San Francisco

4 May 2016

Alternative title: The Time We Got Robbed In Front of the Painted Ladies.

We stopped over in San Francisco for a few days on our way to Hawaii. When I saw that SF was our connecting city to Honolulu, I had this grand idea of stopping there for a few days to explore a new-to-us city and also to let our kids adjust to the time change halfway (because no one wants to be up at 3 am with two babies who think it’s 7am…even in paradise).

Looooooooong story (so long) short, we were just going to take the train downtown to our hotel, but it was shut down due to a fire, and a rental car ended up being cheaper than a round-trip cab ride (and so much easier with the combined ~180lbs of car seats/backpacks/suitcases/babies we had already lugged all over creation just to find out that the train was shut down), so we changed our plan and rented a car.

Our very first stop on our first morning was the Painted Ladies (pictured below, pre-robbery, our kids are not impressed)…
We decided to let the kids play at the playground there for about 5-10 minutes, so while I walked over to the park with them, my husband ran our bags, camera, and his wallet back to the rental car. We returned a few minutes later to a smashed window and no bags. THANK GOD he hadn’t put the camera or his wallet back in the bags!!! They were still there.

But, do you know what WAS in the bags? My wallet. All of my IDs. Both of the kids’ birth certificates and immunization records. All of the diapers and what-not I had packed for us to not have to buy any more until Hawaii. My nice (expensive) diaper bag. Stuff that could be replaced…but really, really annoying stuff that just made it all feel really violating. Also, an iPad and a bunch of other random things, but I gladly would have let them have the iPad just to have them leave the other stuff (like my IDs…). I was supposed to be getting on a plane to Hawaii in less than 48 hours and now had no form of identification for myself.

Soooo, the second day, we just crammed a whole BUNCH of stuff in! We hiked around Golden Gate Park a bit, drove over to Sausalito, drove to Muir Woods (Redwoods!), drove down the “crookedest street in America”, walked all over Chinatown (bought some little shoes for Chloe for “only five dolla!” 😉 ), walked to Union Square, took a cable car quite a ways and walked back to the hotel, seeing several miles of SF on foot. Day two was good, even it did start with the button popping off of my (only) pair of pants and the local coffee barista giving us small coffees after we paid for larges and not making it right…all water under the [Golden Gate] bridge. 😉

Obviously I didn’t leave you wondering whether or not I got through TSA with no ID since you already know I made it to Hawaii! This kind of stuff happens all the time to people, so they’re prepared. They separated me from my husband so that he couldn’t “coach” my answers, and the agent called a number and that unidentified person asked me questions that only I should know about my life. Like my last five addresses (NBD, since we’re military and we lived in 5 states in 20 months…ayiyi). Anyway, I apparently provided sufficient answers, so I got to finish off my very pleasant SF experience with an extremely thorough pat-down and searching of my belongings. BUT I GOT THROUGH…and got the heck out of SF, so that’s all that matters. 😀 😀 😀

It took about eight weeks, but we finally have all of the IDs, debit cards, birth certificates and insurance stuff taken care of and replaced.

What a very expensive layover that ended up being…and I didn’t even get to go to Britex! 😀

Hawaii

3 May 2016

Makapu’u Point | Waimanalo, HI

This is our second winter in Chicago, and we got smart about surviving old man winter here in the north. In January, we took a lesson from the locals and went south for a couple of weeks…to the middle of the Pacific!

This was the first time my husband or I had been to Hawaii and we have really good friends stationed there (the guys went to Navy dive school together and graduated in the same class a year and a half ago). They have kids the same age as ours and an awesome guest room in Kane’ohe (which honestly ended up being my favorite area of the whole island).

Unfortunately, even though we stayed with them for a week and a half, we didn’t get any photos of the adults together–my guess is we were slightly busy with the four kids aged two and under. 😉

This is an extremely photo-heavy post, but I took a break from social media on this trip, so it’s the first time I’m sharing any of them publicly. I won’t narrate too much, so enjoy the photos of beautiful O’ahu! (Mostly phone photos, sorry for quality!)

Kalama Beach | Kailua, HI

Haleiwa, HI (Oahu’s North Shore – where the big surf is)

Waimea Valley | Haleiwa, HI

The tiny specks at the bottom of the waterfall are my husband and his friend. We hiked to this waterfall and the guys/toddlers went swimming.

The Ko’olau Range is incredibly breathtaking to drive through and around. No photo can possibly do them justice! (Also–I felt like I was on LOST, which, as it turns out, was filmed at the ranch pictured above.)

We drove the northwestern perimeter of the island one afternoon after visiting Haleiwa.

We stopped at a roadside stand to buy mango otai (and it was AMAZING!).

Haleiwa, HI

Green World Coffee Farm | Wahiawa, HI (^those are coffee beans!)

Lanikai Park | Kailua, HI

Lanikai Pillboxes Trail, Kai’wa Ridge | Kailua, HI

We did a lot of hiking (my favorite activity). This series of photos is from the Lanikai Pillboxes Trail. There are two WWII bunkers along the top of the ridge (the graffiti’d structures). This was definitely the best view of any of our hikes.

Likeke Falls Hike | Kane’ohe, HI

Pu’u Pia Trail | Honolulu, HI

Waikiki | Honolulu, HI

There is a military resort in Waikiki, so we stayed there for two nights to get the “Waikiki experience” (whatever that is exactly with two babies!). My favorite part was hanging with the insane number of Japanese tourists (Japan isn’t so far away from there, after all!). We ate ramen with them and then wandered into a food truck area to get shave ice, which, as it turns out, was marketed toward the Japanese tourists as their flavor of the day was adzuki bean (supposedly tastes like baked beans). I really enjoyed the small experience of their culture as I want to one day be stationed in Japan (c’mon Big Navy!).

Chinatown | Honolulu, HI

Koko Crater Railway Trail | Honolulu, HI

This trail was my favorite hike as far as challenge goes (I like a challenge). It’s an old WWII railway-turned-hiking-trail, involving a little more than 1,100 “steps” (the old railroad ties) up the side of the volcano. The line running up the side in the above photo is the trail. It was quite steep and a lot of the steps were about knee-height, so it was a bit like stepping onto a chair 1,100 times. Ha! The view was worth it.

Honolulu from the top of Koko Crater Trail

Going down was quite steep–especially when you have a kid strapped to you (I had one on my front, which allows the same visibility of your footing as being 9 months pregnant, haha)!

Bellows Field Beach Park | Waimanalo, HI (possibly one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen)

I am so incredibly grateful that we had the opportunity to take this trip to visit our friends! Grateful that we escaped the northern winter for a couple of weeks. Grateful that my husband is at a brief stretch in his career where he could take time off like this. Grateful that the Navy has scattered us and all of our friends across the globe so that we can visit each other in new and exciting places. We are so fortunate!