Just know up front that I am ok. LOL !!!! My sister and DD loved it and had a blast. That made me soooooo happy.

Many of you know about our trip to Hawaii, http://youlookfab.com/welookfa.....alaskagirl

Well, it has been 3.5 weeks since we left and we have been back for almost a week. My son and husband ended up not going. My son, who is on the autism spectrum, had a complete meltdown at boarding ( even with medication ) and just couldn't get on. It was awful. They finally had to close the plane's door. Alaska Air were angels about it. I sat on the plane with my sister and daughter in the next row and I tried not to cry. Then the wonderful woman seated next to me reached over, took my hand, and said, " I am so sorry. This has to be so hard for you. " Then we talked and her husband joined in and then another man two rows up traveling with his daughter turned around and also said he was very sad for us. Then he talked about how difficult it must be for my daughter. They were just fantastic. I soon realized that I had expected too much of my son. We already had been up since 5 am and we wouldn't arrive in HI until 6 am the next morning. What was I thinking ?

He and my husband ended up having a great time together alone for the first time. They even visited a war ship on the same day that we visited Pearl Harbor. Though it was packed with Japanese tourists who kept touching my butt by accident and then bow and apologize profusely and then I bowed back to one man and head butted him...oh.my.god.

My husband and son's luggage was checked so then I had to contend with FIVE checked bags, one 11 year old and a disabled sister when we got to HI.

Oahu was just NUTS ! I had no idea that Oahu has almost 1 million people on it and that 5 million visited last year. There was tons of construction and tourists EVERYWHERE. What normally should have been a 15 - 20 minute drive to Honolulu from the place we stayed, took 45 - 70 minutes the 3 times we went to the city. It felt like Boston at rush hour. Our drive to the beach where Hawaii Five-0 was filmed was horrible too. Getting around was plain crazy in general. I was also getting up every morning at 2:30 am to keep my sister on her EST med schedule . Then she would be up at 6 am and wake me. I was just soooo tired the entire time. Sometimes I couldn't go back to sleep.

But we persevered and went to the fantastic places that Una had told me about : Kailua Beach, the town of Kailua, the Pali highway ( spectacular ) , Diamond head, and so on.

Then two days before we left, on the day that DD was to go snorkeling, she and my sister woke up at 11 pm and 1 am respectively and started throwing up. It went on for hours. The two of them in bed with me and me in the middle trying to comfort them and keep my sister's epilepsy meds ( 3 of them ) down. When they fell asleep the next afternoon, I had bedrooms, stairwells, clothes, towels and linens to clean up from the "happenings". I got them settled, hydrated and they were feeling better the next day and then I got it. It turned out the Oahu was still on high alert for the flu and we all caught it ! ( Though thank God I didn't get sick til a couple of days after them. ) So we missed our flight and there were no seats available for us for 4 days, which meant that my daughter missed a full week of school after her Spring vacation. Again, we were lucky, there was a family of six that got stuck there for an additional 6 days after they missed their flights. We also got lucky that the house we were in didn't have occupants that extra week that we needed. Then it took us 21 hours to get back home.

But dang, I looked cute. My dad said it looked like I lost a couple of pounds..ok. I will post the WIW tomorrow. Remember to tell me that I looked cute.

Thanks for reading !!!!!

: )

PS. It was worth every second !