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Hawaii 2009

Age: Thirty-Four

     The Haider and Fonio Families decided to visit Hawaii in 2009. It was going to be an awesome vacation and fifteen of us would be making the trip. Well, fifteen and a half. I was six months pregnant with my soon to be, ten pound, twenty-three and a half inch baby boy. Now that is another story for another time.

     Two weeks before our departure, the eldest Fonio daughter, Tina, and her boyfriend Luke, announced to everyone that they were engaged to be married. Everyone just went crazy. There were hugs and kisses and tears and laughter. It would be the third wedding in our group and we loved any excuse to celebrate. Then the news got juicier. Once we all calmed down, they had one more announcement: They were to be married in Hawaii during our family vacation.

     The news stunned everyone. A few seconds passed and then you could see everyone’s wheels turning. How could they plan an entire wedding in two weeks? What should we do? How can we help?

     Noticing our concern, Tina tried to calm us down by saying, “It’s already been planned so you don’t need to worry about anything.”

     Before their announcement, Tina and Luke made a few phone calls, found a minister to marry them (by the ocean, of course), contacted a florist and called my favorite hotel, The Sheraton Moana Surfrider, and arranged a reception. It was all done—we just needed to show up!

     Wow, what a huge surprise! It actually took us longer to absorb the wedding news than it did for us to begin discussing dresses, the bridal shower and the bachelor and bachelorette parties. Tina and Luke were so cute to think that everything had been planned.

     Who knew that a trip to Hawaii could get more exciting, but there we were packing for a tropical vacation and a destination wedding.

     With the shower and bachelor/bachelorette parties nearly organized, dress shopping became the main focus. Well, the main focus for everyone except for me. I looked like a whale in every outfit I owned. And I still had four months to go! Luckily, I felt pretty good during my second trimester, so traveling was not the problem; fitting into any article of clothing was my problem.

     I tried to calm myself down by focusing on the positive. Okay what was the positive? Oh yes, my breasts were glorious. I swear from the chest up, I could have modeled swimsuits. That’s one part of my pregnant body I wish I could have kept. And my skin glowed like never before. For some reason, my pregnancy hormones fixed an acne problem that still haunts me today. No skin care product has ever treated my skin as well as those pregnancy hormones. Oh, how I long for that beautiful complexion again.

     Anyway, with my mom as trip director, fifteen and a half people caravanned to the airport and successfully boarded a plane bound for the Hawaiian Islands. We were a bit nervous about the eight hour flight with my eighteen month old daughter, but she traveled beautifully. She was, after all, the only grandchild at this point and was spoiled rotten with attention. And just as we started feeling a bit of cabin fever, the pilot announced our decent.

     Arriving in Hawaii is an awesome sight. The ocean turns from a deep, dark blue to an aquamarine that gives me chills just thinking about it. The Diamond Head Crater is majestic as it dominates the skyline of Honolulu and the lush green mountains in the backdrop are simply breathtaking. The open airport also plays a role Hawaii’s positive energy by allowing all travelers to feel the Hawaiian heat just by stepping off the airplane. And it felt so much better than the Minnesota winter we had left behind.

     Once organized, we hopped into our rental cars and headed for The Sheraton Waikiki Hotel. And if the word Waikiki doesn’t give it away, we stayed right along the beach, overlooking the ocean. It was truly awesome.

     Our rooms were a nice compliment to the atmosphere except for the placement. Somewhere in the midst of the room chaos, my sister Kate and her husband Adam acquired an adjoining room with my growing family. I was so worried that my baby girl would overstay her welcome next door but she managed to play it pretty cool. She’s a cool kid and I’m not just saying that because I am her mom (smile).

     My girl and the rest of us, totally embraced the island life by spending our days on Waikiki Beach basking in the sun and floating in the ocean. Of course, my beach body gave the term beach body, a whole new meaning. Let me reiterate for a second here, I looked like a whale in street clothes, so you can only imagine what my body looked like in my tankini. I was a sight. I like to believe that the glow from my butt white skin actually made it difficult for people to stare directly at me, sort of like the sun, making me somewhat camouflaged, if you will.

