I looked at my new pink shimmering body spray with its tiny bits of glitter in it and its flowery smell and said, “That’d be a great thing to take to Hawaii with me.” Then I burst out laughing. Did I say Hawaii? Did I really say Hawaii?! Not sure which is more surprising, knowing we’ll soon be on a plane in a few months, or that we actually survived to be on that plane in a few months.

I’m glad we were able to get the Italy package changed to one of the Hawaiian packages. Italy would’ve been interesting enough despite the bigots that live there, and a chance to meet Nane would’ve been nice if she could have dropped down from Germany to meet us, but the weather wouldn’t have been nearly as nice and the scenery wouldn’t have been nearly as pretty. Also, a 12-hour flight that jumps 9 hours ahead would’ve been a lot harder on us than a 6-hour flight that jumps 3 hours back. At least I think that’s what it is when I look at the world time zone map and compare Los Angeles to Honolulu.

Tom and I were discussing postcards from Hawaii and I said I guess I’d have to address it to München, Deutschland instead of Munich, Germany if Nane wants one. He laughed and said no, if you’re sending it from an English-speaking country, you’d need to address it to “Germany.” I could write the rest of the card in German, though. :) Lucky me, huh?

What will probably be in late January, we’re going to the island of Maui. The town’s name is Ka’anapali. The name of the resort we’ll be at is the Sheraton Maui Resort in Kaanapali, Hawaii. We decided to skip the two-day stay in Honolulu that included a 4-hour tour of Pearl Harbor as part of the 8K package she presented Tom with in an email. But we not only don’t want to go over the 7K voucher since we’ll have to spend enough money on things like food, souvenirs and things like that, but we don’t care about Pearl Harbor. I just want to go to the beach, swim, eat, shop, relax… that sort of thing. So we’ll probably skip the main island altogether, though I think we might have to fly into Honolulu and then transfer to Maui.

Looks like we will indeed be flying 1st class and I guess we’ll also be in one of the luxury rooms with a full ocean view. Still haven’t got all the particulars worked out yet, but as I told Tammy, we’ll probably list her as an emergency contact, and well, if our plane goes down and we perish at sea, our house and belongings are all hers. LOL, I’d say we’d have a better chance of winning the lottery. My dreams would also probably warn me of impending danger. They usually do.

We’ll take the laptop and the Kindle, though I doubt I’ll be online. It’s nice to have access to the bank accounts and all that, but who wants to be online during vacation doing the same things they always do? I may take the time to at least leave a quick “we’re here” status update on Facebook, but that will probably be it. I’ll take notes and then type up and edit journals for my blogs when we get back.

The trip is probably going to be for 6 nights and 7 days instead of the 3-4 nights we’d prefer, but manipulating my schedule for a week isn’t that big a deal. It’s maintaining it that’s the problem. A week in Hawaii will seem like nothing compared to many months of dumpy motels. I HATE leaving the rats for a week, but they will have extra water bottles, tons of food, and each other for company.