This is about Hawaii except it isn't really about Hawaii.

This post is long overdue. It's been about a month now since I came back from Hawaii and I still haven't posted about it. I just haven't really known what to say about the trip. It was great. Tiring. Fun. Exhausting. Beautiful. Stressful. Relaxing. Hectic. Simple. Eye-opening. Momentous. See what I mean? How am I even going to explain any of that? Maybe I should just end this post now and hope those adjectives suffice.

No, no, no. This trip deserves more than eleven adjectives.

Last month, I met my mom and sister at Intercontinental Airport in Houston to accompany them to Honolulu (my Aunt Ernie also met up with us later in Honolulu.) Stef was going to start college at Brigham Young University- Hawaii in about a week. Most of Stefanie's friends had already started classes at their respective schools in Texas. She was the one to see all of them go while she waited patiently for September 7th when we were to leave for Hawaii. That day had come and her eyes were puffy from her own goodbyes. It was time to go.

Once we landed in Honolulu, we met up with one of my mom's good friends, Beth, at the car rental place near the airport. Though we were exhausted (I had left my house in Georgia around 3am and had been flying for ten hours), it was only about noon in Hawaii and we had the rest of the day ahead of us, packed with things to do. First item on the list was Stefanie's job orientation on campus in Laie, about an hour's drive from the airport which was perfect since the orientation started in, oh, about an hour. We sped off to Laie, ooh-ing and aah-ing at the lush, green mountains, amazed by the trees, the deep red dirt (that stains white shirts really well), and then the water. Oh that water. The water was so blue and it stretched out as far as we could see. We saw mountains juxtaposed with the beach and the many green trees and plants and I realized how Hawaii was the combination of all the places I'd lived except perfected-- Galveston's warm beaches, Utah's towering mountains, the abundant trees of both Seattle and Athens. Hawaii was a combination of all the things I loved. And then I kicked myself for deciding to go to BYU in Provo when I could've gone to BYU-Hawaii. Blah, blah, yeah, my life would be completely different right now if I'd gone there instead. But look!

I mean, seriously.
Hawaii's beautiful. There's no doubt. I could write several posts about the beauty of that place and I could write several posts about all the things we did there. But those aren't the things I wanted to focus on, which is a little funny, by the way, considering that in anticipation of this trip all I could think about was how beautiful Hawaii was and of all the fun things I was planning on doing there and just how excited I was to be there. It was Hawaii! People dream about going there. Ever since my last trip to Oahu, I certainly did. I was finally going back and it was going to be an awesome vacation.

My expectations were set much too high for the purpose of our trip. We were taking Stef to college. We weren't on a vacation. And during the time it took me to realize this, I was grumpy and selfish. It didn't help that I really wasn't getting enough sleep but even that isn't a good enough excuse for my initial attitude. Here's a shout out to my mom and Stef for tolerating me while I was being such a bum. Thanks guys!

When I stopped being a brat for the most part (hey, I was still sleep-deprived) and started looking beyond myself, I saw a few things I hadn't been paying attention to. Like the fact that my sister was in Hawaii to start FREAKING COLLEGE. Wasn't she just starting high school, like yesterday? I heard this stuff all the time growing up. Still do. "I can't believe how much you've grown!" "You were just a baby when I last saw you." "I remember when you were this high." And then the person holds her hand up to her knee or her waist to indicate just how small you were and then grabs your cheek between her fingers and makes such a weird face at you while calling you cute that you have to remind yourself to not run away because this is one of your mom's oldest friends and she's just trying to be nice. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.

