Hawaii Travel Day

The Stewart family vacation this year was on the North Shore of Oahu.  When we got home from Hawaii and people asked how the vacation was, I said, "On the whole it was just pretty magical."

Of course, any kind of traveling can be stressful and hectic and there was some of that mixed in but I just loved the opportunity to be with my whole family, together for a week.

The cousins all played so well together throughout the week and you could see the bonding taking place before our eyes.  I loved stealing moments to read a book, such a rarity for me these days!  And there were plenty of people willing to hold my babies and lots of family to talk with nonstop.

We enjoyed seeing Eleanor light up over going to the beach and watching her finally overcome her phobia of sand.  She was making sandcastles like a pro!

We sunscreened ourselves religiously all week and avoided all sun burns (a Hawaii miracle!).  And Aaron and I even got several moments to ourselves, which is always my favorite part of vacation.

Each family traded off making dinners while mixing in stops to the food trucks here and there.  We had garlic shrimp and fish tacos and yummy pineapples.

There was even a moment where we had all the little girls dressed up in Hawaiian skirts doing the hula. There is not much better than seeing little 2 year olds doing the hula.

I've scratched my head over how to share all the pictures I took.  In the end, I decided that I might as well just share them all because I want to have them saved here for memory sake.  So I'm going to group them by category and post them separately.  Bear with me.

So here's our travel day!  A 5 hour flight is no small thing with lots of kids in tow but all the adults worked together, trading off kids and doing laps in the aisles so it all worked out.

 ^^Look at those two exhausted two year olds!  Such troopers.  We were on the shuttle bus to pick up the rental cars.

We got the rental cars and drove 45 minutes to the North Shore where we stayed all week. This house was pretty dreamy.  I loved the original artwork and antique furniture scattered throughout the house along with the gorgeous hardwood floors.

Little Wheezy passed out on the lounge chairs from the tiring travel day.  She picked up quickly on the whole "relaxing" vibe that a Hawaii trip inspires.

Ford and I spent lots of time nursing in this room over the course of the week...

After settling in that first day, we hit the food trucks for some dinner.

And Ford, who usually needs his crib to fall asleep in, just conked out in my arms mid dinner.  I think we were all pretty tired that day!