Eventful Day

We took Toni & BJ to Pearl Harbor on Thursday morning.  This is a must do for everyone visiting the island.  They have totally redone everything leading up to the boat ride over to the USS Arizona memorial.  We got our tickets for the boat ride which didn't leave for 2 hours.  That was a lot of time to kill, especially with having three little ones with us.  So we decided to walk down to Schooner's and grab an early lunch.  We had never eaten there before and it was rather yummy!  Plus it had a beautiful view of sailboats and the harbor.  It's definitely a spot that we plan on hitting up again.  After lunch we caught our boat ride and visited the USS Arizona and paid our respects once again.  BJ was all excited that his name was on the wall, B.L. Carter.  Riley did really well at the memorial.  You aren't suppose to talk while visiting the memorial but nobody seemed to pay attention to that rule.  But I still wanted Riley to be respectful and stay as quiet as possible.  And she did!  Riley just kept by my side and stared out at the water.  At one point she put her head between the rails of the fence and I thought her head was stuck.  I calmly pulled her head out of the bars and sternly warned her not to do that EVER again.  That would have been my luck for her to get her head stuck!  Hadley passed out on the boat ride over to the memorial.  It's exhausting getting toted around everywhere!

We got home around 2:30pm and only had an hour and a half before we had to leave for our Luau.  We were all really excited about the Luau.  I was the only one who had ever been to one and that was at Justin & Sara's wedding reception five years ago in Kauai.  Once everyone was ready we headed to Paradise Cove for an exciting evening ahead of us.  Tickets to a luau aren't cheap.  Luckily we were able to get a military discount which saved us $50 off of each ticket.  Since it was such a big savings we bought the premium tickets.  With the premium tickets we got a fresh lei greeting, we were escorted onto the premises, got a mai tai when entering, professional picture taken, and we were escorted to our private table so we didn't have to sit with any strangers.  It was fabulous!  The best part was the fact we didn't have to go stand in the buffet line, we got dinner served to us!  That in it self was worth it because we had the kids with us.

We got to enjoy watching plenty of Hula dances and watching them take the pig out of the ground, all while enjoying the gorgeous view of Ko'Olina.

I do have to admit that one of my favorite moments of the evening was watching the sunset from our premium seats.  I felt like I was on vacation and then realized that I am lucky enough to live here!

I'm not going to lie, I did enjoy a mai tai while at the Luau.  The taste brought back memories from being in Kauai and having mai tai happy hours everyday at the hotel!  We all had a really fun time and the kids were all pretty well behaved.  It was a late night for them.  We didn't get home until 10pm.  Yikes! 

I love this picture!