In January, after Bill spent his year in Kunsan on his one year remote, he came home to Tampa to spend time with his family and pick the kids and me up to move to Osan. We decided to stop in Hawaii on the way back to Korea and it was the best (and worst) thing we could have done. The plane tickets actually cost less when stopping in Hawaii than when going straight to Korea, so we just had to stop. We will never be the same. We have been trying to get to Hawaii since before we got pregnant with Kaitlyn. The hop during the summer of 2003 never panned out and we got stuck at Travis AFB in California. It turned out to be a great trip, but we never made it to Hawaii. A couple of years later, some very dear friends of ours moved out to Hawaii and told us if we could make it out there, they could get us back. I started planning and the Air Force started its counter attack. Same thing happened with our fabulous vacation to Europe to visit some of our best friends in Italy and Germany, but I digress...and if I dwell too long on it, then I get depressed. I have a love/hate relationship with this thing called the Air Force. ;)
Well, we finally made it to paradise. I swear, I thought Hawaii was one of those places that HAD to be too good to be true. That it was all hype. No place could be THAT beautiful and wonderful. Sure, it would be great, but it couldn't be all that is was built up to be. You guys, there is no hype. It is beautiful and wonderful and fantastic. It is serene. Peaceful and relaxing. It is just as beautiful, if not more so, than the pictures in the travel books. I absolutely fell in love. I fell in love with God's beautiful creation and this fabulous state I had never seen before. I fell in love with my family and my husband again after being apart for a year. A year that followed a heinous TDY schedule, a deployment, and 8 short weeks of us being together, knowing we would be saying good-bye again for a year. We fit so much in, but never felt rushed. It was the shortest and most wonderful four days I have ever spent anywhere. And we experienced every minute as A FAMILY! I cannot describe to you, after a year and a half of hard good-byes (heart breaking, throat closing, not being able to breathe good-byes that you can't understand unless you have been there, no matter how hard you try and truly WANT to understand) how incredibly wonderful it was to be able to spend time together, knowing we were not going to have to say good-bye again for a long time. I am sure that has a little to do with my Hawaii bliss, but this place is truly breathtaking! And we never even left Oahu!
We picked up the latest edition of our favorite travel books on Hawaii (the others were in storage with most of the other great stuff we own) only to find that the one on the shelves had JUST come out. Copyright 2010. Score! I am hoping I can put my hands on this book soon, so I can tell you all the great places we ate and things we did and how to find them. It is a fantastic book that tells you like it is. The authors live among the locals and tell you where to go and where not to go, finding hidden little delights that the other travel books don't even know about. It's called the Blue Book series or the Revealed series. The name of the book we used is Oahu Revealed and they have one for each island. FANTASTIC! If you plan a trip to Hawaii, pick up a copy. You won't regret it. We also have one for the Big Island and Kauai...in storage. They are excellently written.
Hawaii left an impression on our whole family. The kids pretend play that they are in Hawaii or are going to Hawaii. They are packing up their car with their luggage and going to the airport in Hawaii. The are snorkeling in Hawaii. They are hiking in Hawaii. The list goes on. Funny story, when we drive to base, we parallel the train tracks where we see trains daily. The kids always ask where the trains are going. I usually say north or south, sometimes say Kunsan (where Daddy used to work (south) or Seoul (north)). The kids usually respond with a silly answer like the north pole or the south pole. Ryan almost always says Sea World. The boy LOVES Sea World. One day a few weeks ago, they asked where the train was going. I told them it was going south. Ryan told Kaitlyn it was going to Hawaii. Kaitlyn responded with, "Buddy, that train is not going to Hawaii, but if it were, I'd be on it!" Me too sister, me too! I told Bill and he said she sounded just like me. I wish I could have gotten it on video. The inflections and tone were SO me. I am sure some of you are just picturing it now. ;)
Unfortunately for Bill, the pure, clean air and beauty of Hawaii intensified the smells of Korea and made the return a bit less lovely, but we will never forget the time we spent on the island. We were a sight coming through the airport with our 7 checked bags and car seat bag that carried a car seat, a booster seat base, and Kaitlyn's scooter, 8 carry-ons, and stroller, but it was so worth it. It was worth the hassle of the bags, the van to take half of us and half our luggage because we couldn't fit it in the rental car, and it was worth the extra 8 hours on a plane. In fact, it made the trip so much easier because it broke up the 24 hours of travel from Tampa to Osan. We made so many wonderful memories and took a ton of pictures. I won't even try to pretend that I am going to crank out these posts tonight, but my next four posts will be of the four amazing days we spent in Hawaii. I may take me a while, but the pictures alone will be worth it.
Did I mention that we ABSOLUTELY LOVE HAWAII?!?!?!?!?!
1 comment:
I feel ya, girl. I LOVE Hawaii, too, and I can relate to your blog post in so many ways (your description of how we feel as we say goodbye is too good, I actually cried a bit). I can't wait to see the photos! Hugs...
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