Hawaii can be quite educational

Things I learned while vacationing in Hawaii with my husband and college friend...4,225 miles from my kids:

One should bring sandals to Hawaii, even if 80F temps seem impossible to one living in the midwest in the middle of February.

One should also shave her legs for the first time in months before wearing shorts for the first time in months...um...

I didn't miss my kids as much as I thought I would. Mostly I worried about the people I had enlisted to care for my children. I don't think they're telling me the worst parts.

I thought about my kids almost constantly. I wasn't missing them, just thinking stuff like "I wonder what they're doing now" or "Alice would get a kick out of this" or "Ha, ha, ha, I don't have to put anyone to bed!" Every once in a while, we'd cross paths with a vacationing family with young kids like ours. I admired their courage and gusto, but I was glad I could leave the courage and gusto home this time.

Snorkeling in hot spring tide pools is nigh unto heaven. I'm definitely doing that again if I ever get a chance.

I remembered what full sleep and energy reserves felt like. I would get tired, sure, and go to bed at 9pm or so, but I wasn't exhausted...spent...drained. We could fit more into a day than I was used to.

It was nice to have clear conversations with other adults whenever the fancy struck.

One of the most spiritual situations I experienced during our trip was attending church on Oahu. We attended a local family ward/congregation of our global church: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The first two meetings were well within my expectations. The third meeting, Relief Society, amazed me. Here was this group of women, quite diverse in age, ethnic background, and family situations and they were like an old group of friends getting together again after a long time away. They were real friends. As the lesson progressed, it became quite clear that there was a plethora of life experiences and opinions represented by this diverse group. I was amazed at how the sisters and the teacher could still find a way to agree on their common goals. They were all LOOKING for that common ground. They were more interested in finding common ground than in convincing the rest of the group that their way was the "best" way. I've never seen that before, especially on the topic of motherhood. What a treat!

I also learned that I largely live in the present. And I'm generally a selfish person. It only took a few days away before I had trouble remembering what my kids looked like. Alice was stuck in my memory as a 4-year-old. Robert was a bundle of energy without a face, and James, well, sometimes I forgot I had three kids at all. It only took a few days before the jungle scenery, majestic cliffs, and blue water beaches kinda lost their "wow" factor for me, too. Lame, huh? I was lucky that Hawaii has such diverse ecosystems within only a few miles of each other. The Big Island is strikingly different from Oahu in many ways.

Bobby and I talked often during the trip about coming back with our kids. We mentioned that to Alice. She wants to pin down a date right away. We're setting these basic expectations before even considering dates:

---All participants must be able to walk, talk, feed, and potty themselves reliably

---All participants must be confident swimmers and know how to snorkel

---All participants must be able to walk/hike at least 1 mile carrying their own water bottle

---All participants must earn/save some money towards the trip, including, but not limited to, completing extra chores, taking on jobs from neighbors/friends, starting a small business (Alice is dying to get a lemonade stand going this summer), and opting out of certain costly extracurricular activities (only a few apply).

Let's hope we get to go back before I'm too old to walk, talk, feed, and potty myself reliably :)