Transition
It’s 11 pm and I can’t sleep. I’m going back to work full-time tomorrow and I’m so bummed out. This has been the best 4.5 months of my life. It has been awesome starting from the month that I had off waiting for Kumquat’s arrival, to giving birth to my baby girl, to the last 15 weeks of being home with Kumquat and watching her grow and change before my eyes. Now it’s time to hand her over to Jes who will be off for the month of August. In fact, as I’m writing this, he’s giving her the 11:00 pm bottle and putting her back to bed. I know he’ll be great and I know she will be happy but it’s heartbreaking to let go. I’m gonna be a hot mess tomorrow morning when it’s time to say goodbye. Wish me luck.
This afternoon we went to the Aloha Festival to watch my hula sisters perform on stage. Kumquat hung out in the carrier while we ate lunch on the picnic blanket.
Here is one of the Keiki groups. The youngest little dancer just turned 4 years old! So cute!
Here’s Dot in one of the performances. It was hard to get a good shot of her because there was a pole right in my line of sight of her on stage.
This is the whole group during “Aloha Oe”, which is usually our final song and made me miss dancing with them. One day I’ll figure out how to make time for hula again.
On Sunday, we walked about a mile to Rainbow Drive-in for brunch. It was 10:00 am so it was hard to decide what to eat. In the end, Jes got spam and eggs while I got teri beef with mac salad. It rained off ad on but not enough to actually impact our morning.
We then headed over to Waikiki Aquarium. on our way there, we passed a fire station that had a sign offering free blood pressure testing as long as firefighters were in the quarters and not having a meal. I’m glad they have their priorities straight.
At the aquarium, we saw lots of fish and it was actually worth taking Kumquat. She could see the fish and tracked the big fish back and forth. At one point she seemed delighted by all the activity and it was so much fun to watch her smile and 
Jes and I have always enjoyed visiting aquariums and this one is one of my favorites. It was wonderful to see our little girl enjoying it too.
Afterward, we headed back to the hotel and spent some time at the pool bar before heading to Yoon’s condo. She picked us up and we BBQ’d on her 9th floor patio and I also took Kumquat into the pool for some floating time.
It must have taken all her energy because she slept for quite a while afterward. Unfortunately, she woke up suddenly and cried and cried for a good 20 minutes from being either overtired or super hungry or both.
When nothing was working to calm her down at the pool, I decided to take her up to Yoon’s condo to figure it out and as soon as I got up there and placed her in the car seat, she passed out.
I stayed up there with her and ended up falling asleep to the beautiful sunset and Women’s Field Hockey on tv.
On Monday morning, we were up relatively early so I dressed Kumquat in some beach clothes and we took her down to the beach one last time. I love Waikiki Beach in the morning because it’s shady, super empty, and quiet. We spent some time playing in the sand, watching and listening to the waves, and just enjoyed our last morning in Hawaii together as a family.
After a quick bath for Kumquat and some last-minute packing, we were off to the airport by 11:30 am. Getting through security was pretty easy and the flight was an amazingly short 4.5 hours! Luckily, Kumquat was on her best behavior and she slept for most of the flight and downed two bottles of milk. Good baby.
Overall, our first trip to Hawaii with Kumquat was a success. It was so neat to see our favorite place through a little baby’s eyes and I feel so lucky to have had such good flights with her. This was truly a bittersweet trip for me since it was something that I had looked forward to for a few months now but it was also the mark of the end of my maternity leave. Oh boo. Can’t wait for next year’s trip. Who’s coming with us?!
On Friday afternoon (7/27), we went to Jes’ favorite ramen place of all time. Jes also made sure to run across the street for a couple tall boys for the meal. I had the cold ramen and shared kimchi fried rice with Yoon. 
Kumquat also enjoyed watching the ceiling fan above us.
In the evening, we took Kumquat to the pool for her first dip. She looked a bit confused but didn’t cry. That was all I was hoping for so I consider it a success.
On Saturday (7/28), we went to McDonald’s for the spam and eggs platter.
Then we hung out at a coffee shop until it was time for Jes to go sailing.
Yoon picked him up and they sailed all afternoon in a local race. They came in 2nd place and Jes had a good time but the water was much choppier than Yoon had anticipated.
Meanwhile, I went shopping with Kumquat and went to Yogurtland for my Tuxedo Sam spoon. Looked like Kumquat wanted a taste of the frozen yogurt that day.
For lunch, I picked up Yoon’s favorite kimchi fried rice and there was a special that included spicy pork and mac salad. Yes! I took it back to the hotel bar, ordered a mai tai, and enjoyed the live music under the banyan tree with a napping baby in the stroller. Perfect.
Back at the hotel room, I needed to tidy up and Kumquat started to fuss. I set her down on the bed and turned on the Olympics and she stopped right away! So much for the No TV Rule.
Later that day, I took Kumquat to the pool by myself. We hung out in the pool together for a while until it rained suddenly. It got kind of cold so we got out and I wrapped Kumquat up and took her out to the beach. It was still sunny and warm out there so it was a good place to warm up. As the rain stopped, Jes arrived and a rainbow appeared! So cool!
On our way to dinner, we saw the sunset. We went to our favorite Japanese place that’s hidden in an obscure hotel near the zoo. Kumquat was in a pretty good mood at first but then needed to be soothed to sleep. Luckily they placed us in the the tatami room so she slept on the cushion next to me.
She slept through most of the flight and I even got to enjoy a Mai Tai. She just had a bit of fussing 20 mins before landing but no one really gave us a hard time about it.
When we arrived, Yoon picked us up and took us to lunch at Nico’s. I had a yummy furikake pan-seared ahi with mac salad.
When we checked in, we got upgraded to an Ocean View Room! Woohoo!
I unpacked and washed Kumquat’s clothes while the two of them took a nap. She had a blowout in the plane and Jes just threw all her clothes in a bag.
It was quite a sight seeing Jes return from the lavatory with a naked baby (diaper only).
By the way, the new plane had a changing table over the toilet and a USB charging station on the seat!
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