Monday Love Note

A love note to heritage

My keiki visited O'ahu for the first time in 2019. And they loved it. Running around with their cousins, swimming in the ocean, playing cards with our Ohana, driving through our wahi pana... it was all magic.

And then Covid happened.

The world shut down and we shut down with it. Our plans to move out of Washington were squashed, but it paved the way for something different. Moving home to Hawai'i nei. My kids were so excited. But then we got here and spent two years adjusting, figuring out what life looked like, establishing new friendships, creating new habits, building new businesses, and more. And my keiki just waited for something, anything to happen.

They hadn't left Moku o Keawe since we moved in January of 2021 until this past April. I was supposed to take them to O'ahu in October of last year, but it just didn't happen. Then it was the holidays, then I had surgery, and then, in April, I made it work.

I tried not to schedule too much, but it turned out I didn't schedule nearly enough. They devoured every piece of heritage, every ounce of history. And when I thought we had done enough, they were starving for more. Every minute at the hotel was filled with bickering and wanting to go out and do something else, learn something else, see family, visit graves, go to wahi pana.