     My girl, on the other hand, was a hit. My mom had given her this purple leotard with a tutu and a headband that screamed, “Look at me!” And people did. One group of Japanese tourists took pictures of her, then approached me only to say, “Thank you for the pleasurable moment.” I smiled slightly confused, then chose to believe that they meant “she’s adorable.” It was fun to see my shy, little girl strut her stuff in that outfit. It sure brought out her inner Diva.

     And then there was “Big Baby.”

     “Big Baby” was a doll that my sister Kate had as a child. The thing was frightening to look at because it looked surprisingly real, disturbingly real, actually. My mom stashed it in a bag of old baby toys for years and my little babe ultimately found it and unfortunately loved it.

     I tried to be sneaky and remove “Big Baby” from our luggage before we left, but my girl noticed the disturbing toy’s absence and I was left with no choice. “Big Baby” was heading to the Hawaiian Islands.

     That horrible, life-like doll went everywhere with us, including the beach! You should have seen the double takes people made as we carried it in our beach bag with its head poking out or when we casually tossed it on our beach towel and left it in full sunlight. People must have thought that we were terrible human beings before realizing that it was a doll because bursts of laughter would follow disapproving looks and camera flashes would follow the laughter. “Big Baby” is probably on the internet somewhere with a caption reading, “World’s worst parents ever.”

     The last “Big Baby” incident occurred as we deplaned in the Minneapolis airport. As I walked by a flight attendant holding the doll I heard, “You better put some pants on that baby!” I laughed thinking good one until I realized that she was serious. “Big Baby” was wearing only a shirt! No diaper, no pants! I must have looked awful and turned around to explain myself but it was too late, the flight attendant was engulfed by a sea of red-eye passengers. Thanks a lot “Big Baby!”

     Fake baby drama aside, the trip was relatively relaxing. We all went at our own pace, heading out in small groups and large groups. There were little expectations so the mood was casual and cool.

Cruise 1995

Age: Nineteen

As we stood in line to board the cruise ship, I knew that I should be smiling from ear to ear. I was not. I had just been dumped…and was not happy about it. I was never in love with the guy—not even close. It just hurt that someone didn’t like me anymore. It was the kind of thing that knocks a person into an insecure, unhappy state of mind. Well, the guy sure had crappy timing, because there I was on a family vacation to the Caribbean of all places and stuck in my insecure, unhappy state.

My mom did her best to get me excited by explaining the many wonderful adventures we were about to share in the next week. I humored her with an occasional fake smile but she knew what I was doing. Strangely enough, it satisfied her anyway.

After a painful wait period, we finally boarded the ship, found our rooms, and set out on an exploring exhibition.

I tried to focus on the beauty of the ship and the smell of the ocean rather than my dumped disposition. Then, something caught my attention, rather someones caught our attention. My sister and I spotted two guys about our age. Hmmmm….maybe this trip would be more interesting than I thought.

Then, as if out of a movie script, the two guys approached us and introduced themselves as two cousins from Missouri—two drunken cousins, I might add. I cannot remember if their parents paid for their trip or not, but they were alone and making the best of it. They were also huge 6’4” or 6’5” and good looking as well. Slowly my mood began to change. Maybe this trip was just what I needed to get out of my funk.

We hung out with the guys for a little while, exchanging small talk and flirtatious glances, but soon we noticed the time and had to say good-bye. We were to meet our parents and younger sisters back at our room and get ready for dinner. Shelly and I laughed all the way back to our room. We were on a ship with two cute guys for a week—how exciting!

My entire family dressed up in fancy attire and headed down to dinner. We looked fabulous. And the best part: I was nineteen and of legal drinking age in the Caribbean, and my parents allowed it! I could not believe it. So I took full advantage of my newfound freedom by ordering drinks from time to time and feeling “cool” as I placed my orders.

After dinner we said good-bye to our parents and set out to find our new Missouri boyfriends. And luckily, they were on a mission to find us as well!

As fate would have it, on their way to seek us out, my parents found themselves in the same elevator as the Missouri guys and overheard them say, “Let’s go find those Minnesota girls.” My parents looked nervously at one another feeling pretty certain that “the Minnesota girls” were their teenage daughters.

We did eventually find them at a poolside bar, and their twosome had grown. The new guy was some random they met who was roughly their same age and who looked like Sylvester Stallone. We called him Sly for the rest of the week.

The guys bought Shelly and me some drinks as we got to know each other. Then we moved from the bar to the dance club where we danced all night. We had so much fun and felt as though we had known each other for years.

