Not just any Christmas in Hawaii but Christmas with my
daughter, son-in-law, our only grandchild, and it’s my first trip ever to
Hawaii.
With the kids all grown and so many things have changed in
all their lives, none of them needed things so Christmas shopping was going to
be a little different. James and Nicole
have combined two houses full of stuff and just got married so they had wedding
stuff. They are going to need a 20’
steel container in their backyard to put it all and, hey, maybe that is an idea
for next year, but for this year it is date night dinners and movies. Michael doesn’t usually want stuff--but has
quite a bit of stuff, really good stuff, more stuff than he can use in his new
apartment with Kevin so he had to bring some of it back to store in mom and
Larry’s 900 sq. ft. shop, so they are getting theater tickets to see the shows
of their choice in Seattle. Kelly and
Kyle have stuff, giving some away before they moved from Las Vegas, posting
free stuff on Craigslist, selling the big stuff, and thinking about the 2,700
sq. ft. house they were living in and thinking about military quarters on base
in Hawaii--so they got a family pass for a year at the Waterslide Park. Sounded so easy--gift certificates--but I
think it was harder deciding how to buy 1 big gift than a lot of smaller
gifts. They are happy, Larry and I are
happy, Merry Christmas.
That was just the planning of Christmas gifting; now to
actually get there. I stalked Alaska
Airlines for weeks hunting down the best fares and flight times. We could fly straight through heading to
Hawaii, but who wants to return via Honolulu to San Francisco to Seattle to
Bellingham? Worse yet was a return from
Honolulu to San Diego to San Jose to Seattle to Bellingham. Really?
I didn’t really want to drive to Seattle and park the car for two weeks
and still run into the same sort of return problems. I wouldn’t give in and it finally paid off,
Bellingham to Honolulu with a return flight from Honolulu to Portland to
Bellingham. Those credit card discounts
finally paid off with me finding a discount ticket and Larry gets to fly for
$99 roundtrip. Booked. Done.
Can’t wait.
Our bags are packed we’re ready to go. Greg picked us up three o’clock to take us to
the airport. It’s nice to have good
friends willing to help out. When we did
our online check in the night before Larry suggested we upgrade to first class
for the six hour flight so we would be more comfortable. We are preapproved for TSA so we didn’t have
to take off coats or shoes for security.
We found our gate, not hard when you are flying out of a small
international airport, a little food, something to drink and we waited. Our plane arrived and we watched the new crew
head out to the plan to prepare for our takeoff.
We waited and heard the first of several announcements that
our flight was not ready--over and over again.
We were then told that we needed to fly to Portland to pick up more fuel
before flying onto Honolulu because of heavy headwinds, but first they would
need to off load and rearrange some of the fuel on our plane before flying to
Portland.
I’m sure you’ve all heard the theme song from Gilligan’s
Island “Just sit
right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip.” Three hours and three
hundred miles. We should have been half
way to Honolulu but we were stuck in Portland.
Refueling and we would be on our way.
Well not so fast, seems there is a hydraulic leak. We are going to be disembarking and changing
gates to board another plane in Portland to take us to Hawaii.
Our bags
were checked but Larry and I each had a small carryon bag. Walking on concrete is not easy for Larry with
a metal plate and eight or nine screws in his ankle but we walked as quickly as
we could to our new gate to be told our original plane was ready and to
return. Half way back to our original
gate and plane we were told again, no go back to the new gate. Tired, hungry, frustrated I looked at Larry
as we stood in line again and said to Larry now they will need a new crew. Haha…one new pilot we had to wait for. Finally we were on board, buckled up, tired
and just ready to go. But wait…you think
they would have the plane ready before we got on but no they needed to fuel the
plane. Larry kept sending Kelly text
message for updates on our flight and I felt so bad because she had to work the
next day. It looked like our original
landing time of 10:12 PM would now be 1:30 PM.
By the
time I had finished half a glass of red wine they came to take our dinner
orders only to tell us they were out of everything but shrimp. Well shrimp will make me sick so they finally
found me a pork and noodle meal that they sell in the main cabin. Okay I could deal with it or so I
thought. I tried to read, tried to sleep
and realized I was sick. Probably a
little stress, maybe the food, who knows, but I wanted to die and since that
wasn’t an option I prayed for sleep.
Kelly met
us with an orchid lei for me and a kukui nut lei for Larry. About the only good thing was our luggage was
ready within minutes after we got off the plane and Hickam Air Base is next to
the airport. I gave my sleeping grandson
a quick kiss and everyone headed off to bed.
