weekend in waikiki

every year for superbowl weekend case's boss takes the company to vegas, all expenses paid. but one guy has to stay behind to take trouble calls, answers phones, basically keep the company going ... that was us. so we stayed in waikiki for the weekend (hopefully all expenses paid - we're still working on that part) we had a blast! we stayed at the aqua waikiki tides, which is a cousin of a best western or holiday inn, sans continental breakfast.

we got there saturday morning (casey got to stay friday night too, but us girls didn't venture down ... long story.) we went to honolulu design center, cheesecake factory, walked waikiki, browsed the international marketplace, attending the beautiful church on beretania, watched the superbowl, ate some more, and basically just hung out as a fam. it rocked.

first, honolulu design center. i forgot my camera ... seriously, what a place to forget your camera (if you're into home design, that is.) it was awesome!

then we dropped off our plethora of stuff at the hotel. we had to use a cart to get it all up there. 

they're pretty awesome, eh.

next stop: cheesecake factory.

gwen and i were playing the head shake game. you can't tell it, but we're shaking our heads. delish. they gave gwen a complimentary banana - how awesome is that! and of course we had TONS of leftovers.

then we went to ala moana
and window shoppedwe didn't put the girls to bed until 10:30. that's a record LATE for us! we had a blast just running in circles around the hotel room, watching TV (who knew ... it still exists!), raiding the fridge, taking super duper long showers (no bath tub), running out onto the lanai naked (only addi did that. i swear.)

sunday the gwenner slept in until 10:27. let me reiterate for the sake of emphasis: 10:27!! addi, on the other hand, woke up bright eyed and bushy haired at 6.
and had breakfast on the lanai.i brought pancake mix for sunday breakfast but forgot PAM or any other sort of anti-sticking agent. i tried to go ahead without it. it failed. like air-out-the-hotel-room-before-the-sprinklers-go-off failed. so we had cereal.and gwen just slept through it all.after our award winning breakfast of cinnamon life, and gwen finally waking up, we went to church at that gorgeous building on beretania. it was amazing! and of course i forgot my camera, again. huge floral gardens, it was designed like a mission. it had an outer square of classrooms and the chapel, and then the inside was open. completely open ... a garden. we had to leave early because gwen wanted to sleep again. and addi just wanted to pick all of the flowers.

 
after gwen's nap the girls played with the hugemongous windows for a bit while i rustled up some superbowl grub.
steak and potatoes ...and football cake a la foodland.a little under-the-table sharing of goods and services was going on.our room was literally on top of a bar. this is the view straight down from our lanai. they were obviously rooting for the cardinals. poor fellas.during the game the girls took turns taking naps, first add and me ...then unnamed baby

then gwen.
addi could only watch the game for a few minutes at a time. the lanai with it's waves of pungent alcohol and smoke and screaming and shouting from below was just too enticing. she kept staring down at them and saying "hi. screaming?"
and this is the first time case has watched the superbowl (all the way through). i quote, "i think i was born to watch football!" end quote

after the game we strolled around waikiki doing more window shopping.

then we found this cool walk-park.
and found this cool vegetation!! don't know what it is, but it's cool.our hotel was straight through the international market place, so we wandered through there saying junkjunkjunkjunk. that was our mantra. we though it was hilarious and were laughing SO hard ... junkjunkjunkjunk. everyone thought the girls were gorgeous and kept stopping us, and addi would say "hi aunty. addi cuh-ute!"

monday both girls slept in, case went to work, and we headed home. it was pretty awesome and i want to do it again ... now.