Perhaps one of my favorite ways to unwind, to detach myself from the chaos of the world, is to escape on an adventure into a new one. I have always been a lover of books. Ever since I first learned how to read I was hooked. I even remember my very first book report that I made (If You Give A Mouse a Cookie) and have purchased the complete set for my own children. I was a regular customer of the school library and one of the very first things I did after getting a drivers license was getting a library card at the nearest public library.
But that only lasted until I got my first job, at which point I traded in public libraries for used bookstores and have been growing my personal collection over the years. I’ll admit, after getting married and having children, the amount of time I spent reading had dwindled. It seemed as if I never had the time to do it. But now the girls are older and I have grown as well and with that personal growth came the realization that with the time I spent getting lost in the black hole known as social media reels, I could instead take that time and put it back into a hobby I had let fall to the wayside. That’s exactly what I’ve done. I’ve rekindled that love to adventure into a good book. I’m finding myself trade in my phone for my book more and more and that’s honestly how I’d prefer it. Although I’ll admit that now, when I do end up going on social media, I find myself inundated with bookstagrammers posts and have a wish-list that is forever growing longer.
Strangely enough though, what I have found to love the most is that I can now enjoy reading with my husband. We may not read all of the same books, after all we definitely have different interests but we do have some overlapping categories. When I was younger, having a husband who enjoyed reading was not something I really thought about. Sure I loved to read but I didn’t mind if he did not, honestly I hadn’t even considered the alternative. But now we have been reading the Wheel of Time series together (you’ve likely seen them featured in pictures on other posts) and to be honest it feels great to have something we can do together and enjoy. If I think about it, I probably have to give him the credit for getting me back into reading in the first place.
This past month my husband and I had our first kids-free vacation since before the kids were born. We decided to go to Oahu (Waikiki/Honolulu area) and had such and amazing time, if it wasn’t for missing the girls I wouldn’t have wanted to leave. Our time there was so great and we made some fantastic memories. But we also had some lessons learned.
Rental Cars – Lesson Learned
If you are staying in the Waikiki area, then I would not recommend renting a car for your entire trip. For starters we we found out at the hotel that we would need to pay a $50/day parking fee (my fault I should have checked this before booking the rental). Then in the area around our hotel there were city buses with easy to follow and find bus routes that we ended up taking advantage of, if you paid cash you’d have to pay $3 to ride or you could get a day pass for $9, would recommend getting the day pass. Aside from the public transportation there was shuttling offered from the hotel along with many of the tours and in the end we only ended up using our rental car to get to and from the airport (which wasn’t actually needed as the hotel had an airport shuttle) and then for the one day we made a day trip to North shore and drove around the island. My recommendation is to only rent a car for the day you’re planning to use it. Definitely a lesson learned moment.
Where to stay?
If you like the city with beaches and night-life then the Waikiki area is for you. There are an abundance of family-friendly resorts not to mention the beaches. We stayed at the Park Shore and would highly recommend it. There are many different food options with ranging prices and tons of shopping if that is for you. It is only 20 minutes from the airport (watch out during rush hour) and most of the hotels have a shuttle service to and from the hotel. There are also many different activities offered, from snorkeling and surf lessons to parasailing and in the winter months there are also whale watching tours. Not to mention the zoo is within walking distance, it was actually across the street from our hotel. I loved watching the flamingos from my balcony.
Now, as much as we loved our stay in Waikiki. My husband and I are not really into the whole city crowds. On our trip to the North Shore we realized that was more up to our speed. North shore is not a resort area like Waikiki, in fact there is a limited resort/hotel options in the area. But the rural setting was stunning and we really enjoyed our drive along the pineapple fields and the scenic mountains. There was plenty of hiking around and we had so much fun snorkeling at Kuilima Cove and even got to see a sea turtle. The waves were calm and easy to maneuver (this changes during the winter months). My husband even commented about how next time we should stay in the North Shore.
Good Eats!
If you look up places you must eat you will likely see all of these options listed. First off is the Malasada’s from Leonard’s Bakery. These fresh made warm Malasada’s are a delicious Portuguese Fried Doughnut and were so good. You can get the plain ones which remind me of the Romanian pancove that I grew up with. Or my favorite were the filled ones, especially the macadamia cream filled. We also tried the coconut one which was equally delicious.
