McNair Life: Our Vacation While on Vacation at Bellow's Air Force Station

Well, Bellow's did not have wireless internet, so I didn't get to update while we were out there, but we had a great time! Tuesday night before we left the house I couldn't sleep at all. I literally didn't get one second of sleep that night. So, obviously Wednesday was rough for me. We went to the swap meet, as planned and that was something! We didn't walk all the way around because it got too hot, but we got to see a lot of different little shops and stuff. Grandma bought some chimes and by the time we got to the cabin we noticed they were broken. We started to look at them while we were there but for some reason we didn't. Anyway, we are going to get it taken care of somehow. Then we went to the Pearl Ridge mall to get my rings. It took the lady forever to find my rings, and by this time I was ready to fall asleep on the jewelry counter. It was after noon and I got too much sun at the swap meet and of course was finally sleepy. I went and met Grandma and Aunt Rachel at the food court and I ate an entire 6 inch sub from Subway before they ever got to the table with their Church's Chicken. I was going on nothing but caffeine and was about to get sick. We were finally ready to head out to Bellow's and I prayed before we ever left the mall parking lot because I was so tired and I had to drive about 20 miles through the rainy part of a mountain. We made it (wouldn't you know they had construction going on and we were in stand still traffic...in the rain). Anyone could have fallen asleep in those conditions, especially if it had been over 24 hours of being awake. But anyway, we made it! We got to check in early and we were in the exact same cabin as last time. It was a huge coinsidence. By the way, Bellow's is only open to militery families so its really safe out there. We slept with our windows open and everything.

They came out of their rooms ready for breakfast and they were dressed alike haha!

The sun was going down. This was our view from our "backyard"

After we got settled in, we got on our bathing suits and went down to the beach area. It was hilarious because there was a rip tide and Aunt Rachel and I had a time getting out past the waves. At one point walking out there was a place that felt like quick sand and we had to work hard to get out of it. It wasn't dangerous but it was a challenge.Then Grandma and Aunt Rachel decided to sit down right where the waves roll in and they loved that. They kept getting smacked in the face by the waves and even rolled over a couple of times. They were in the shad though and really having a blast. Later on, they realized that playing right there in the sand resulted in a very full bathing suit bottom. I think they are still finding sand in places they never knew they had!! I ran into this woman down there on the beach that would not quit talking about how great the army was. They had been in the army for 20 years, blah blah. Her husband was gone for the first 7 years of their marriage. I thought, wow yeah that sounds like a wonderful time....no way would that work!! Of course I disagreed with her and let her know about it. She wouldn't shut up and because of her (I named her Suzy talks too much) my sunburn got much worse. I couldn't get away from her to get to my dang sunblock and to Grandma and Aunt Rachel's play area. Anyway, we had a big day. I fought sleep until Jeremy called at 7, then I was out til 7 the next morning. I actually fell asleep while talking to him. Grandma and Aunt Rachel were asleep by 8. It wasn't even totally dark yet. At 4 that morning we were all awakened briefly by a crazy crying cat. Luckily, he got quiet about 15 minutes later and we got a little more sleep. In Hawaii there are no stray dogs but there are tons of stray, undomesticated cats...and stray chickens every now and then.

On Thursday morning, we got up and went to a free breakfast down at turtle cove, the Bellow's Office Snack Bar area. It was good. They put on a show with information about the area. We enjoyed it. We also learned that military gets huge discounts at Sealife Park, so we are going next week! I'm excited about it because there is a luau and everything. One thing that was really funny that happened while at breakfast was that they kept the butter and syrup( for pancakes and stuff) in large pitchers. Grandma thought the butter was orange juice and poured it into her cup :). Several people were doing the same thing. Anyway, there was a family there from Arkansas. I thought that was pretty interesting. They did a drawing after breakfast and Aunt Rachel won a red koozie! We really enjoyed breakfast, it wasn't a continental one. They had sausage, pancakes, etc. and all kinds of hot stuff. After breakfast we went swimming and relaxed for the rest of the day. Early on, I swam in a t-shirt because the swap meet sun burned me pretty bad! We also saw one jellyfish while we were swimming. Its called a Portugese Man of War. It was easy to spot because it was bright blue and looks like an inflated bubble on top of him. He floated on by us though luckily. We also saw a sea turtle. They are harmless. When the sun was setting I didn't have to wear a t-shirt and we got back in the water. And I discovered that it was really fun to let the tide drag you in and out. Later on, I regretted it though because I don't think rolling on the ocean floor was good for a sunburn. I didn't sleep well last night at all! The burn was preeeetty painful. I have a picture but its terrible, already deleted it actually.

This morning we got loaded up in the car pretty quickly and sadly said goodbye to our cabin. We came straight home because we had cold stuff. Now we are back home and missing the ocean view already. Grandma and Aunt Rachel are relaxing and I am...still a lobster. Here are some pictures from our trip! I guess I wrote enough for now!

This is in front of our cabin. They really enjoyed getting to kick back right in front of the ocean and just relax.

This next picture is not my favorite picture AT ALL because of my "rear view" but I wanted to show how we made it into the water. Directly in front of our cabin there was a set of stairs. All we had to do was walk right down into the ocean. The water looked pretty rough but it was much more tolerable in front of our cabin than it was down from us at the beach area. At our area, the water was pretty high this week so it came all the way up to the stairs.