Another Interesting Trip of Our Lives, Hawaii (Labor Day Weekend of 2008) Summer is winding down soon, but the long Labor Day weekend means there is still time for one last summer vacation for us. This year we went to Hawaii where we could find the tropical breezes and oceanfront views within walking distance. We arrived at Honolulu Airport on a Saturday evening around 5:30 pm. After a long flight, we checked in to the Pacific Beach Hotel which is a good mid-level hotel and located within a very nice stretch of Waikiki Beach and is also the most populated Hawaiian island, Oahu's famous shoreline. We had an oceanfront room on the top (36th) floor. The view was really spectacular, and the room itself was very nice. The nice thing staying in this hotel is that the Waikiki Beachwalk shopping complex is right next to the hotel and is very convenient for shopping or dining out or going to the beach. Honolulu is not as quiet and peaceful as you expect it to be. Instead, you get up in the morning and watch the city wake up to another day in a very noisy, crowded, and busy Paradise. Almost all the attractions of Waikiki area are within walking distance. If you like shopping and enjoy the night life, this will be an excellent choice for a visit to Oahu. All the tour buses stop there, and you will also find a lot of good deals on the rental cars. However, driving around in Honolulu is very stressful because of unknown area with long and hard to pronounce names of the streets. Overall, The Pacific Beach Hotel in Waikiki made us very happy on our trip and we highly recommend it to family with young children who want a good value hotel near the beach. The most highlighted area for our trip was Navatek Sunset Buffet Dinner Cruise. We luckily paid nothing for this dinner cruise because we attended the confusing "time share presentation". The food was wonderful as well as the Hawaiian and contemporary entertainment. We also visited the exciting and mysterious neighborhood in Honolulu Chinatown. We felt a little disappointed that the street was not clean compared to other areas in Honolulu, and there were too many drug addicts and homeless walking around. However you will get fantastic prices and some really fresh produce. The last day of our trip we came to visit the USS Arizona Memorial Museum, a battleship of the United States Navy. It was destroyed as part of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. It is interesting that the shipwreck was not salvaged, instead, becoming a memorial for all who died that day. Beside visiting Honolulu Oahu, we also flew to the very relaxing and tranquil and the least commercially developed of the Hawaiian Islands, Kauai. The island is very interesting. It has a lot of places in secluded spots. And it looks just like the island on LOST, an American drama television series. It would not be complete if we don’t mention the natural beauty that the island possesses with beautiful waterfalls. Everywhere is green. Life in general is more laid-back on Kauai. The beach is calmer. The climate is quite "rainforest-y" all the way around, and it will make you feel that you are not in America. It will be best suited for couples or a romantic honeymoon. We got the luxury to stay at Mr. E.’s beach house. The house locates in a very nice area. We felt like we were living in a rural area. Another interesting thing from what we have seen was that it seems like the chickens rule the island. It is so very common to see beautiful colors of those chickens prancing all around and eating whatever they can find on the island. They crow at night, dawn and throughout the day. In conclusion the trip was fun, fascinating, and exhausted. The reason that we had all these mixtures of feelings was probably because of first time traveling on the airplane with our baby Ethan. Yet, not all trips yield great satisfaction. However, we have learned that the attitude is very important when traveling with young children. We are glad that we were so upbeat, able to relax and had fun in every part of a long five day getaway vacation. A lesson learned is that if you are excited and adjust to the many changes while traveling, so will your kids.