Hawaii, August 2026
Why Hawaii? I mean I guess you could say "why not Hawaii" (always), but in planning a family trip to celebrate my 50th birthday (which isn't actually until November, but we are beholden to the school calendar so we went in August), Hawaii was where I wanted to go. Initially I had planned to go to the big island as I’ve never been there, but then I decided I really wanted to go back to Maui; Jourdan and I had been once before -- in October 2009 -- when I was 8 weeks pregnant with Russell, so now seemed like a good time. This trip was also my second really big travel points redemption (the first was when we went to Orlando and stayed in a 2 room suite at Universal Studios in 2024), and I was so excited to be able to book us two adjoining rooms at the Hyatt Regency hotel "for free" (on points)! Sunday, August 9 Travel day! We were on a 6 a.m. flight out of Billings, so we were up bright and early, but everything went smoothly, and we were checked into the hot...