Aloha- logging in from Hawaii

We are here and settled (as settled as it gets)...
My attitude: 'Minnesota nice meets Hawaiian Hang-loose'... can't get better than this.

Jet lag is almost over but for the fact that I wake up at 4:00 am ... totally loving it, a few hours to myself before kids wake up (hats off to stay-at-home moms, how do you do it?)
I have taken to the old fashioned way of journaling (pen and paper) for the trip so chances are there won't be daily updates but once I get back, I might share some words from my journal... we'll see.

We are staying at the same hotel as we did 2.5 years ago, so familiarity is playing a big role in maneuvering around with two kids. Funny, Divi is almost the same age as Somu was when she was here the last time... I am trying to dig pictures for comparisons.
I have realized that I have photographic memory and I navigated us to a restaurant that we really liked last time but didn't even have a clue about which city it is in... but I kept saying... lets turn right and may be a right again... and there we were... loved the feeling.
We have a little kitchenette in our room ( very helpful with kids) and I am loving making banana-macadamia nut pancakes for breakfast... its fun to shop at local grocery store and farmers market and cook with locally available ingredients...
Getting to know the people and their culture and interact with them... the best part, people often mistake me for a local Hawaiian...
(side story: few years ago, DH and I were sitting in a bar in Wisconsin and two native americans joined us in conversations, they thought I was a native american and when I said I am not, they swore that I should check my ancestral history and I'll find a link... When they found out that I was in school, they offered us both jobs in the local casino. Well I never checked my genealogy but hey! in this world where everybody is trying to find differences and exclude one another if someone can identify with me and is trying to include me as one of them, who the heck am I to complain...)

I like this vacation especially for the fact that there is no agenda, we don't have to rush from one tourist site to the other, kids don't have to take afternoon naps in the car... we might not have all the things that we need and use in our home but its fun making do with little things,... I am not worrying about deadlines at work, the phone calls I should have made before I came or the emails I need to send, all that can wait... right now, all I want to do is ' live in this moment' and soak it all in, may be cause its Hawaii or may be cause I am acutely aware that this too shall pass...
Besides discovering Hawaii, I am re-discovering me... I sit at the lanai (balcony) and watch the sunset and its all so pure, so serene, so beautiful... that I feel like crying... (Thank you God! for letting me experience all this....)

Here are some pictures from our hike to the top of Diamond Head...