The second July 31st

Visiting Hawaii from Japan is cool because we get to live the same day twice. We landed in Honolulu at 7am on July 31st – a full 24hours since we were on a bus to Fukuoka on July 31st.

Dawn’s family did not know we were coming and so we decided to rent a car for the hour drive to her house. We decided a phone call saying “Can you pick me up from the airport?” would give it away.

Family reactions

Sister: “You guys are stupid. Mom is gonna be so mad!”

Mum: (while hitting Dawn with a rag she had been cleaning the car with)
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I could’ve cleaned the house.”

Dad and brother (the chilled out ones): “Hello!”

Surprising the nieces was always going to be fun as they are always asking when we are going to visit. Hayley was home first from school and she nearly dropped her popcorn when we came in. Tati went crazy, screamed and gave us lots of hugs. Then Kawenna came home and the tears streamed down her face as she sobbed and told us she was so happy to see us.

The funniest part of the day came as we were eating dinner later that night. There was a phone call from Auntie Marlene who was at grandma’s house. She told Dawn’s sister that she needed to come over right away.

We were all wondering what on earth was going on but Nalani returned a few minutes later laughing. It turned out that grandma had told Auntie Marlene that she had seen us. Auntie had been at work all day and so had no idea that we had come back. She tried to tell grandma that she had imagined it because we were in Japan and when grandma kept insisting she thought she had gone crazy.

Poor grandma!