We arrived at the airport at 10am after spending the night camped out on the coast of Puna. I dropped Colleen and Ambiana off to go find Gaelen and Gamma and as I was pulling forward I saw Momma in her wheelchair. I stopped and jumped out, ran around a post and there was Gaelen. He turned and seeing me smiled and I swept him up into my arms in a World Series winning hug. So good to see him after 5 and 1/2 months. His hair has grown out but other than that he looks the same. Gamma was next to feel my embrace and soon Colleen and Yaya were hugging them! They brought lots of luggage, we were surprised and half of it were presents for Ambiana's birthday party and beltated xmas gifts for us! We loaded it all up in our new subaru which we bought the day before rather than renting a car. New to us that it, actually it is a 92 4WD subaru with only 83,000 miles on it. We figured it was better to buy and then sell it than to just pour money down the drain on a rent-a-car.
Our first stop was Ken's House of Pancakes where we had a big yummy breakfast and heard all about the 21 hour trip complete with 2 4 hour delays in both Boston (flight cancelled by snow) and L.A> (flight cancelled in Miami due to storms.) They didn't arive until 2am this morning and spent the night in the airport hotel in Honolulu. Gaelen also showed me that he can count to 200 while we were waiting for our food to arrive.
On the way back to Na'alehu we stopped at the Punalu'u Black Sand Beach for a swim and so Gaelen could try out his new Boogie Board. Ben and Laurel met us there for a snorkle and we marvelled at the turtles and caught up on all the news from home.
Gaelen took right to his new board and was not shy about getting on it. The swim suit we bought for him turned out to be 2 sizes too big but he wore it well!!!
