We ventured north to Hanalei Bay for Lily's first trip to the beach. After Mike's phone experience I thought best to leave mine in the car so I unfortunately don't have any pictures. We rented a beach umbrella from the hotel (which saved us) and ate our picnic lunch at the beach. Lily hated the ocean - I think the noise of the waves crashing scared her. She literally tried climbing up on my head every time she saw one rolling in.
After the beach, Miss Leah came back to babysit Lily while we went to The Beach House to celebrate my parents 30th wedding anniversary. We saw a beautiful sunset, had a great meal, and amazing drinks!
Day 6
Friday everyone (minus mom, Mike and Lily) went ziplining through the jungle. It was amazing how high up we really were - on top of the trees going through valleys and over reservoirs. I kept getting stuck at the end of the lines and they had to keep pulling me in - by my foot or tossing me a rope. After ziplining we went to Bubba's for burgers and frings (fries and onion rings - known to save marriages - ours included). We spent the remainder of the day at the pool and then off to Tortillas for Brayden's last night on the island.
Day 7
Another day of lounging at the pool and then my parents took Lily for the evening and Mike and I checked into the Sheraton. We had planned to do some shopping and go to dinner but on our way out, the valet guys couldn't find the keys to our rental car. After a half hour of us waiting for them to find our keys, Mike went and found the manager as I apparently looked ready to kill someone. The manager and head of customer service spent the next ten minutes searching for our keys in the drawers and then proceeded to pull nearly every key to start searching all of the cars currently valet in case they fell out of the attendant's pocket. At this point my blood was boiling - which was apparently clear to them - and they offered to take us anywhere we wanted to go and dinner on them. So they took us to the shopping area I wanted to go and later called to tell us they had found our keys. Their story? Somehow a ticket from a guest who had checked out that day ended up on our keys. Clearly it was the rental car company's fault for not removing the tag when we arrived on the island that day. As you can imagine I straightened them out and we received a credit on our account for dinner at the hotel restaurant for the next evening. Not the night we had anticipated being baby free.
Day 8
Mike and I reserved a poolside bungalow for the day so we could have some shade by the pool and the beach. Little did we know the bungalow came equipped with a ceiling fan and television. Mike was able to sit in the shade all day watching football and baseball. His dream come true.
After our day in the sun we had dinner at the newly renovated Sheraton restaurant Rum Fire. The food was amazing and dessert was even better. And since it was free - it probably could have tasted like cardboard and we would have enjoyed it. Even Lily got jazzed up for the festivities.
Day 9
Travel day! We woke up early and had breakfast and coffee on our lanai overlooking the ocean one final time. Then we packed up and headed off to the airport for our 1:00pm flight. When we arrived, we were informed our flight had been delayed 3.5 hours and wouldn't take off until 4:30pm. We would miss our connection in SFO to DEN. Our original flight plan to arrive first thing Tuesday morning was not going to happen. Our option was to stay on this flight to SFO, connect to DEN at 5:30am and then to GRR at 9:30am. We'd get in around 2pm Michigan time. Otherwise we could go to HNL, connect to ORD to GRR and get in around 5pm. We went with the obvious option and stuck with the SFO flight.
We were in it for the long haul and staked out a spot in the bar, ordered drinks and lunch. My chicken fingers came out raw. I'm sure you see this as a bad sign. Things could only get better from here right? As we waited for our plane to come in, United made an announcement that the flight in from SFO was short on food - NOT ON BEER - and it would be in our best interest to purchase food before we boarded. Once finally aboard the plane and headed back to the mainland, Lily became an entirely different baby. It was like she was on speed. Using us as her personal jungle gym, trying to crawl off the seat, banging the tray table - an absolute nut job. I thought Mike was going to open the emergency door and either throw Lily out or jump himself.
After 4.5 hours we landed in SFO only to find that our 5:30am flight to DEN was already delayed 45 minutes and we would be missing our connection to GRR. It was about 1:00am SFO time and we joined the numerous other travellers in the United Customer Service line. We got to witness a number of tantrums and hysterical people (I for once wasn't one of them). After trying to get us to Lansing, Kalamazoo, Detroit, Fort Wayne, etc, we ended up on a 6:30am flight to ORD and a 4:30pm flight to GRR. We arrived in ORD around noon and hung out on standby for early GRR flights but unfortunately didn't get on board. Our 4:30pm flight was of course delayed until 5:20pm and we finally made it back home around 8:00pm. Just a half day later than scheduled. No big deal. Poor Lily was such a trooper. If she had been a mess the experience would have been less than comical. I cannot even portray what an amazing baby she was and all of the compliments we received from other travellers who were at first casting us with dirty looks. And (by the grace of God I think) on every flight we had an open seat next to us. This alone saved us.
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