Early this morning we packed up the kids, my niece, and nephew and flew to Hawaii. This is a huge vacation for us, and a milestone in our family as Hawaii was important to my sister-in-law Terri, whom we lost over a year ago.  So, we have been planning and saving to get all of us out here to enjoy the islands that she so loved.  

This is the first time to Hawaii for almost all of us, and to make sure all 6 of us fit in the rental car, we bought everyone 21-inch suitcases and gave strict instructions - If it doesn't fit, it doesn't go!  So the packing part was fun (if forcing 4 teenagers to not bring everything could be called fun), and the flight was really nice.  We flew out Hawaiian Air, mostly uneventful, with incredibly nice flight attendants.  

All was good till the landing, which was a little bumpy and Cassidy & I got queasy.  

Then we got our rental van, all the suitcases fit beautifully!  Drove to the hotel Aston, on Waikiki Beach who let us check in early (HUGE THANK YOU), and headed to the hotel's outdoor Resturaunt to enjoy lunch/dinner.  But, after a little bit I kept getting sicker so I set the teenagers free and headed upstairs to sleep it away.  I have a tendency to get heat stress so I try to limit my sun exposure but the queasiness from the landing combined with the warmth on the patio & I needed to get cool & sleep.  

A couple of hours later and I felt fine.  By now the kids were bored so they had come back to the rooms and changed so we all headed out to walk on the beach, and all I can say is Wow.