Vacation Time!!

Summer time...and the living is easy! Time is going WAY too fast and I wish I could slow it down! 

I haven't blogged for awhile...I read a lot of blogs and I love participating virtually in the experiences of my friends. The problem is...I'm not very tech savvy. I can hold my own..but I haven't ever used an app to blog before. So here goes...

Last night, I sat by the pool at our hotel. I wrote this wonderful blog post. I was feeling relaxed and content. I touched the little "button" called publish and I sent it out into the inter-webs and waited. Nothing. I refreshed. Nothing!! My beautiful, funny post was gone! 

So here we are...starting our vacation. For real now. We drove to Vegas yesterday because I couldn't stand the thought of riding in the car, then dealing with airport stuff, THEN sitting on a plane for 6 hours. The ride was surprisingly quick-we spent the time reminiscing about our past trips and planning for this one. We were trying to figure out our Hawaii trips and which time we did what. We are definitely blessed to have the travel opportunities that we have. I am grateful!!

The first trip (not counting the trip in high school with immediate family), D and I met the rest of the family over in Hawaii in August of 2003. We stayed in the Hukilau house. In 2008, Rob and T were part of the family. We went over spring break and we got to celebrate my birthday over there. We had our own little bungalow with the occasional appearance of the resident gecko   The next trip was spring break 2012. We will always remember that trip by two incidents. 1) Rob drove the van off into the foliage on the side of the driveway and the Dodge boys had to push it back on because it was stuck. 2) we had to push Dom into the house through a window because we were locked out of the house. Of course we have other memories, but these two stand out as our favorites. Again...birthday wishes to ME!!

 Fast forward a little over a year to summer 2013. Our summer trip began right after school. This time we celebrated birthdays for T and Dom...they share a birthday. We stayed in a house right across the street from the beach and next door to a little gift shop. FUN times! 

July 2016

 

So when we got to Vegas, we had some trouble checking in but after dinner and snack shopping, we had a nice relaxing time by the pool. I haven't felt relaxed like that in a LONG time! I just loved the pool lights and the music and the sounds of laughter. I couldn't get T out of the pool until the very last minute before closing. It was nice to head to bed relaxed and calm. 

After a quick breakfast at IHOP, we headed to the airport to tackle all that craziness. The flight, as always, was LONG! The kids were SO excited when they saw "land"! Literally bouncing on the seats!

This particular trip hasn't been in the works for very long. You might say the family is forcing us to go! And by family, I mean the whole Dodge side of the family. Tragic, right? I mean...who REALLY wants to spend a week in a tropical paradise with nothing to worry about, nowhere to be, and no obligations or commitments. Ok, ok...how could we say no?!? 😜 So here we are...2016. We weren't going to take a vacation but the family talked us into it and now that we are here...I'm so glad they did! It's going to be a great week!