The Clampetts visit Hawaii

Me: Hey, would you like to come for dinner Saturday?

You (hoping for pizza): Ooh, sounds fun!

Me: Great! We can show you our vacation pictures.

You (to yourself, feeling like a fish on a hook): Crap! That better be some damn good pizza.

You know what might be even worse? Having to READ about my vacation.

The joke’s on you, because guess what! That’s the topic for this month’s “Where Bloggers Live” posts. Seven bloggers sharing their vacations. Seven opportunities for amazing photographs, happy memories, and stories. (Actually, the joke’s on ME, because we’re supposed to be doing this NEXT Friday, and I apparently have a math problem.)

Clearly I’m not going anywhere this year. New York State is pretty much quarantining the rest of the world, So, I’m actually ready for some virtual travel.

We don’t usually take a big family vacations…but it’s not for lack of trying. It’s just difficult for all of our schedules to mesh. When the rest of Western New York is in the Florida Keys, aka “Buffalo South,” Mr is usually grumbling his way through “Spring Break” tracking down people’s missing receipts, interest statements and tax info. In the summer, Doshie runs a day camp and only has a few weeks off in August…. which are the the same weeks that the boys had their sports camps. Not to mention different school schedules, and different busy seasons at work.

With the exception of a four-day driving excursion three years ago, it had been about eight years since we went anywhere as an entire family. HOWEVER, Mr discovered that if you offer a trip to Hawaii, your family is miraculously able to find large blocks of simultaneously available time.

(Actually, it really wasn’t that easy…but you’d prefer I just got on with it, amirite?)

SO, last August, we crammed ourselves into a flying sardine can and “enjoyed” being kicked in the back for 8 of 12 or so hours by a darling boy with a voice that threatened to shatter the windows of the plane.

After four of those hours, Bear and I contemplated the sheer joy that might occur if the glass indeed cracked and we were sucked out into the quiet air to enjoy 157 seconds of peaceful descent…with unlimited leg room and the opportunity to finally recline our seats.

I counted the very seconds between the times the attendants offered alcoholic beverages. IF there’s ever another long flight ahead for me, I will divide a box of wine into 34 three-ounce shampoo bottles. The rest of the family is on their own.

But FINALLY….land ho!

At last, we arrived on Oahu. Tired, Cranky, Hungry.

IF there’s one thing we know about traveling with our kids, they need to eat. Mr and I will skip meals all day long to save calories and $$ for a nice dinner. We literally (okay, figuratively) got off the plane and before we even got our luggage, three of our tribe raced to the airport Burger King and sucked down chicken nuggets and fries as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks.

Their take: “Oh my gosh, it’s five minutes and our $20. Quit bitching and let us eat before our stomachs devour themselves.”

So with Hungry out of the way, we arrived at our hotel Tired and Cranky… until Mr. Rourke and Tattoo opened the doors and welcomed us to Fantasy Island.

Okay, it was Disney’s Aulani. But close enough, it was still a place none of us ever dreamed we’d be visiting. And suddenly, Cranky was no longer in the picture.

We spent the rest of the evening pinching ourselves that we were even here, and explored the property as well as food and beverage options. Our last stop of the day was a relaxing float in the resort’s lazy river. After that, T and I were both about 33 hours into the day, and it was time to snooze and get ready for the next one.

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So here’s the deal:

Chances are, you’re here for the pizza. So, I’m going to let you off easy, serve you pizza and send you on your way. But at our house, we’re still living in modified lockdown, so I WANT to relive these amazing memories…in fact, I’ve been looking forward to it for the past several weeks.

It doesn’t take long to forget things, and our family could use a little happy stroll down memory lane for this once-in-a-lifetime trip. So, over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to continue writing about it in separate posts…for me and for my fam. You are absolutely invited to stop back and read along IF you’re interested. But I’ll attempt not to bug you with e-mailed post announcements. Okey dokey?!

ALSO….LIVE on Friday the 14th: I know six other bloggers with vacation stories to tell and I don’t want to burn you out before you visit:

Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Em at Dust and Doghair
Julia at When the Girls Rule
Leslie at Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After

In the interim, check them out anyway! They have great content posted!

Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes? Over the next few months, a group of seven bloggers will be sharing their workspaces, their homes, towns and more!

Make sure you visit everyone to see where the magic happens!