Hawaii - Part 1 Prewedding

Yes, this is only 3 months late but life has been a little crazy lately.

My baby sister is married! I can't believe it is already over. It was a beautiful wedding but I am not sure there is anything that is not beautiful in Hawaii. She married a kiwi (New Zealander) so they met in the middle for the wedding which was a nice getaway for everyone that attended. We got there about a week beforehand and stayed a couple days after.

First let me start with traveling with a toddler. Now, I am no expert because this was the first trip we took with Molly but I reccomend keeping flights under 4 hours for toddlers unless you are willing to drug them. On the way there we went from Houston to LA then LA to Maui. The first flight took off just as nap time was supposed to begin which was mistake number one but it wasn't that bad until about an hour before the flight landed. She was done and just wanted to sleep. Now let me say that M is one that needs her space for sleeping and just wants to be left alone. She never needed much coaxing for bed and has pretty much always been able to put herself to sleep. Well, being a lap child she didn't have any space. My mom was somehow able to make her fall asleep and she ended up getting about 30 minutes of sleep. Once we landed she woke up an unhappy camper. We only had about an hour layover then boarded our second flight. This one went way past bedtime so with 2.5 hours left on the flight she was past done. It was rough, real rough. She finally gave it up about 45 min before we landed. At that point I was ready to move to HI with what I brought so I would never have to board a flight again. I will say on the way back it was much better. One, because it was an overnight flight, two because the flight was not full and M got to spread out on 2 seats and sleep all by herself and finally because I used the drugs. I caved in and gave her Benedryl. Within an hour of the flight she was out and didn't wake up until we got there. It was lovely.

Moving on from there - Maui - amazing. Seriously. We stayed with the Struzick's in thier villa. The 5 hour time change was not too bad for Molly. We woke up at 6amish pretty consistently which was fine because we always had something to do. Molly loved the beach, mainly chasing the birds on the beach  and just not staying still but she did love it. She asked to go as soon as she woke up everyday. We did a lot of fun things. Most of my extended family came to the wedding so we got to hang out a lot, which was nice. We did some snorkeling, kayaking, went to an aquarium, ate some good meals and just hung out. Somehow going on a vacation with a toddler is nothing like how we vacationed prebaby. We would have just hung out, got some sun, been lazy. None of those things were on our agenda this time. Funny how that happens....

Ohhhh, ahhhh sharks. 

Nothing better than sharing a snow cone with Lolli. Seriously, she ate most of her and then most of mine. She was in heaven.

Family pic at the Aquarium

Doing some serious reading with Pops in the morning.

Just because I can't handle this picture. She is like 10 in this.

OMG that water was cold! Suprised everyone except Danny.

This is a better pic.

No need for a caption here. She was in heaven with Papa and Pops.

Of course the "stink eye" followed us to HI.

Oh this was another thing she liked about the beach, the sand, everywhere. I swear I am still washing sand out of things.

We on a snorkle cruise and learned that M does NOT do well on boats but a Mai Tai seemed to cheer everyone up.

DIVA 

I am kind of hilarious.

This is not a super attractive picture but she went in the water and enjoyed it for about 5 minutes.

So there was a goat farm. She loved it and apparently loved all the goat cheeses. 

She loves her cousin.

A family pic that somehow works.

Proof that we swam with sea turtles.