Greetings from Oahu! Miraculously we survived our journey here. We left home at around 5:30 Friday evening and took a taxi to the bus stop, followed by a bus to Chicago. Lemon thought that the one-two combination of two of his favorite vehicles was the thrill of a lifetime, but little did he know what was in store. After a quick night's rest at the airport hotel at O'Hare, we headed into the terminal to catch our flight to Honolulu.
We boarded the plane uneventfully, and to our great dismay, things remained highly uneventful for the next two hours. And by uneventful, I mean that we remained on the ground within sight of our gate for that entire time, as first we had to wait for a plane behind us to get deiced, and then we had to taxi over to the deicing area ourselves and wait for a while only for the crew to ultimately decided that we didn't need to be deiced. Papa Bear and I looked jealously at our neighbors who were napping and watching movies as we did our best to keep Lemon occupied during the delay. I invented a new song entitled "She will be flying Delta when she comes" that Lemon seemed to find quite amusing.
Once we finally got airborne, the flight was surprisingly ok. We made and consumed a few Scandishakes, did PT, read a few books many times, thoroughly discussed the pictures in the in flight magazine, and walked laps of the cabin. With our sanity fairly intact, we arrived in Honolulu, where we were met by our long lost friend Andrew, who calls this beautiful speck of land in the middle of the Pacific home. 
He drove us over to our rental house in Kailua, where we were soon joined by his wife Sarah and their kids. In spite of a 4 hour time difference, Lemon was so excited to see them that he got a second wind and hung on until pretty late in the evening. He did of course get up at 4 am, but sunrise here is quite lovely. And, our house is within sight (and a very short walk) of a beach so we have been going down there first thing in the morning to visit with the early morning dog walkers and surfers.
We were joined late Saturday night by another set of long lost friends, Shelly and Jeffrey and their two boys, who are sharing the house with us for the week. We've been having a blast so far, with the three little guys running around in a loosely configured swarm. Shelly, Andrew and I all met in grad school, and we can't help but marvel at how long ago and how far away that time in our lives feels. We've added three spouses and five kids to the mix since then, but the old bonds are still strong and we're looking forward to another week together in this beautiful place. 
