode completely occupied with all kinds of water games.

 Poor girl needs a sister...

 And if the pool wasn't magical enough already, one day a mermaid showed up.  "Cariel" read them a story and then took a swim through the pool.

 Weeks later, Scarlet still brings up her mermaid encounter.

The resort had their own Redbox style machine and, after being severely behind, we got caught up on almost every movie we had ever considered watching.  

Costco was the source of most of our meals.  We went a little Costco crazy and ate about every easily preparable thing they had to offer.  It was crazy delicious.

Coming up... pictures from those few times we actually dragged ourselves away from the resort.