Hawaii the Second Time

It seems fitting that on my second trip back to Hawaii it would be with my older sister again. Some things were the same, same island, same location, same sister, and some things were different, I could actually move and get myself off of the beach, no raw food diet, I went for morning runs and even climed 3922 stairs at once. Stairs were hard last time I went. We went in 2006 just after I graduated High School. I had just been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and it was a rude awakening to what my life might potentially be like. I didn't feel like my friends understood what I was going through and I felt distanced from them and so this was a much needed break from life. My grandparents took me in for 6 weeks and Laura came for 2. It was a tough time living in paradise but also time that I definitely needed. The time spent with my grandparents I wouldn't trade for anything.

I am really grateful that my body is able to function normally now and I can go and do many things that I couldn’t do when I first got arthritis. I am grateful for modern medicine and the advances that it has made. It’s not perfect but it has given me the opportunity to live a normal life, of which I am grateful. 

 

The trip was kind of on a whim; Josh gave Laura a break from life and her kids and wanted to send her to Hawaii where she would stay with our cousin Brittany and her Husband Maikal and little boy Ben. She wanted to someone to go with, and even though and first I didn’t think it would be possible it turned out that I could basically go for free because we got the flight on Airmiles and there was free accommodations, it just all worked out perfectly! It was so nice to be able to spend time with our cousin Brittany and get to know her little family a bit more. We don’t spend that much time with our cousins anymore so it was so nice to be able to do that. Plus, she came and did everything with us and so we ended up doing all the fun free stuff instead of spending money on all the touristy stuff.  The only slight downside was that it was rainy for most of the time, but even when it was raining it was mostly warm and that is still 100x better than being in Calgary in January...

   


 

We went to the beach a couple of days, a BYU-H basketball game, read a lot, went to see Pearl Harbour, swam to and then climbed china man’s hat, went to the macadamia nut farm and the swap meet, and went to the hot tubs at Turtle Bay. I think my favorite thing was climbing the Stairway to Heaven or the Haiku Steps. I think it was fun because it was forbidden and exciting and we had to wake up at 2am to do it because you had to get on the stairs before the guard arrived to stop anybody from doing it. Oh the thrill... I'll do another post about that. Hopefully it won't take me another month...