Monday, December 25, 2017. Christmas Day!

It just doesn't feel very much like Christmas. No presents, no kids, no wrappings, very few decorations, no Christmas attire. Above is Kay's Christmas tree. It's a LIVE tree, which is very unusual for Hawaii. It is fresh and smells wonderful.

I had made a list of stuff to do on Christmas morning, and it required an early start on Monday. Probably not as early as I set my alarm for, but we had a lot to do!

I threw dirty towels in the washer first.

Made breakfast.
Assembled lunch sandwiches and put them in the fridge.
Took out the compost bucket.
Served and ate Breakfast (toast, papaya, bananas, juice. I ate oatmeal.)
Cleaned the kitchen area.
Mopped up kitchen floor.
Hung out the clean towels.

Helped Kay make some leis to wear home (I only made one, actually).
Stripped beds and washed sheets.
Scrubbed the bathroom toilet, sink, tub and floor.
Mike shook rugs and vacuumed the bigger ones.
Emptied waste baskets.
Hung out clean sheets.



Finished Packing.
Mopped up the kitchen and dining areas.

I was a sweaty mess!  I got cleaned up and changed into my clean travel clothes, put on my makeup, and then it was time to go. It took us almost 20 minutes to get out of there. I gave Kay and Michael Wilson their thank you/ Christmas  gift from us (it was a gift card to Longs Drugs, dark chocolate and some Calendar Cards in a cute "Aloha" gift bag), we got our leis from them, took a bunch of photos outside, had a prayer with the Wilson's, loaded up the car and finally got on the road. It took some maneuvering to get all that baggage into the car because we were coming back with one more suitcase than we'd arrived with. I had packed our Medium Suitcase inside the Large Suitcase and we used all of them almost to the max. I actually did not have to use the zipper expansion on any of our blue ones, so that was nice.

Mike drove us to the airport. I returned the car after dropping everyone off curbside and making sure that we were checked in and wheelchairs were coming.

 The have lots of lovely flowers at the airport. I took these two photos before we went through security.

We knew that we would not be able to bring produce like bananas out of Hawaii, so we ate our lunch-time bananas out front before we went through security. What I did NOT know was that you have to unpack not just your electronics, but your FOOD before they go through the scanners so they could see what you have.  I had to dump the carefully packed lunch out into a tub. Oh well.  All our food passed. I also had little bags of Kona Kay's candies in a carry-on bag that was with us, so all of those came out.   Goodness! We traveled with a lot of food.  Gayela and her metal plates and screws were much more carefully inspected here than in other airports. They even took her shoes and sent them through the X-ray machine.

Once we were past security, we still had a bit of a wait, so that's when we at lunch. It was noon by then, and we'd had breakfast around  7:30 or 8 am, and I was hungry!

Boarding passes in hand, waiting to be wheeled out to the plane.

We had really spectacular views of Mauna Loa AND Mauna Kea and the snow on top of them. We tried snapping photos out the window. Meh.  But it really was pretty.
And then I went to sleep, basically.  We landed in LA. No issues there, just fatigue. 

We landed in Las Vegas and had this cute gal help us out to our car. The Wheelchair Gang. :-)

We paid a premium price for parking, but it was the only way we would have made our outgoing flights to Hawaii, leaving Cedar City as late as we did.  It wasn't a whole lot more than remote parking, but parking there (at the airport) in general is not cheap.  But it was sure easier and quicker!  Wow.  We just went out of the baggage claim (hiked halfway down the length of the terminal to the central area--remember when airports were smaller??), walked across a bridge, up an elevator and our car was about three parking spaces away. No waiting, no shuttles  Easy-peasy.  And Mike even stayed awake all the way home. Two Dr. Pepper's will do that. I had a half a Coke and helped keep him alert and attentive. I even stayed awake!  Usually even caffeine doesn't stop me from drooping after fatigue sets in.

We got in town, dropped off  Gayela and Berenice, switched vehicles, drove home. Our Christmas lights were on!  So welcoming. I fell into my bed at 5 am on December 26. And, boy, did I sleep!  Non-stop till 9 am, then rolled over and slept some more till about 11:40 a.m. That was one long day of travel!!! Never again.  Daytime, non-stop flights for this old lady (like that'll ever happen. ha).