Hawaii Day 1, The Voyage

Ma just took our family on an amazing trip to Hawaii. There were 19 of us total, Ma and her sister Louise, my mom, Roland, all 7 seven kids with spouses and kids (except for Addison). It was everyone's first trip to Hawaii, except for Ma and Aunt Louise. Being our first time, we figured the best way to see Hawaii was on a cruise around the different islands. It definitely gave us a great taste of Hawaii and allowed us to discover a beautiful paradise.

Waiting for our first flight

We were a little nervous about traveling so far with the two kids. We had three legs to the trip, first to Atlanta, then to San Diego and from there on to Honolulu. This was the first time I had Charles with me while traveling with kids, so he has a new appreciation for me. Fortunately the girls were great. Anya was quite the little trooper for a first time flyer. At one point when we landed (I think in San Diego) we stood up and the people behind us were like "You had a baby with you? We didn't hear her a single time." So I was pretty happy that we didn't bother anyone flying for that long.

The girls liked sitting together and watching movies.

Ashley and her boys were in the aisle right across from us, so Isabelle joined them in building a fort under the trays.

Our flight to Hawaii happened to fall right on Anya's half birthday. So, even though we didn't get to celebrate the way I normally would have, she definitely got to have an adventurous day.

I didn't get any sleep on the flight, but the girls made themselves at home and got to sleep.

We got into Hawaii around 9 pm Hawaii time, which was actually 3 am Florida time. We got a hotel that first night since the cruise didn't leave till the next day. The girls were up nice and early, 3:30 am (darn time change). We tried to stall and get them back to sleep, but we finally accepted the inevitable and got up. We found a local restaurant and got some yummy breakfast, for surprisingly cheap! Always a plus. We went back to the hotel and got a little more sleep before boarding the ship.

Beautiful! Honolulu reminded us a lot of St. Denis, La Reunion.