We're back to having regular Internet access since the hotel lobby has wireless, so should be back to daily blogging. Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope it's a great holidays for you all!

We woke up this morning at about 7, and Mom and I had time to go to Crossings for breakfast, eat one last meal on the ship, and say goodbye to Anna before we had to get off at 8:30. I can't believe it's over already, it was a great week though! Peter seems to have also discovered that five days worth of Sudafed does wonders to get rid of a mild cold, and luckily he's completely recovered from the trip he sent himself on yesterday!

We got off the ship and Peter and Grampa went to get the rental car while Mom and I guarded the mountain of luggage - we were in our rental car (lucky we got an SUV, we barely fit as it was!) by 9:30, and I was asleep by 10:30 in the hotel - the Aqua Palms Waikiki. Mom briefly woke me up to tell me they were going to get some food at about 11:30, but I rolled over and went back to sleep until about 12:30 - they didn't get back until 2ish because of a walk around the neighbourhood, so I just hung out at the hotel, and then got Subway for lunch before we all piled into the car and headed to Walmart to buy a few things... Ha! We went a little bit beach toy crazy, and should be able to snorkel and body surf our way all the way through the next week! We also stocked up on snacks and towels and the such. I was trying on bathing suits while the rest of them had quite the scare - they managed to all leave the cart unattended, also leaving Mom's purse in the cart. When they all realised simultaneously what had happened, they raced back there to find the cart, and Mom's purse, missing.

Thinking it had been stolen, they called security to look up the tapes, and Mom went to guard the entrance. Luckily, it had been found by a stock person, so it all turned out OK - Mom just got a stern reprimanding for leaving her purse unattended but other than that, everything was all still in the cart (plus some faulty merchandise tossed in there by someone who mistook it for the restocking cart), so we got lucky there!

Headed back to the hotel to dump the perishables in the fridges and then jumped back in the car and headed up past Diamond Head a little ways, stopping at a small beach/pull in just in time to watch a really nice sunset. It's a gorgeous area! After that, we headed back into Waikiki to see Casino Royale, the current Bond flick, about which Don Morton says: "This could be one of the best action flicks of all time" (incidentally, I say I must be a bit desperate for links!) It was pretty good (opening title sequence fantastic!) but given that I'm not really a Bond/action fan, I'm probably not a good person to be reviewing it! I was jumping around like a flea dodging bullets as Mom so kindly puts it, but I did appreciate the more character/story based side of the whole thing, I won't ruin the plot, but there were some lovely romantic bits (yes, I'm the hopeless romantic over here, I think we all know that!), before it all went a bit wrong. I love Judi Dench, and even though I'm in no way qualified to judge given I've maybe only watched two or three other Bond movies all the way through, I thought Daniel Craig did a pretty good job.

After that we just headed back to the hotel, I think we're just going to hang out for awhile in the boys room before crashing... It seems very weird that it's Christmas today. I know I've been saying that all week, but it really does tonight, now that its here! I'm obviously having a great time, but I miss having everyone together, having a tree, making tons of food for everybody, dressing Elli-blot up in his Santa suit, baking Christmas cookies, shopping for presents, proxy shopping, hoping for the unlikely white Christmas - the whole bit. It's been less stressful, but just not quite the same! Hopefully we can get in touch with everyone tomorrow, and I'm sure a day at the beach will cheer me right up!

Mela-kaliki-maka!
D.