Our plan was to return the rental car, take the shuttle to the airport, check our luggage and then stop at the lei stands, but we got sort of lost once we got to the airport, trying to find the rental car return place, so we stopped at the lei stands to pick up leis for Lauren, Grandma, Bompie and Auntie on our way to drop off the rental car. My lei was still good, so I did not get another one.
We made our way to the rental car return place by back tracking through the airport arrivals area and just driving the way the shuttle driver took us when he picked us up at the airport.
It took a while to go through the checked baggage agriculture inspection, then check in with the airline, then wait in a super long security line (which they then split off when we were almost to the front, and sent us to an equally long line further down the airport), then clear carry on bags agriculture and make our way to our gate. We stopped and had California Pizza Kitchen for lunch/dinner and then went to gate check the stroller and walk around a bit before our flight.
Very quickly, it was time to board the plane. We had the aisle and middle seat and then the woman at the window seat showed up and greeted us with a bunch of complaints about how she would not be able to sit on the window with a baby next to her and how ridiculous it was. She wanted to switch to the aisle, but I said no. We needed to aisle, (and booked the aisle) on purpose. They closed the airplane door and the two of the three seats in front of us were open, so I quickly suggested that she move up there and have more space, so that is just what she did. Lauren had her own seat and it was great. We got rerouted to a different runway, so we taxied for quite a while. Lauren fell asleep before we ever took off.
She slept on me for more than two hours. I was so uncomfortable, but I kept reminding myself, that her awake would be a lot more work...so just deal with it. haha.
Once Lauren woke up, she sat in her very own seat and played and watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse while Justin watched a movie and I read a magazine. It was a rough flight because there was a crazy homeless man on the flight that was making everyone very nervous from his erratic behavior. In addition to that, they served cashew chicken AND macadamia nuts on the flight. At one point I was having such anxiety that I started crying. I was so afraid of Lauren having a reaction...and since we were over the ocean, there was no where to do an emergency landing if we had to.
We gathered up our bags and carseat and headed out to the truck. We were all starving so we stopped at McDonalds. Justin and Bompie went in to order food since the truck was to big for the drive thru. When they got out of the car, Lauren started crying because she was sad they left. She watched that door until they came back out. We got home, had dinner and crawled in to bed. My parents spent the night, so my mom put Lauren to bed. We woke up in the morning, showed them all of our pictures and videos and then they headed home around Lauren's nap time. We had such a great time on Oahu and cannot wait to go to another island. Lauren is such an amazing traveler and we are so blessed.
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