Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. It’s been pretty busy around the ol’ homestead these past few weeks. One very eventful thing that occured last month was a week long vacation in the beautiful Hawaiian islands. Yup…we went to that tropical paradise.
I’ve been to Hawaii a few times before – once with my family when we took a lovely cruise around the islands (loved it…even got to have a traditional ‘on board’ romance with a crew member – or two – hey….it was a long cruise!!! – of course, this was the 1980s when things were a ton different…but I digress) . The other time was with my husband before we were married. Spent the vacation on Maui and had a blast. Both times, when I left to go back to the mainland, I literally had tears in my eyes. Didn’t want to leave…
So, for this vacation, I was looking forward to being whisked away to that tropical paradise and enjoying hours of relaxation and rest at the beach….
….yeah….right….
See, we also took our 3 and 7 year old kids….did I say something about relaxation? How in the world does one get a 3-year-old to want to ‘relax’??? And the 7-year old? ‘What are we going to be doing fun today, mommy?’ …. ‘Sleeping, dear…’
The flight was pretty long to the islands (6 hours) and the first bit of stress was trying to figure out how to keep the kids entertained long enough to not drive the other passengers crazy. I pulled out all the stops…books, portable DVD player (newly purchased), crayons, etc. Did I say relax??? OK, the flight isn’t supposed to be that relaxing, so we’ll try when we get there.
We got there late Saturday night just in time to check into the hotel and go to sleep. I was hoping the kids would sleep in late, but no…so I got up with the kiddies and we piled out onto the balcony of the hotel. We appropriately ooh’d and ah’d over the swimming pool and the view of the beach from our hotel. There were tons of birds flying around and, trying to be ‘fun mom’, I got the kids to get some crackers we had and started to feed the birdies out on the balcony. These birds were pretty tame…
About an hour later, I thought it best to start the day. As I was walking back into the hotel room with the kids following behind, I noticed the coffee in the coffee pot was sloshing all over the place – ‘that’s weird’, I thought, ‘why’s that happening?’ – somebody really heavy must be walking by the door. The next second, I realized that we were actually having an earthquake. Yup, we got to experience the Hawaiian trembler. Now I transitioned from ‘fun mom’ to ‘hero mom’ in a heartbeat – ‘OK, kids follow me into the bathroom and get into the bath tub’. I shephered the kids into the bath tub and stood there while the earth was still moving around some. Of course, in hindsight, I realize that I have my natural disasters confused – we would have been in good shape if a tornado was about to rip through the coastal Hawaiian resort, but I should have been standing in the doorway for the earthquake. Hey…I’m an Arizona native….I don’t know anything about this stuff!!!
Well, standing there with my children, the power went out and the room went black. I heard a whimper from my 3-year-old son and I realized that I had to quickly move from ‘hero mom’ to ‘mommy the rock’ so I started to laugh at loud (maybe with a touch of hysteria…I really don’t remember….) and said ‘Hey kids, I think we’re having an earthquake! Isn’t this great???!!!’
By now, the earth had stopped most of it’s movement, so I leaned out of the bath tub long enough to yell out of the room (and towards the bedroom where my big bear of a husband was sleeping) and said ‘Hey, honey, I think we’re having and earthquake!’ Honestly, I was looking for ‘hero daddy’ to pop into the bathroom with an ‘everything’s going to be ok’ kind of response, but all I got from the bedroom was a ‘Cool!’ response. Yeah…ok…thanks….
So we made sure everything was ok and got dressed. I, of course, kept an eye out continually on the coastline to make sure I didn’t see the water start to receed quickly. Hey, we were on the 3rd floor, and I calculated in my head what a large wave might bring in! Of course, the kids were a tad confused when my husband and I were talking about a big wave, and started to look out for any salamis that might be coming from the ocean. Yeah..I think my 3-year-old will have an unhealthy fear of luncheon meat for the rest of his life.
Once we got the ‘all clear’ from the hotel PA system, we went down to the pool area and milled around with the other guests who were in a state of surprise/shock. I was able to use the one working cell phone by a nice gentleman – really, a nice, nice man – he had tattoos and body piercings and all – and he was so sweet to let me call my mother (’cause she would freak if she couldn’t get a hold of me). Never, ever judge people on how they look on the outside…ever.
My husband and I were laughing at this point. See, last time I was in Hawaii we did have a wonderful time…but we also were there when Hurricane Iniki hit the islands. So we feel somewhat responsible for this natural disaster. We figure that, next time we go, we will inform all island residents that we are on our way.
Well, the power turned back on just an hour or so after the earthquake and we had a really nice vacation after that. Not a relaxing one, but nice enough to be sure…
…and that is what I did on my fall vacation…out
