Bridgette turned 8 earlier this year, on February 20th, and as always, her birthday fell on mid-winter break at school. It’s hard to plan a birthday party when most of her friends have travel plans that week so for the past few years, we’ve also traveled to celebrate her birthday.
This year, her mid-winter break happened to fall on the same week as Chinese New Year, which meant Brianne also had the week off. Mimi and I couldn’t let this opportunity slide, and decided to meet up in Hawaii. It would be an all girls’ trip with just the 4 of us, and we promised to do as minimal planning as possible so that we wouldn’t be pressured in trying to make dinner reservations or excursion times. It would be a truly relaxing trip where we could be as spontaneous as we like!
We stayed in Honolulu the first few days, and didn’t do much except eat, swim, and swim some more. The girls’ brought their new favorite game, Monopoly Deal, with them, and we probably played a few hundred rounds of that game during the duration of our trip. I actually quite like the game and found it much more challenging than Candy Land or Connect Four. 🙂
We stayed at the Outrigger Reef Hotel right by the beach, which was decent, but the pool felt a bit too small.
Mimi did sign us up for a snorkeling excursion since she really wanted to scuba dive. Unfortunately, we ended up with an awful company and the overall experience was very disappointing. They overpacked the boat so we were all like sardines, and Mimi was put in the same group as the inexperienced divers so she barely got any time in the water. As for the girls and I, we were stuck on the boat 99% of the time while watching those inexperienced divers get certified. In the end, they let the girls go into the water for all of 5 minutes before declaring that the currents were too strong for them to stay.
Needless to say, the girls were much happier when we got back to the resort’s swimming pool!
After a few fun days in Honolulu, we packed our bags and drove an hour north to Turtle Bay Resort for the remainder of our trip. When we were offered a convertible upgrade for only an extra $20, I couldn’t resist! 🙂
Turtle Bay is a special place for us because it was where we took the girls on their very first trip, at just 10 months old. Ofcourse, the girls had no recollection of that trip, but being there again definitely brought back sweet memories for Mimi and I…
One reason we came back to this resort is because we remembered how much we loved their pools. The girls wasted no time diving right in while Mimi and I ordered a poolside lunch to enjoy together.
It felt really awesome to not have any agenda. The girls were allowed to swim as long as they wanted, while Mimi and I just chatted and read from our kindles. When we wanted a break from the pool, we would go back to the room to play monopoly deal, or find a place around the resort to hang out. We sometimes dined at the resort, and other times ventured out in the North Shore area to try something else.
For one full day, we were at the beach just lounging, swimming, building sand castles, and playing monopoly deal.
Part II. coming up…
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