Playing Tourist

This past weekend we played tourist, and we stayed down on that small but very famous stretch of sand -- Waikiki Beach. Although many tourists who come to the island never leave Waikiki, we've found that we hardly ever go, since we live here. There are more than a few reasons: the traffic into "town" is almost always horrific, parking is a hassle, it is, after all, packed with tourists, and we live closer to the famed (and yet more laidback) North Shore. But Jim's unit had a formal ball for a welcome home celebration at a swanky hotel on Monday night, so we decided we'd take the opportunity to be tourists ourselves!

We learned an important lesson, though: our little family isn't really at the stage where staying in one room is a very good idea. Because we were worried that Madeline might wake Kathleen, I picked her up for almost every little peep, and so she was up a lot at night. And Kathleen is so inquisitive and so busy that it's a little challenging to put her down to sleep in a hotel room. She's just convinced that she'll miss something fun, so she can't really be bothered to try to sleep. At home we hardly ever have trouble getting Kathleen to bed. We have a little routine with some stories, some milk, and some singing, we say a little prayer, put her in her crib, kiss her good night and walk out the door. Since we couldn't walk out the door at the hotel, we settled for hanging out in the bathroom! We sat on the edge of the bathtub until we thought she'd be asleep, and then we'd (quietly) reclaim our hotel room. We thought we were a little crazy until we ran into the parents of another toddler at breakfast. They'd done almost the same thing! So, if we're crazy, at least we're the kind of crazy brought on by parenthood!

Despite our sleep challenges, we had a great weekend. We all got a chance to relax a bit.

Kathleen loves to swim, and she had a ball testing out the hotel's different swimming pools.

Another highlight for Kathleen: the penguins and turtles living right at the hotel. I don't know how a hotel comes to have penguins and turtles, but we sure loved visited them. We stopped by a couple times a day each day we were there!

And a random first for Madeline: her first stroller ride. Normally Madeline rides around in a sling or the beco baby carrier, but that can get a little challenging with wet swimsuits and such. We'd brought the stroller more for Kathleen, but discovered that Madeline was quite happy to lounge in it, watching her sister play.

(And, as a side note, although I've complained for months about not being able to figure out how to recline that little stroller, Jim looked at it for about two seconds and figured it out. Honestly, how did we survive without him?)

Mama and Daddy had lots of fun at the ball, and the girls had lots of fun staying up in the room with our friend Sarah while Mama and Daddy ate and danced and enjoyed grown-up conversations. We owe a HUGE thank you to Sarah for a truly stress-free night. And, for the record, friends, I'm not holding out on you -- although I took my camera to the ball, I failed to take even one photo! So, no pictures of the grown-ups. Sorry.

On Tuesday we headed home. Our adventure was fun, but exhausting. I think this picture says it all: