Tuesday June 2
Oh look! Space Goo and Hula!
Quick note on the Iwa- on the cover it describes the photography class. DH signed up for this for Thursday. I think it was this day he signed up, but we were in and out of the Photopass station so many times I really can't say.
The kids woke up at 6:15 and therefore, so did we. We had some cereal for breakfast with our old pals Chip, Dale and Gadget. The plan for the morning is Matt and I have surf lessons while DH and Kate hang at the resort. This means I have to relinquish control to DH to sign everyone up for our activities. EEK!!! I prepared a sticky note with directions. Really, he is a very competent man and it isn't exactly hard. It was a control thing. I gave him way too many instructions and at 7:00 he and Kate headed down to the line. He said he was again about 15th. I asked him if he chatted with people in line and he looked at me like I had 4 heads. "No. It was a bunch of Dads. We don't chat." I also asked him if there were people with deck chairs and he said no. I guess it was a totally different crowd! He was shocked at how long the line got and agreed 7:00 was the right time to head down. He signed the kids up for dinner and Aunty's Aloha Party. Then he headed over to the Pua Hauna room to return the movies and sign us up for the Animation Class. He really does not like the animation classes at
Disneyland so this was purely for me- what a guy!
Matt and I headed downstairs at 7:15. We used
Surf HNL because they would give lessons to 4 year olds. Last summer in San Diego, he loved watching the surfers and declared he wanted to take lessons. I told him he had to pay attention at swim lessons and maybe we could do it in Hawaii. He needed a few reminders about good swim lesson behavior
throughout the year, but he made great progress so I signed him up. Kids under a certain age have to have private lessons and I signed up for a private lesson too. I have always wanted to take surf lessons, but I was pretty unsure how it would go. Frankly, I wondered if I was too fat to surf. I had hoped to lose 30-40 lbs for Aulani and I lost 5. Oh well, what can you do? You know, besides diet and exercise. I figured I would give it a shot and see how it went.
Practicing by the elevator
Thos was my first time driving so I took a few minutes to get familiar with the car. My phone was also having battery issues. We had forgotten the car charger and my phone would only hold a battery for a little while. I was concerned with using it for directions so I wrote down the directions back in the room. Once I got off the highway, I then turned on the navigation to guide me the rest of the way. This worked out pretty well. You meet at a campground which was a little tricky to find and then when we pulled into the campground, I was unsure where to go. I drove in a circle and realized I missed the turn. As I backed up, I got stuck in the sand. Luckily, it was only about 10 seconds, but I was freaking out! I decided to just park and we would walk to the surf van. There were only a few campsites being used and it looked like those people probably lived there. We were surprised by the large number of homeless people on the island. Not a bad place to live I guess, but we just weren't expecting that.
We found the van and introduced ourselves. I was given a rash guard and Matt was given a wet suit. We were a little early so we hung out a bit while they set up. As we waited a dad and his son who was 8 arrived and just the boy was doing the lesson. The Dad already knew how to surf and was excited to watch his son learn. We saw them later at Aulani!
Surfer selfie
We each had our own instructor and there was a girl taking photos. We bought the photo package so these pictures are from that. I brought the Go Pro and then didn't use it- other than that selfie!
We spent about 10 minutes on land practice how to paddle and pop up. I started to realize I was probably not going to be able to pop up fast enough to make this work. You have to get your knees under you and my boobs and fat were making that basically impossible. I am not sure my instructor knew exactly what to say to help me. I tried to swing my knee around the boobs, but I could not do so without picking up my hand. Of course, i was too embarrassed to ask for advice, but not to tell you guys somehow.
So we head on out to the water. Paddling out was super hard! We rode the waves for about 45 minutes. Matt had no trouble because a- he's 4 and limber and b- he was going tandem. I on the other hand.... well, I never got up. I started to feel sort of nauseous from the bouncing on the waves. I am prone to sea sickness but I didn't think to take any Dramamine. I pushed myself as far as I could and ended up riding the last wave in on my knees. I am not at all disappointed that we did this though. I don't blame HNL for me not getting up. Every time I had to prop on me knee, I fell because I had to take my leg around the side of my boobs. If I was in better shape, I think it would have been easier. I am really glad I experienced it (sorta). Matt LOVED it and was smiling the whole time. That in itself was worth it for sure!
Yep, this is where it always fell apart
I was hoping to track down Leonard's Malasada truck on the way back as a surprise, but it was a little further than I had thought, so we just headed straight to the resort. We got some Malasadas from Ulu Cafe instead and they were pretty good. While we were surfing, DH took Kate to the Infinity Pool. He said the water was freezing but she refused to get out. She was not interested in the Splash Pad at all. He tried to get her to go in the hot tub, but she said it was too hot.
They ran across a Photopass photographer with a Go Pro taking pictures. You add these to your account the same way you add the Aunty's ones. You have to go to the shop and tell them about what time the pictures were taken and look through and find yours. It is pretty easy.
He did not bring her goggles, which I would have thought would have been fine, but her eyes got bright red and swollen. Have you read that article that says it is not chlorine, but pee that irritates your eyes in the pool? EW gross!! I also thought the pools were salt water... so the pee theory makes sense, but she was pretty miserable by the time I got back and DH felt awful. I told him not to be so hard on himself, Mary Ingalls went blind and had a good life. It took a couple hours for her eyes to fully recover and she still talks about that time in Hawaii with Daddy (she always remembers who the culprit was- ha ha) that she got the owie eyes.
I am sure I will have more questions....but I cannot wait to read more. Thank you for sharing =)
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We just left our stuff on a chair buried in the bottom of the bag. Really though, you don't need to carry cash or ID- your room card is all you need. We also have 
I was working on it for like 45 minutes! Argh!!!!! Okay... once I regroup, I hope to update later today!
