Allie was completely back to her usual playful, cheerful, independent self by Day 7. Mr. W noted how much it sucked that she’s totally acclimated now and is over her illness and able to enjoy herself, and we’re leaving the next day. But she did recover in time for us to enjoy stuff we couldn’t when she was super-clingy and whiney. Water slides, for example. The Aulani has two that end up in different pools — one is a tunnel slide you go down individually, and the other is an innertube slide you can go down in a one-man or two-man innertube raft. Unfortunately, Allie only allowed us to take her down the slide once. Once she knew what it was, she told us it was “too scawy and too fast” so we just took turns playing with her while we each went down the two slides a few times on our own. Wanna live vicariously? Here is Allie’s first and only trip down the slide.

Wasn’t that fun? Don’t you want to go now?
Once we regrouped, Allie went into independent play in front of us which gave me the very rare opportunity to actually take a picture of the hubby and me without the kid. So here’s me in all my makeupless glory.

We dared take our eyes off the kidlet for a few seconds for this photo, and when we looked back, she was on a rock wall.

Another second later, she’d worked her way to a corner where there was a higher wall she couldn’t get on, and a drop-off on the other side. “I need help! I need help, mama! I’m stuck!”

Since we’d done everything (a couple of times) by this point, it was a free day to let Allie do whatever she wanted. She chose the beach.

Yeah, that’s pretty much the extent of my ability to assist her in sandcastle-building. Luckily, the hubby is a pro. See video below, which I made specially for this post. =)

That afternoon, we took a casual walk around the resort, finished up the special effects game, and took photos.

Allie got to practice her shakas some more, although it took tremendous concentration on her part.

Okay, so Allie’s doing more the “I Love You” gesture than the “hang loose” shaka gesture, but it’s also appropriate.

That evening, we booked a reservation and had a fancy dinner at a nice restaurant (“Ama Ama” at the resort) overlooking the beach, close to where we had our sunset pizzas.

It seemed an appropriate way to say goodbye to our last Hawaiian sunset for awhile.

The beach days left their influence on the little one. Day 8, the morning we were leaving, Allie told us that she made a sandcastle in her crib with her legs. What? So she took me to her crib and pointed it out. “It’s still there. The water didn’t take it, yet.”

It was shortly after this photo was taken that she discovered that the crib sheets provided by the hotel had cartoon images of Menehune (Hawaii’s version of sprites; I guess they’d be island nymphs) on them, and said happily, “Oh! Look! Menehune! Lots of dem!” Her little toddler voice pronouncing “Menehune” (men-nuh-HOO-nee) has become a favorite delight, much like her effortless pronunciation of words that Mr. W has trouble with, such as “Kombucha.”

You can read about our flight home in the first post of this Hawaiian trip series. 🙂