The morning came soon enough and my family and I found ourselves fighting for lounge chairs. These were highly sought after items. If you got to the deck too late, good luck sunbathing that day.

My parents had heard about the Missouri boys all morning and were on guard. Now that I have kids, I realize how stressful that trip must have been for them. They were trapped on a ship with teenage daughters and teenage boys who wanted to hang out their teenage daughters. Oh man, I bet they questioned their choice of vacation the entire trip.

As soon as we settled ourselves into our lounge chairs, we spotted the guys and they were not shy. They came right over to us and introduced themselves to our family.

Even though my parents were skeptical about two teenage boys hanging around their daughters, they found the guys to be friendly, good-natured and likable.

After our family “meet and greet,” the pool and hot tub were calling our name. We sunbathed and conversed all day long. Joe, one of the Missouri guys, had obviously never heard of sunscreen because he ended up burning his feet so badly that they must have shed three different layers of skin. The poor guy! His skin was much too light to forget sunscreen. I also remember him sitting on the bottom of the pool. Seriously, he jumped into the pool, sank to the bottom and sat there for a long, long time. We had no idea what he was doing down there. Then too much time passed, so his cousin Brad dove in and saved his drowning ass.

On top of his antics, Joe was also infatuated with my sister and could care less that she had a boyfriend at home. He followed her everywhere, finding any excuse to be near her. Shelly enjoyed his company but was mostly interested in just having a good time on vacation. Brad and I, on the other hand, seemed to like each other yet were both a bit distant on the attraction front.

Then one night, while we stood on the edge of the boat watching waves, Brad and I realized we had an unfortunate similarity. We had both been dumped before the cruise. We looked at each other and laughed; what a couple of sorry asses. It bonded us, though, and we each slowly let our guard down.

He was actually a pretty sweet guy. I remember going to a midnight buffet one night and he de-shelled my shrimp for me, and I hated de-shelling shrimp! It grossed me out, and yet I love shrimp, so a seemingly small gesture like that truly melted my heart.

I thought about him that night when I went to sleep. It was nice to feel happy about a guy again. Being dumped and feeling depressed was so overrated.

The rest of the cruise was fun and flirty. Although there seemed to be nothing more than hanging out when it pertained to my sister and Joe, Brad and I continued to have a connection.

The last night of the cruise, Brad and I sat on lawn chairs together. We talked about everything and anything while gazing at the starlit sky, focusing mostly on the big dipper. It was huge and right on the horizon in the Carribean.

I mentioned to him that after the cruise, my family planned on staying in Florida for a few days then would head back home. And crazy enough, we were going to have a layover in St. Louis, Missour.

His ears perked up. “We will meet you there.” He said.

“What?” I questioned.

“If your family is going to stop in St. Louis, we will meet you there. Joe and I live thirty minutes from the airport.”

Butterflies instantly soared through my stomach. “Okay, that would be so cool.” I replied. Then my heart smiled.

We eventually said good-bye without a kiss. I know, I know, such a romantic setting and no kiss. I felt a bond with us though, only time would tell if I was right.

I told my sister about Brad and Joe meeting us in Missouri and she was so excited. I actually felt bad for my mom and dad at that point, because all we could think about during our time in Florida were the memories from the cruise and the chance meeting in St. Louis. Sounds just like a movie doesn’t it?

Even though the boys were chasing after my parent’s girls, my parents liked them. They found them to be genuine guys and really hope that they would keep their word and meet us in the airport.

Then it was judgment day. I remember sitting in the airport with knots in my gut. Would they show? Did they have as much fun as we did? I tried to prepare myself for disappointment because these things don’t really happen in real life but I really wanted to see them. My eyes were continually scanning the crowd when, wouldn’t you know it, through the thick sea of people, we spotted two huge guys holding a sign that read “Haider Family Fan Club.”

The smile on my face must have been priceless. They showed up! We all laughed, including my parents. They were guys who kept their word, or cousins who fell for sisters, the bottom line was that they showed up and we were ecstatic.

That bold gesture was the beginning of a three year relationship for Brad and me. Our time together was real and it was good. He was a great guy then and I can only imagine that he is still a great guy now. Here’s to young, innocent love. I’m so glad that I was lucky enough to experience it.