Aulani Trip--Day 3 (Saturday)

Another good, but long day. Deke woke up at 2:30am, and didn't go back to sleep, so we had to entertain him all night because he wouldn't even sit still due to the jet lag. He was just UP. Piper got up at 6:30am, and I had to wake Fletch at 7:15am because we just couldn't handle hanging around the room with Deke anymore.

We got breakfast at the quick service cafe, and then picked up our rental minivan. We drove to Waimea Valley Park on the other side of the island, about 40 minutes away. Thankfully, Deke slept the whole way there. Unfortunately, when we got there, he didn't want to get up, so he was extremely cranky. The park has a 0.75-mile walk up to a waterfall, going through botanic gardens and archaeological sites. And yesterday, they had a special annual hula festival (we didn't even know until we got there) and had discounted prices to get in.

The walk up, while less than a mile, was extremely painful though becuse Deke basically cried and screamed and whined the entire time. It was a really nice walk though, with some interesting sites to see along the way.

We finally got up to the falls, after watching part of a hula show, and it was really cool. They had lifejackets and lifeguards so you could swim at the base of the falls. The water was really cold though, and it was rocky getting in, so Deke didn't like it. He and I got in for a second, and then we just hung out on land while Eric and P&F swam.

After that, we got some shaved iced, walked back down, and Deke was in a much better mood. We ate lunch there, and then got back in the car.

We attempted to go to a few beaches to snorkel, but the waves were unusually high today so they weren't allowing swimming, so we just took pictures.

By that point, the kids were getting restless, so we drove back toward the hotel. Got back there, and made the kids dinner in our room, and then went back out to go swimming at night, partially because it's fun and in part to keep Deke awake longer.

That was really fun. We swam for about 45 minutes, and then we all came back to the room, put the kids to bed, and Eric and I ate dinner and watched TV and then all went to bed.