Hawaii Trip - Pearl Harbor and Honolulu Zoo

Oh boy! I didn't know driving around a tiny island could take so long and so much of your day! We did a lot of driving the day we landed, but I figured that was due to rush hour traffic...nope. Traffic on this island is just awful...all.the.time!

Cute morning family picture :)

So today's plan was the zoo, antique shop, Pearl Harbor, and antique shop. Then come home. all those were on the other side of the island so we figured we'd hit them all up in one day. It was Larry's idea to look at the antique shops. I was surprised, but I kind of love making that part of our vacations since we started it in St. George last year.

To start the day off (another early day, thanks to me again...why won't by body sleep in?!), we had another wonderful breakfast at the buffet, Cara ate food really well, was extra giggly, and we got to give her some new fruits to try (we let her try the leftover papaya from the skin which she loved and some strawberries and other fruits from the buffet). We started giving her foods from our plates (just little bites) and she's been loving trying our foods. In fact, I think she looks forward to meal time so she can try different foods from our plates haha. Did I mention yet that traveling with kids is almost way more fun than by ourselves!

We headed out to the zoo and got there around 10 AM. It's a pretty small zoo, but they had a petting farm with goats area. That was so much fun! There was a lady who knew each goat and she was telling us little fun things about them. Like how one let me pet him and kind of relaxed a bit and she said "that means he wants his belly rubbed", so I did and he totally opened it up so I could rub more for him. They were so sweet, I could've stayed for hours. They even came up to Cara so she could touch them. she only did for a second, but it was awesome. They also had this koi pond type area with REALLY large fish. Like as big as Cara. It was cool to put her up to the aquarium to that!

I look like I'm screaming, but really
I was excited and trying to smile...

I had NO idea Koi got THIS big
They were as big as Cara!

Such a good daddy!

I was disappointed they didn't have any bears and their komodo dragon didn't come out at all, but we still got to see a good chunk of animals. Cara started to look so bored (but cute) so I took a couple pictures of her looking bored and the second I stopped she got this cute smile all of a sudden. Almost like a "no mom, this is fun, I swear I'm having fun!" haha. We ended up going to the gift shop after we were done and I finally found a sun hat for Cara. It is so precious! I wanted to get her so many things, but had to remember we didn't really have room in our bags so I had to keep it minimal (I only got the hat and a book and then a shirt for my brother to continue our "buy him a funny shirt to say thank you for taking care of our animals" tradition).

Petting zoos are my favorite!!

Literally right after I took this picture
Cara smiled. Didn't change position, just
Smiled. SO adorable (but I missed taking
The picture)

After the zoo we had enough time to get a quick bite to eat and go to Pearl Harbor. We ended up showing up like 2 minutes after our "tour" time, so they gave me their last two tickets for the next tour. My only complaint about how they run it over there is you can't bring ANY bags into the place (not even diaper bags) so you HAVE to pay to check them...THAT was annoying. But I grabbed my go pro and we checked the bag (luckily Cara was freshly changed and fed so we didn't really need it) and went on. We watched the movie you have to watch before going onto the shuttle boat, which I loved. It was interesting seeing clips from back then and see how crazy that time was. Cara even did pretty well..until the last 5 minutes when she started spitting and screaming "mamamamama" (in a joke type way) which was awkward because they tell you in the beginning it's disrespectful to talk during the movie...whoops! After that you load up onto the boat and they shuttle you to the walkway that's been built over the USS Arizona. It's kind of creepy to go on that and look down to see a boat that has all these dead bodies still stuck in it. But it's so peaceful and quiet too...very serene (I'm sure it's haunted for sure and would hate to go there at night!)

The view from lunch near Pearl Habor

As we were in line to head back to the island Cara started to get really really giggly and we realized it was past her nap time. She kept laughing at me saying hi to her, it was too cute and funny! This is when we discovered Cara gets delirious when she's sleepy and starts acting goofy...I kind of love it! When we got back to the island I wanted to do more (they had a museum, gift shop, memorial walk way, battleship, and a submarine to see), but since Cara was sleepy and Larry hates doing those things (I do end up usually dragging him to them) we decided to call it quits and head back. We decided Cara could sleep in the car while we drove around looking for the antique shops we found online, but unfortunately one of the shops didn't have parking ANYWHERE near it and the other shop didn't seem to really exist (we showed up at the address, but we didn't see it anywhere near by). So we had to scratch that plan and head back to the hotel. On THAT drive Cara woke up and was getting cranky for some food so I hopped in the back to feed her (to avoid having to pull over and feed her outside the car or anything) and for some reason she was REALLY giggly then too. She kept laughing (like from her gut, really very entertained type of laughing) whenever I'd look at her, which would make me laugh a lot, which made her laugh more. I called it our "giggle off". I think she was just desperate for human interaction or something at this point (she slept a lot today, but was either in the stroller, car seat, or a carrier for most of the day). It was too funny and I wish I had recorded it because those laughs were the cutest!

On the shuttle to the Memorial

On the Memorial, you can see the ship on the left side

these giggles though!!

As we drove our long drive back to the hotel I started to notice a ton of houses were just on cinderblock stilts. It didn't look very safe, but a lot of people parked their cars in these spots and I kept thinking "what if someone hit that or came home drunk or something...your whole house would be history. So Larry and I started talking about the houses and joking about it. Larry made some joke about if someone wanted revenge and brought a sledge hammer to the house and started hitting at them and one of the people living there would have to say "oh crap honey, we only have like 3 hits left before that corner is history!" I laughed and laughed! Even though today didn't go as planned (we didn't get to see antique shops, the zoo was pretty dead, and we were late AND had to pay to check our bag at Pearl Harbor), it was still such a good day for memories.

Cute little sunhat we found that finally fit her!

Yummiest dinner!

The only other drawback to today is we've learned Cara LOVES straws, she loves to try and eat them, she likes to play with them, she just lights up when we give her straws. Well we let her play with one in her car seat as we were driving and she accidentally stabbed her face and cut her little cheek with the straw today so we had to take it away and console our sad baby. Poor little girlie :(

After all that driving we figured Cara could really use some wiggle time so we ordered room service for dinner and just vegged out in the room. It has probably been my favorite night because it was just so chill. I know I've already said it, but this vacation rocks so far! And now that Cara has eaten and is asleep it's time for me to sleep as well (since apparently sleeping in is just NOT going to happen here!).