Well, I was on the other side of that exchange this time, minus the cheek grabbing. Stefanie was starting college? When did she graduate high school? When did she go to high school? She finished middle school already? But I remember when she watched Gullah Gullah Island and Blue's Clues and Little Bear and she had that doll I gave her for a present, Lucy, I think she named her, and she had that Barbie workbook she never worked on even though I pretended to be her teacher. I remember picking her up out of her crib and racing outside one day because my dad burned potatoes on the stove and I thought the house was going to burn down. I remember when she said "lellow" instead of "yellow" and "hangabooger" instead of "hamburger." I remember her obsession with Pocahontas. I remember her being too small for her school jumpers and the cute bob haircut she had and the big bows she wore in her hair. I remember jumping on our bed and turning our desk lamp so the light could shine on our wall and pretending we were on TV. And then I also remember those times I ignored her. I remember when siblings do that thing that siblings sometimes do and I hurt her feelings. And we grew apart because I pushed her away. But she never let go. And I'm so glad she didn't. Because I remember those times when she was this little *gestures to knee* and I don't want that to be all that I remember.

So there we were, in Hawaii, at the nearest Walmart (about a 45 minute drive from campus) buying stuff for her dorm, picking out school supplies, grabbing snacks off the shelves. And I just thought, was it really four years ago when Stef and the rest of my family were doing the same thing for me? Stefanie was an adult now. No question about it. And she was starting college. I watched her for the week and a half I was there. I saw the initial excitement and then the trepidation as the date of my mom's and my departure grew nearer. You could see it in her face. She couldn't wait to get going but wasn't quite ready to leave. She was excited but she was also scared and understandably so. Moving across an ocean to live in a place she had never even seen before? That girl is crazy. Crazy awesome, that is. Crazy courageous. Crazy amazing. Or maybe just amazing, no crazy. Stefanie is amazing. Yes, that sounds right.

While the Hawaiian sunsets were painted with every beautiful color you could imagine and the weather was perfect and the fruit was ripe and sweet and delicious and the people were friendly, it was my sister who amazed me the most while I was in Hawaii. She made friends easily, her bubbly personality burst through her nervousness, she went to work at the Polynesian Cultural Center, she went to her classes. I watched her and thought about how much she'd grown in those years I was away at college. I walked her around the campus to all of her classrooms the day before school started (I guess I read maps better than she can) and thought about when we were little and I would hold her hand while waiting for our mom to pick us up after school. I didn't need to hold her hand anymore. That realization alone made my brain go haywire. And I wanted to take her back to Texas. I wanted her to go to school in Georgia where she could live with me and Brenden. And I suddenly really, really didn't want to let go. Stefanie is the baby of our family. She was the one we always protected. I saved her from the nonexistent potato house fire! But I guess babies grow up and they learn how to pronounce "yellow" and "hamburger" and they let their hair grow and they switch from jumpers to skirts and they drive cars and sometimes they move away and go to college so they can keep growing.

Hawaii is fertile ground for Stef. She is going to grow so much there. She has already grown so much there. I'm happy I got to help her get settled in. I'm happy I got to help her figure out her classes and schedule. I'm happy I got to be there for her first day of college. I'm happy I matured enough to realize what a remarkable little sister and amazing friend I have in her.

Hey Stef! Guess what! I think you're AWESOME!

A few pictures of us through the years:

Dancing (or something like it)

College visiting (I was really excited.)

Girls camping

Pink posing

And a few pictures of us from Hawaii:

Dole Plantation Visiting

Luau-ing

More dancing (or something like it)

Waikiki Beach-ing

Posing while other tourists were stopping and staring

Ladies of the Family-ing

And here's a list of a few of my favorite things about that trip (besides being with my mom and sister):

• Staying in Haleiwa on Hawaii's North Shore. The town itself reminded me a bit of the Philippines and that made me very happy.
• The Polynesian Cultural Center
• The Ala Moana Mall Food Court where 10 of the 16 restaurants served Asian or Hawaiian food: 4 Japanese, 2 Chinese, 1 Vietnamese, 1 Korean, 1 Hawaiian, and 1 Thai. Yes, I counted.
• Driving down the Likelike Highway
• Visiting Pearl Harbor
• Fruit stands. Farmer's markets. Fresh fruit every day all the time.
• Light rain every day and the accompanying rainbows
• Wearing my hair down and not feeling weird about having such long hair.
• The beach, duh.

(Some more of my Hawaii photos are in my Facebook album.)