Hawaii Day 1

Robert and I always set goals each year, they usually include travel and big milestone type stuff.  Did you know if you don't set goals, you don't achieve them.  I have always dreamed of Hawaii, lots of our college friends have gone and enjoy the islands. When goal planning we discussed my 40th birthday and I told Robert I would like to be at the beach, preferably a salt water beach. I would have taken Florida, but Robert doesn't work that way. So a year ago he set his mind on Hawaii, and I love him for it.  Also everyone thought I was crazy for wanted the kids to come along, but it was really great experiencing this with them.  

We spent our entire week on Oahu, if we ever go back I think I would try Maui.

 Airplane travel means unlimited electronics for bour kids. Robert found super cheap flights, the catch was flying out of Omaha and connecting several times. It was really perfect though, it was all day travel, but gave us a chance to get off planes, walk, eat to break things up. We left Ames at 6 am, drove to Omaha for our noon flight. The Omaha to Denver flight was smooth although we were notified through the United App that our Denver to San Fran flight was delayed which was worrisome for our connecting Honolulu flight. Robert worked his magic and got us on a Denver to LAX flight instead, which proved benificial because eventually the San Fran flight was canceled. All in all we got to Honolulu the same time 7:30 pm (island time) so we had been traveling 20 hours...

 My goal was to see each HI sunset. This was sunset #1 I caught from the plane as we were landing

 I had planned one hotel stay in Honolulu just to sleep so we could tour Pearl Harbor first thing in the morning. Our first stay was at Coconut Waikiki Hotel. It was dark by the time we arrived. We settled in and Robert walked down to the corner store and got us some snacks for dinner.

 The hotel did have a complementary "American" breakfast. We didn't use the pool or play the giant chess game but it looked fun. 

Here we are well rested and ready to find Pearl Harbor