Day 13: Aloha

"Aloha" means hello in Hawaiian but it also means goodbye. The word has many meanings and uses which is kinda funny to me. One important meaning is love and it is hard to not feel love when you come to Hawaii. We love the beautiful landscape, we love the sunsets, we love the foods, and most importantly we love our family that is here. We had one last day on Oahu with those people we love so much. We spent the day at Kakela Beach just a few miles from Po Po and Goong Goong's house in Hauula, and I think I have found another favorite beach on the North Shore.

We stopped here the first day we were in town and got a few amazing pictures. We decided to come back with Aunty Erin and Po Po and Goong Goong to spend the day because the surf is calm and there is plenty of shade for the kids. The sand is also white and the water is an amazing blue green color.

In the afternoon we met up with Aunty Mercy and Uncle Nick to make the trip to the airport for our 9 pm flight out of Honolulu. We made a few important stops on our way like Longs Drug Store for bags of coffee and other necessary food items we can't find at home. The kids stopped off with their Aunties and Uncle at the mall to play and wear them out for our long trip home. Our last stop was at Scott's house to pick up a cooler of dry ice and pork Lau Lau's that Scott so graciously made for us to take home.

My parents were waiting for us at Honolulu airport for our long
journey home to Maryland. And when I say long, I mean 17 hours through what was our night (Hawaii time) and 3 cities before we reached Baltimore. The kids did an excellent job with the traveling and we tried to keep in good spirits despite feeling sad that our vacation was ending. As I mentioned we had to stop 3 times on the way home. The last stop was at JFK in New York and it was a rather long layover.  We finally boarded a small airplane for our short flight to BWI at 6:35 pm. Just as we start to make our descent for landing we looked out the window to the right to see a beautiful sunset. It wasn't quite a Maui sunset but it was affirmation.  The beauty is all around me. It is definitely over in Hawaii and not hard to see it, but it is also right here at home in the day to day. I just need to make sure that I keep expecting to see it.