Hawaii: Travel and Day 1 {Welcome to Paradise}

WE WENT TO HAWAII!!!!! My wonderful, amazing, loving parents took my family as well as my sisters family on a trip of a life time. I absolutely loved EVERY SINGLE MINUTE. This vacation has been in the works for about 2 years and it was a little difficult figuring out the logistics of 12 people in Hawaii BUT it was well worth the wait.

Day 1
We all got to the airport on time and had no troubles checking in. Our family consisted of my parents, Toby and I, Cason (6), Molly (4), Allison and Brian, Reid (6), Camille (4), Bennett (2) and Collin (2 months). It was crazy at times but we laughed ourselves through it.
We left DFW about 11:30 and flew to Phoenix. This was Molly's first time to fly and our first time to fly as a family of 4. The kids (all 6 of them) did great! Our layover there was only about an hour then we were off to Lihue, Hawaii! The flight to Hawaii was 6 hours long. Once again, it was a good flight except for the kid who screamed the entire flight. Don't worry, he wasn't related to us! We arrived on the island of Hawaii about 5:30 their time which was 10:30 Texas time. To say we were tired was an understatement. But everyone held it together and made the 45 minute drive to our condo. We were immediately awed by the beauty of Kauai. It had cloud covered mountains, was green and had beauriful flowers everywhere. Our condo was in the town of Poi-pu. To travel there we had to drive on 2 laned roads only going 40 miles an hour. And that was only some of the time. The roads in Poi-pu had a speed limit of 25. The island was definantly slower paced! By the time we were checked in and had our luggage in our condo we were SOOO tired. It was only 8:30 Hawaii time but 2:30 am Texas time. We got in bed as soon as we could.

At DFW

We're flying!

Funny story, I had talked to Cason and Molly several times about us needing to sleep. I told them NOT to wake up early. Just because it was light outside that didn't mean we had to get up. Well....I can say that the kids did sleep. It was the adults who suffered from jet lag the most. After a middle of the night phone call about my parents rental car lights being on, I didn't sleep very much after 4 am. By 6 am all us were up and we decided to go explore the condo and the beach. So much for sleeping in!

our condo

An example of the flowers

As we walked down to the beach a man told us to walk to a a neighboring beach because there were sea turtles resting on the beach! It was amazing to see them in their natural enviroment.

Our first Hawaiian sunrise

Sea Turtle! Cason was excited because he had already found 2 pieces of coral. He is our little collector.

Sea turtle going back to sea for the day. 

Good morning Hawaii!

On the way back to our condo it rained and we saw 2 rainbows. God created so many amazing things! 

After breakfast, my mom, sister, Collin and I went to a local grocery store to buy a weeks worth of groceries. I went back 2 more times that day!

My sister's min van was packed from front to back! You can see Collin's little foot. My poor mom had to squeeze in the back. 

After lunch we went to swim at the beach by our condo. The water was so different from anything we had experienced before. The waves were bigger and had a much stronger undertow then we were used to. The kids loved to "ride the waves". We were all tossed around some. I was even knocked down by the waves a couple of times.

That night we had family dinner with the whole crew.