Tired Kids in Hawaii

While we were in Hawaii, the kids did fairly well the first few days without any of the regular afternoon naps. But it caught up to them eventually.

In the meantime, we had lots of fun on Saturday first going to the old Kaluakoi hotel and watching the surfers . . .

. . . then going to to the lookout before dropping Grandma, Papa, Jessie, and Daniel off at the airport (they were heading over to Oahu 1 day early).

Someone fit right in as a tourist . . . .

 While at the lookout, Constance discovered a long twisted stick and recruited it to defend herself from spiders. I don't think she actually saw any spiders but the story and the stick were believable.

 We visited my Dad again that afternoon and confirmed plans for church the next day. He got a phone call while we were there so we went outside in the yard while he he took care of his very important business.

It's funny but I don't really miss the small red house I grew up in. . . (I slept on the floor, the water heater only worked for 20 minutes at a time, there were one too many windows in the bathroom and all of them in the wrong places, my room was the gateway to the backyard . . . )

. . . but I do miss the yard. I remember all the weeding, picking, raking, transporting of horse manure, and digging of compost holes that went into preparing the ground for those fruit trees. I remember faithfully watering those trees, weeding around them, and dreaming of the day when I could taste eggfruit, oranges, strawberry quava, avocado, mountain apple, longon, lychee, fig, jaboticaba, and sapote. I've only tasted a few of those since I left the island over a decade ago and my dad has been the only one around when the trees started fruiting.
He just lets the fruit fall on the ground.
I scold him every time I visit.

 I mean, look at that. The yard is basically a fruit orchard!

The banana patch is in the backyard and it's still going pretty well.
Ah, that's the other thing I really miss about Hawaii: apple bananas! They are smaller than regular bananas, firmer, and have a lighter taste.

Then there's the old water catchment. It was my mom's plan to collect all the water off the house roof and store it in that huge tank then use the rain water for household needs. She even bought a thousand-dollar water pump to pump the water through the house pipes. That thousand dollar pump is still sitting underneath the house unused and probably rusting.
There's also a compost toilet under the house that is no longer used.
Yep, it was an adventure living there.

 That building behind the guava tree used to be the chicken coop. Now it is a surfboard-making shed.

But enough about the historic house and yard . . . .
The next morning we woke up bright and early to go to church. Dad decided not to join us even though we offered him a ride, because his cut "bled a drop" the night before. It was just as well. The kids were grumpy enough waking up in time to drive straight to the church building in Kaunakakai.

 We got through the first hour of church with lots of screaming and taking Constance out into the hall. We were all tired and it was definitely catching up to us. So we went and said goodbye to my Dad then drove back to the West End to put everyone down for a nice long nap before we left for the airport.

Tom and I even snuck in a little rest as well . . . and then we felt much better about life.
Finally, one afternoon in Hawaii where we just sat on a comfy couch and relaxed.