Obnoxiously Rich

Summer is a time for traveling and bonding as a family. So recently all six of us crammed into Drake's Buick Le Sabre and headed out of town. This car was given to Drake by his great-grandma, and was the one car that would fit the entire family. And I don't mean we all fit in the sense that we all had a seat, I mean it was physically possible to squeeze six bodies into the space. If we had gone for a ride across town that way, it would have been mildly uncomfortable. Going to another state that way gave our chiropractor job security. The car came with a Susan Boyle album stuck in the CD player, so we listened to It's A Perfect Day over and over, and Drake and Josiah - who ride together a lot - knew all the words and sang along.

The discomfort of the car made the comfort of the airplane seem not so bad, and when we landed in Hawaii, no amount of soreness could have wiped the smiles off our faces. We couldn't spin our heads fast enough, taking in all the sights. The first five days, we attacked the island of Kauai like passionate researchers determined to leave no space unexplored. Then our minds accepted the fact that we were on vacation, and we actually began to relax. We hiked to waterfalls, learned to surf, jumped off of cliffs, explored caves, sacrificed our bodies to crushing waves, and, best of all, spent the entire time together.























I fortuitously snapped a picture of the boys getting pummeled by a wave when they clearly didn't expect it. Josiah is mid-sentence, and the back of Drake's head was hit so hard, his hair forms a halo straight out in all directions. The picture of the kids jumping off the cliff gives me heart palpitations.

"Remember when we tried to cancel this trip because we couldn't afford it?" Mike asked on our last evening.
"I'm so glad we came," I said. "We might be paying on it for the next ten years, but this will be one of the memories I replay when I look back on my life."
"It has been perfect."
"I think it is the highlight of my life so far."

We had an amazing trip and saw glorious sights. We were adventurous and lazy.

We were together.

I feel obnoxiously rich from the memories we've created.