We paid off our home two years ago. No we didn't have tons of inheritance or lottery money to pay it off. We worked our tails off and sacrificed a lot to make it happen. We told our kids that when it was paid for we would take them on a big trip. Well my youngest was only 2 and we decided to save up our money and go when he was older and we could enjoy the trip more. Fast forward to the beginning of 2019 and when I told my mom I wanted to go to Kauai they wanted to come with us. In fact they wanted my brother to come too so they decided to help pay for part of our trip. So it was a big Pack family vacation!
We had November 2019 planned and my sister in law got us a killer deal on resort. Then our flight plans went out the window and it was better for us to go in January. (saved me about 1400 bucks to wait!). So we left January 23rd extremely early in the morning. In fact I was up at 2:30 getting ready so we were out of the house by 3. Our flight left just before 6 am to Oakland. It was Easton's and Brett's first time ever on a plane. Stockton was too young to remember flying so it pretty much was his first time too.
I was SO worried about getting seats next to each other on our flight. Like it kept me up at night worrying about it. We even got up super early the day before we left to reserve our place in line to get on the plane and the site was down. I wanted to die I was so upset. But because I kept clicking on the dang site for a hour it let me in and reserve a awesome place in line. So we were fine to all sit together.
The shuttle from our car to the airport. It was a little cold for Easton and he wanted to wear Ty's jacket.
SLC airport and flight to Oakland.
We had a quick layover in Oakland just in time for sunrise.
Brett sat next to my parents, Blake and Stock with me and Ty and East by Bryan in front of me. We lucked out big time to be close together. Our flight wasn't all of the way full but almost. Honestly this was a really long flight. I'm sure it didn't help that we had gotten up so early and my body was already worn out. Ever time I would try to sleep my kids would ask me for something. My kids did really well on the flight though. Thank goodness for electronics to keep them busy. It made it so much easier.
I had to laugh because Easton wanted to go to the bathroom a lot. I don't know if it was just a excuse to get up or what. I was helping him in the bathroom and the plane hit turbulence and we were bouncing all over the place. Not the way East usually goes to the bathroom!
Blake took this photo.
We landed in Kauai about noon their time even though by then I had been up for about 13 hours by then. The airport is really open and as soon as we got into the main part it felt SO WARM! I was so happy and hot. We were all in pants for the flight.
Airport photos
As soon as we got to where we get our rental cars Stockton was already looking for bugs. I forgot to add that photo.
Our first stop was Costco. Exciting huh? It was a smart move though because we were able to buy a lot of food for our week. We had kitchens in our rooms and used them a lot. East was so tried from the day. He didn't sleep on the plane at all. He finally feel asleep on Bryan at Costco.
After a beautiful drive south we made it Koloa to Koloa Landing resort. It was amazing! And we could see the ocean from our room.
Our room is actually behind us to the left on the bottom. I just realized that. We took this photo before we got our room. I don't have photos of our room how dumb is that? It was a two bedroom condo with a full kitchen and living room. It had two bathrooms and a pull out couch. We put East on couch cushions with a sheet I brought from home on our floor. It worked out perfect. Grandma and Grandpa with Nates family were in the same building as us on the third floor and had a bigger room for their whole group. Because our room was on the first floor we could walk right outside to go to the pools.
Grandpa rented a sports car for our trip. Our boys would fight over who got to ride in it.
The two best things about our resort was that they came in and cleaned them daily (even the dishes if I left them!) and #1 was by far the pools. They were just perfect for families.
They had a cave kids could swim through with a waterfall in it.
Under the waterfall was the little cave. It also had a couple of waterslides which all of my kids loved. It also had a splash pad part with a very shallow part of the pool that was perfect for the younger kids.
These flowers smelled SO AMAZING.
Since we were right by the ocean and on the side of the island where you could see the sunset we took advantage of it on the first evening. This was the far end of our resort and across the little street was a bunch of rocks then the water. We didn't have a beach right below us.
I set my camera on a rock for this one. It was worth it. Even with Ty's dumb fish shoes.
We ate dinner in my parents and Nate's room and were asleep by like 8. Between the time change *4 hours) and the fact we had been up so long we were all so tired. But ready for a fun trip!
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