We spent
a fairly lazy day around the house on Christmas Eve. Kelly had to work half a day. She left a gingerbread house kit for the
little guy and me to build using gumdrops, skittles, M&M’s, lots of
frosting, dots, sprinkles. I think the
little guy may have eaten more candy than actually went on the house, but that
is how kids decorate.
Kelly
came home and we made sugar cookies and decorated them. This is the first time in twenty-nine years
that I have not baked ten to twelve dozen sugar cookies. It was fun and this time grandma may have
eaten more M&M’s than what she put on the cookies.
We
decided to do a little sightseeing and have dinner out. Driving around in seventy plus weather on
Christmas Eve is just amazing. Larry and
Kyle chose MAC 24/7 at the Hilton Waikiki Beach Hotel for dinner. We finally made our choices and then the
little guy and I explored the hotel and finally they got the floor to ceiling
glass doors to the garden open so we could go see the Koi fish.
We ended the night going to
see the Freedom Tower on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickman. What a beautiful sight all lit up with color
changing lights from multicolor to solid colors. The Freedom tower built in 1938 is Moorish in
design and stands 171 feet high. It is
octagonal, made of concrete and has eight eagles weighing 2,000 pounds located
near the top of the tower. The tower was
built as a water tower and still used for that purpose today. It was also used as a radio tower during WWII
and signs of bullet holes are still visible today. We
ended the night at a small beach listening to the serene sound of the waves and
watching small aircraft land before heading home to open that one special
present on Christmas Eve--pajamas.
Christmas morning it was
kisses and hugs and get up grandma it’s Christmas. Kelly started a pot of coffee and the adults
were then ready to begin. What took so
much time and thought into planning for the perfect gift, what to ask Santa
for, the actual shopping for the gifts, wrapping them and hiding them, then
finally it’s time to unwrap and it took such a short amount of time. I will have to say though at five years old
our grandson didn’t just tear into and discard each gift. No, he wanted to open and play with each one
and had to be encouraged to keep going.
Spoiled…no way…it’s Christmas and what are Santa and grandparents for.
Special breakfast, which is
a tradition in our family, to make all holidays complete; then naps all around
and then Kelly prepared a ham dinner and completed our day with a birthday cake
for Jesus. When my children were young I
read an article about a woman who baked a cake to celebrate Jesus’
birthday. From then on we had pumpkin pie,
apple pie, chocolate desserts, whatever, but there was always a cake for Jesus
and she is continuing this tradition since His birthday is the reason we
celebrate the season.
The kids are off to a movie
after dinner and papa and I get the grandchild to ourselves. We have a whole new library of books to
choose from, and Legos, and games, and movies.
We are truly blessed to share Christmas with the little guy and his
parents.
The only thing better is if
I could bundle them all up with my other kids and my mom, all my nieces and
nephews and be together. Yes I am a
dreamer.
Kyle got up early to go get
tickets to visit the USS Arizona Memorial.
We never thought about five thousand visitors a day and a limited number
of tickets issued per day. Lucky for us
there are some first come first serve tickets given out each morning at seven
AM so Kyle made the sacrifice with the little guy to go secure them. Coffee, breakfast, playtime, time to get
ready and go.
We were lucky and found a
parking space close to the memorial and showed our tickets and allowed entry
into the memorial park. We walked
through one of the buildings that housed artifacts and photos and showed a
short film about WWII. Our tickets were
for one forty-five and they announced our tour time, again showing our tickets to
the next staging area and showing them one more time for entry into a theater
to watch a short film on the December 7th 1941 attack on Pearl
Harbor.
We were asked to turn off
our phones, no texting, no talking as a show of respect. It was hard to watch actual video and photos
of the death and destruction done to US citizens and our country. War, the destruction of innocent lives,
heartbreaking and not through our own choosing but a war brought on by another
nation wanting to own and control what was not theirs. We won the war but both countries lost so
many lives.
After the movie we boarded
a shuttle ferry to the memorial. The
memorial is one hundred eighty-seven feet long and spans the width of the
ship. It was hard trying to hold back
the tears as you looked overboard and saw the sheen of diesel fuel still rising
form the USS Arizona that lay beneath us as a tomb for the 1177 soldiers who
went down with her. At one end of the
memorial are the names of the soldiers killed in action. We took the shuttle back to the park and
drove home. I’m not sure how much our
grandson will remember but today he understood that we were viewing a ship that
was attacked by a bomb and the people died.
My prayer today would be that he would never have to go to war when he
grows up.
We spent a quiet afternoon
at home and then Kyle had arranged a date night dinner cruise to surprise
Kelly. Of course that means grandpa and
grandma get more time with the little guy.
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