Hawaii Day 2: Swap Meet, Surfing, Seafood, and Serendipity

Wednesday: Swap Meet at U of H Aloha stadium where we loaded up on t-shirts and a couple of ukulele's.

Surfing (and posing) at Waikiki Beach

Surfing the giant waves

"What's that over my shoulder?"
"Where?"
"No, over my shoulder."
"Whose shoulder? Where did you say?"

We missed Getty—he was surfing with Jackson

Later that night, Clint and Cassie took Rob and I to dinner at Haleiwa Joe's Seafood Grill.

We had planned to go to Hawaii in January with only the oldest three kids, leaving behind Cy, Cam, and Elle to stay with relatives. Rob had a work conflict that pushed the vacation to March, and now looking back, I'm just so grateful we didn't miss out on a week of Elle's life, especially so close to her accident.

A change of schedule was one of those seemingly minor details that turned out to be a tender mercy from the Lord in more ways than one.

After Elle's accident, we decided to take all five kids with us to give us each some space from the accident and aftermath and to create some fun memories apart from Elle that made us still feel like a family—different, but in tact. In Hawaii, we had few reminders to trigger our grief, and we all seemed to need some dedicated time to mentally rest from the crisis and the loss. They say "timing is everything," and it really was in this case.