Last Week Tonight

Hey guys, it's been awhile! The big news this week was my trip to my 50th state, and while you'll see my arrival at the end of this blog, I'm going to a day by day recap of my three days on Oahu after I get to the business of last week around here. I had every intention of getting this done before I headed off, but Calib and I came down with the stomach flu. One day I didn't even leave the bedroom, I was that sick. I actually was supposed to spend one day in Ohio before flying out to Hawaii with my mom, but I changed my flight to skip Ohio and give me one more day at home before I headed off. 

Before all of that though, we did some stuff around here. Asa passed a class, and so we had rootbeer floats. (Only three classes and a final to go!) 

Justin was over one night for a six player game of Spy Alley. 

And we headed out to Mosi one day. They were celebrating Engineering Week, and they had some special exhibits. 

They also had a 3D printer on display. 

And Hayden built is own robot that could draw pictures. 

We also spent some time at Kids in Charge. 

...Playing with magnets...

....and wheelchair racing... 

...playing tug of war... 

....and laying on a bed of nails. 

The boys also got some nice lessons by the guy in the butterfly house. 

Calib and Peyton had an aquarium class, so Hayden, Asa and I walked over to Channelside for a snack while Calib and Peyton dissected a crab. 

Hayden made another game this week, and Asa (he has way more patience than me!) played along. 

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I haven't posted any couponing trips in awhile, and I don't remember exactly how much all of this was, but it was somewhere just over $20, which I thought was pretty awesome. 

Friday was bonus day. Each year Verizon issues bonuses, and how big yours is depends on your stats and ranking for the previous year. You might remember how Asa was recognized for being the top tier one employee last year, so his bonus was pretty big. However, we're trying to save for the farm, so we're holding on to a lot of it. We paid off some bills, and Asa got a new tablet (since his had cracked and wasn't really working), and I got to go to Hawaii. 

We had a few splurges though. We bought some donuts! 

And, Asa got me the two remaining Pez Dispenser pack of presidents. One arrived next day with his tablet, and I woke up to this (see why I like work from home days so much?) 

We've been having our Super Saturdays on the last Saturdays of the month, so we did all of our usual Super Saturday activities. We played name that president (and when you get it right, you get a pez from the correct president! So fun!) 

We also started a new Super Saturday activity. Since it falls at the end of the month, we all wrote down our favorite thing we did in February and put it in this jar. We'll do it every month, and then on New Years Eve, we'll pull it out and read them all! 

We played Plinko, along with our Spelling, Brainquest, and Friday Journals (which have become our Super Saturday Journals.. but for some reason we haven't re-named them accordingly) 

And played Jeopardy. This month's categories we had the usual: I probably wasn't paying attention, Jeopardy re-do, Happy Birthday Mr. President; and then added Questions by Dad and S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G. Though Sunday was when I really started feeling sick, by Saturday night I wasn't feeling all that well, and I think Porkchop knew it before me. He's such a good, loyal dog when I'm under the weather. 

Speaking of funny animals, Dipper is just the best. He finds fun places to sleep all the time. 

So, Sunday I was puking up everything I ate; Monday was more of the same. Tuesday I managed to keep most of my food down, and Wednesday I was on the mend. I still wasn't looking forward to packing in my weakened state, so Asa tried to help. This is his attempt at packing. He apparently thought all I needed in Hawaii was my lamp, my water bottle, and a pillow. 

As I said, I was supposed to go to Ohio on Wednesday and then mom and I were going to head to Hawaii together; but I changed my flight so I could just fly from here instead. The flight from here was actually less, so they took that amount off my change fee and it wasn't too much. I had a couple of different options of where I wanted to have my layover. I thought about LAX so I could pretty much half my flight; but when I discovered I could fly on one of those really big planes (two seats at each window and four in the middle with two aisles), I picked having my layover in Atlanta. While I was on the big plane (which was awesome; especially since there was nobody in the two seats next to me); the ten and a half hour flight from Atlanta to Honolulu was a bit much. 

I arrived at 4:10 Honolulu time (at the time Florida was 5 hours behind; after the time changed on Sunday it was a six hour time difference). Mom wouldn't be there to a few hours later. 

So that's it; 50 states for me. Thanks to my mom and dad, because really they took me to 50 states. I didn't do any of them on my own! 

Our room was small but cute. When you pulled out the couch, there really wasn't much room at all, but it was nice with the balcony window open and the breeze coming in. 

No ocean view for us either, but you could see a lot of the city. (It was much more city than I expected too!) 

Our hotel, the Ala Moana is connected to one of the USA's largest outdoor malls. I was pretty exhausted by the time I got there, since by the time I got my luggage; took the shuttle in the rush hour traffic, and checked into the hotel it was midnight at home and I had been up since 5:30 in the morning. But, I decided I should make the most of my time, so I headed over to the mall to walk around a bit. I liked the koi ponds! 

The food court was interesting, and as much as I wanted to try some new, weird food, I still wasn't sold on testing my stomach. 

I had to head back to the airport to pick up mom at 9 o'clock Hawaii time (which was 2 am back at home), and I was asleep pretty shortly after we got back to the hotel. 

Next Up: Day one in Hawaii!