Mahalo, Hawai'i

Above Right: Haunama Bay, where Craig and I snorkeled and saw some spectacular species of fish and other marine life (The Fink's took the "Big Kahuna Island Tour" that day with Murray and Mary.) Below: The four of us after our respective "dates". Above Left: The Big Kahuna Himself, and my wonderful mother in law.

Left: The four of us after our respective "dates" enjoying a nightcap in The Barefoot Bar. Below: the Chimp that hated my presence and karate chopped the plexi glass right after I snapped this shot.

Below: "My Two Dad's" getting ready to boogie board at Bellow's. The shot is blurry, but you get the idea.

We are home. After flying all night long last night, and a three hour layover in MSP this morning, as hard as it was to leave, we are glad to be home. We flew into Fargo at about 10:00 am CST, which was 6:00 am PST. Murray was so much better on the plane home vs. the trip to HI. Neither Craig nor I slept, but it's impossible to sleep on the plane. I did catch a snooze in the MSP airport this morning on the airport chairs. They have never felt so comfortable, even though they were disgustingly dirty and hard. I crashed, despite my germ-o-phobia.

The pictures above really don't describe how much fun we had. I have decided that Murray is not going back to Hawai'i until he's 25. Even though he eventually ended up loving the sand, and everything Hawaiian, it's just too long of a trip to take a child of his age on. Not to mention that it took him until about 3 days before we left the island to adjust. Next year, we'll either vacation without him, or take him with and go somewhere a bit closer (my guess is we'll leave him here). :)

One of the many funny incidents that I just have to write about happened on Tuesday night. Troy wasn't feeling well, so Stef and I went to the PX to load up on "feel better" sundries. It was so hot and humid that night and our air conditioners weren't working very well. We discovered the cooler in the PX, where the sign says: "Walk right in". So we did. It was awesome. Not only was it fun to see the back side of a cooler, but it was stocked with everything from mango juice to Budweiser. We contemplated sleeping in the cooler, but decided we were better off taking care of the three boys.

PS If this post has a lot of spelling and grammatical errors, I'm blaming it on jet lag. It might not even make sense, but here it is.