Happy Easter and Aloha!

Happy Easter and Aloha!

 

As many of you know, we planned a family vacation over spring break to Hawaii. Of course, Hawaii is gorgeous, but what we really wanted to find out was how to work the Space-A system and fly free through the military. Here's what we now know...there are tricks to getting your name in and on the list early to be assured you are top-of-the list to be selected - this one we learned by not getting on the first two flights we showed up for. Next we learned that even though for a full 4 weeks prior to our travel, there were flights out of Hawaii back to Travis almost daily, that does not mean there will be even one when we are ready to travel home, oh, and just because the itinerary says there is one, two, or three flights the day before you plan to travel, does not mean there will be even one when you show up for roll call. Finally, we learned that Hotels.com is super great for finding last minute, affordable lodging and being stuck in Hawaii as a family for three extra days was not all that bad. It certainly helped that we both got paid at the same time we learned we would be staying on. As of this writing, we are planning to be at roll call at 3 AM tomorrow to catch the flight home...if that flight is still flying. Yeah, it's a wacky system and at some point, free is not really free, if you know what I mean. Even still, with the extra days, and the killer deal we got on our hotel(s) we have not spent what we would have paid for the three of us to fly commercial to Hawaii.

 

While we've been here, Mason learned to surf, went snorkeling, rode a boogie-board, enjoyed a luau, ate sugar cane, rode an aqua-bike, visited the Dole Pineapple Plantation, and did a video on how to properly cut a pineapple from the rooftop pool area of one of our hotels. We've enjoyed meeting people from Scotland, Australia, and Canada. Some of the food we've enjoyed has been fresh grilled fish and salad with papaya vinaigrette, some of the prettiest cocktails and mocktails you've ever seen, and the best dish of the trip, the curry catfish tacos with pineapple salsa! Oh man were they good!

 

Now it's time to pack our things up, again, and get ready for a very early morning roll call to try and catch our flight home. If only we had unlimited amounts of time and money, oh the places we would go! Have a great week and be sure to pop over to www.masonpartak.com to see Mason's Hawaiian video and leave a comment to be entered to win - it's super easy and it's a good prize!

 

Send us some good their-getting-on-that-plane ju-ju!