Drinking the Air on His Birthday

As we stepped off the plane, our birthday boy said "I didn't know that when we got to Hawaii I would be drinking the air. I never thought of humidity that way, but it makes sense to me. I think his birthday was both fun (Denny's for breakfast! And we're in Hawaii!) and long ( 6 hour flight, 2 hours in the airport, 1 hour drive to find our rental... So glad that we're here and get to spend tropical time with the kids.

In spite of my best efforts to make sure that we missed our flight (like taking far too long to get ready for the airport, and leaving my cell phone in our hotel room that we had just checked out of, having to go back to the front desk to get a new room key...) we still managed to catch our flight, with about 5 minutes to spare: we arrived at our gate just in time to hear them announce final boarding for our flight. The flight was long, about 6 hours with a half an hour delay in getting started. But Norman still behaved like an absolute gem, and was relatively fuss free for the entire flight.  We landed pretty hungry, and so we quickly grabbed our rental car and headed to The Big Kahuna pizza place, for their infamous garlic cheese balls.  The were worth the trip:~)

Birthday swim gloves, amongst other gifts.

Now he can swim like a duck; our dreams are slowly, but surely coming true

My buddies on the plane.

When Annie tired of me, she headed over to her siblings.

Not thirty seconds (okay not five minutes) after our flight landed, Ryan found a beautiful, fragrant lei for me, even with purple flowers to match my outfit. Only one word for a gesture like that: Ro.man.tic!