Noah's Birthday (May 26, 2007)

Today is Noah's birthday and here we are traveling again. As we journeyed on the plane from Oahu to Kuaui, I realized that this was supposed to be the day we started home. I have to say that Noah was not looking forward to that long plane ride home on his birthday and so our continued presence on the islands was much more to his pleasure. He has had a wonderful day. We got to our hotel on Kauai mid afternoon, but couldn't check in until 4:00 pm. The front desk provided us with a place to store our luggage and gave us a key to the fitness center where we could change clothes, so Noah got to spend the afternoon engaging in one of his favorite activities - swimming. The pool is beautiful and he really seemed to love it. Once we got into the room, Elisa and I were off to Costco for a birthday cake and some groceries (do you have any idea how much it costs to eat out here - when we can't cook it takes about $150 per day to eat three meals). We also picked up a little gift for him (though his requested gift will have to wait 'til we get home - he wants a cell phone, ha ha!). When we got back to the room, Elisa prepared his favorite meal (ground beef and rice) and then we went out on the patio, sang happy birthday, blew out the candles and ate the cake. The only cake we could find was one that feeds 48, so needless to say we had a lot left over. Elisa and Noah decided to walk up to the front desk and share. While there a gentleman walked up with a ukelele and everyone sang happy birthday to him, then wished him happy birthday in Hawaiian. He was thrilled. I guess I should mention a little about how we came to still be here. Since the day we got here, I have felt that we were supposed to be here for 6 weeks. When people asked us how long we would be here, I answered "6 weeks" every time. Our plans and our budget only called for 5 weeks maximum, so to say we would be here 6 weeks was a real stretch of faith. As much as I worry about money, and as much as we have done with the kids, I could see no natural way we could stay for the extra week, but then God is about doing things by supernatural means isn't He? We had been here about 2 weeks when I began to look for somewhere to stay for the extra week. We had one week of timeshare that had not been used for this year, but it had taken some time to find the one week we had already used to stay on Maui at the first of our month long experience there. I looked online for an opening anywhere in Hawaii for 2 or 3 days and then one morning, there it was - a week at Marriott's Waiohai Beach Club. It booked it and we stayed and that might have been the end of it, until we got here and told a few folks how we had booked it. We learned that Poipu Beach (where we are staying) is rated as the #1 beach in the United States and the #5 beach in the world. We also learned that Marriott's Waiohai Beach Club is the #1 sought after Marriott Resort in the whole world. Finally, we learned that peope book the $400-600 per night rooms here 12 or 13 months in advance and still some folks can't get reservations. How did we get an ocean view, pool side, ground floor room that sleeps up to 8 (at no cost to us whatsoever by the way, because we exchanged a week of timeshare that had already been paid for) in just two weeks? They tell us here that it just can't be done. How did it happen then? It can only be God!