In the Waikiki area I would also recommend stopping by the Barefoot Beach cafe. Its a small little cafe right on the beach with outdoor seating. The food was fantastic and their pineapple smoothie was so good! Vintage Island Coffee also had one of the best breakfasts and their coffee was delicious, I really need to find a copycat MacNut Latte recipe.
In the north shore you will find Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck. I head a few people recommend I stop there and they were NOT wrong. Their garlic shrimp was amazing. In the area is also the Dole Plantation, if for nothing else you should go there to get their Dole pineapple soft serve or the soft serve float. Anyone who knows me knows I am not a fruits person but I have to say that I had so much pineapple or pineapple flavored things on this trip, get them!
As life, school and work goes by time can get away from you and when you have a 5 year old and a 3 year old, sometimes your patience and clarity can also get away from you. As a parent you want to teach your children, to help them grow and to create memories that will last them a life time. When my girls asked to go to a splash park, something that they have never experienced before, I knew that I wanted to make this happen for them. So on a day that I actually had off I let them choose between going to the splash park or the playground and they chose the splash park, as I expected. So we all got ready, everyone was excited, and we drove to our local community splash pad. It was a new environment for all of us, with a large playground and a huge outdoor splash area that was full of kids, as would be expected on such a hot day.
Well, things did not go as planned. Where I was expecting them to immediately jump right in and have fun I was instead met with frozen statues. My oldest who loves to climb said that she didn’t like the playground because it was just climbing stuff and no slides and my youngest who loves water refused to go anywhere near the splash pad. They were frozen in a state of shyness with frowns on their faces that honestly aggravated me. I finally had a day off and was able to do something that they have been wanting but they were not cooperating. I tried to encourage them to go into it, even carried them into the splash pad and slowly getting them wet, played with them which they enjoyed and laughed at but as soon as I tried to let them play amongst themselves or go interact with other kids they froze. When encouragement didn’t work I told them we would go back home but they would cry that they didn’t want to (I don’t blame them) but they still refused to move an inch and just stood frozen. I was getting frustrated and neither of us were getting any joy out of the situation.
Honestly, I was upset and felt like the whole purpose of my taking them out was a failure. I wanted to show them a new place and let them have new experiences and meet new people but they were having none of it. Nothing I tried worked to get them to go have fun. They complained about there being too many kids. Complained about the equipment. And refused to go to anywhere near the water. I honestly wanted to just pack things up and go back home but I took a breath and then asked them if they wanted to go to our usual playground instead and they immediately perked up. So I packed them back up in the car and we went on our way.
The drive towards our usual playground I was thinking about the situation. I was frustrated with the whole outcome while simultaneously worried about whether I was failing them in some way. Since I homeschool I worried that maybe I haven’t been giving them enough socialization with other kids, even though I know that they have plenty of interaction with other kids and normally make new friends very easily. We got to our usual playground and they cheered. We get to the playground and it was like they were completely different children. They ran and played. They introduced themselves to other kids who were there and started to play games together. It was nothing like what we had experienced earlier.
That was when I realized that while I am older and understand the joy and excitement of trying new things or visiting new places for them everything is new, and new can be scary. Having a new environment in addition to a gaggle of new people and kids was too much and was overwhelming. I heavily suspect that if there had been even 1 other person or child they knew there then they would have warmed up to the environment eventually. But having both the environment and the people being strange was overwhelming and frightening. But when we went to the playground they were used to, even if there were still other children they didn’t know there, the environment was familiar so they felt safer.
Making memories for our children is something we want to do as parents, but when things don’t go the way we expect them to, we get frustrated and discouraged when what we need to do is take a step back. Take a deep breath and assess the situation and listen to what our children are telling us, which will not always be through verbal communication. It was really a learning experience for me and will be something I know I will need to continue to work at. Just because a plan or a day didn’t go the way you wanted or expected it to doesn’t mean it was a failure. The failure would have been if I had let that frustration in that moment actually ruin the outing and come home instead of changing plans and going somewhere that they wanted to go to and enjoy.
Little Piece of Quiet 