Hawaii- Day 8

Our last day.

We slept in as usual.

Packed up and checked out.

Went to breakfast at Bubba Gump's.

Walked down to the pier to wait for our boat.

The whale watching boat that we went on on Wednesday had a guarantee whale sighting or you come again for free. So we decided to try again to see some whales up close before we left (we had already seen them pretty much every time we were at the beach).

And lucky us. The sun came out and we saw lots of whales. I really wanted to see a whale breech like we had seen from about a mile away when we were playing in the water at the White Sands beach, but NO! That is okay we still had fun watching the whales surf in the waves.

And Chris and I entertained ourselves on the way back to the pier. I don't think I have laughed that hard in a long time.

I think the island was sad that we were leaving. The rest of the day was very overcast and it poured. We did a little shopping and actually went to the movies. Our vacation was just the right amount of time. We were able to do everything that we wanted and it was long enough that we were ready to go home and see our babies.

Hawaii- Day 7

We went back to White Sands Beach and spent the morning there. We played in the water for a while and took naps on the beach. It was a total lazy vacation day!

We went back to Rosa's for lunch and spent the afternoon walking the Kailua Kona District. We went to the Farmer's Market and got some souvenirs for the kids. We got Hawaiian shaved ice and walked some more. Then we had ice cream (the Volcano ice cream was yum!) and then we would walk some more.

We stopped to lay down and watch the sunset. It was so nice to be able to be together and not have so many interruptions.

Another fun day. Totally relaxing. Perhaps a little too relaxed!

Hawaii- Day 6

Happy 10th Anniversary!

We always said we were going to go to Hawaii for our 10 year anniversary and I am so glad that we were able to do it. And what better way to start the day than doing a session in the temple. The Kona Temple was so beautiful and so small since we are used to the Las Vegas temple.

It was neat too because our session was in Tongan. It was a beautiful morning!

We went out for an anniversary lunch at Macaroni Grill. It was delicious!! And you can tell by my table drawings that we were missing the kids. We went for a walk and got some ice cream.

We finally made it to Mauna Kea Beach. We played in the water for a bit, had a mud fight and then had to leave before we got locked in.

While we were looking for Mauna Kea Beach we found Spencer Beach Park. It was nice so we stayed there to watch the sunset.

We took turns burying each other in the sand and just relaxed.

It has been a great 10 years and I can't wait to see where the next 10 take us.

Hawaii- Day 5

We started day 5 right on the water.

We went and rented some kayaks and drove down to Kealakekua Bay.

Within about 5 minutes of being on the water we were surrounded by dolphins.

There was a lady out of her kayak right next to us who was snorkeling with them and said there was a pod right underneath us. Not really thinking I grabbed my snorkel gear and jumped out.

I was kind of sad that they swam away, but relieved really because I am scared to death of everything in the water!

I got back in and we kayaked over to Captain Cook's monument.

We both got out and did some snorkeling. Anytime that Chris got out of reach I was high tailing it to be right next to him. It was amazing how blue the water was. We had a picnic lunch in our kayak in the middle of the ocean surrounded by dolphins doing tricks for us. It was pretty awesome!

We brought our kayak back and headed to the beach. The weather was pretty overcast and I was cold before we even got in the water, but once we were in it was so fun. The waves were huge and we had fun just riding them in.

The White Sands Beach park. It is also called the "Magic Sands" because the beach can quickly disappear. I think that was my favorite afternoon!

We went back to our hotel to shower and warm up and then we headed to dinner at Rosa's Cantina. It was a yummy Mexican restaurant down the street from our hotel that overlooked the bay. We spent the rest of the night sitting next to the ocean watching the waves come in.

Another fun day on the Big Island!

Hawaii- Day 4

If you are in Hawaii between December and April the number one thing to do is go on a whale watching boat. So we did. Except the only thing we saw was spinner- nose dolphins!

A little disappointing, but still fun!

After our boat docked at the pier we went to Boston Basil's for some yummy pizza and the best pina colada I have ever had.

We strolled back to our hotel looking in the little shops along the way and stopping to check out the palace.

It was neat seeing all these cute lizards everywhere we went. We even saw them in some of the shops.

We went back to our hotel and cleaned up a bit and went to a luau. This is both Chris and my first visit to Hawaii and one the things that I always associate it with is a luau, so I knew we had to go.

I probably shouldn't have watched them pull the pig out of the ground, but other than that it was all really neat to learn a little about the Hawaiian culture.

Hawaii- Day 3

Day 3 was another day of exploration. Chris and I both had friends that gave us a list of things to do on the big island so we set off to see some of those things.

This was Chris' favorite thing we did! It is about a mile and a half down to the black sand beach on a pretty steep trail.

It didn't take us too long to get there and it was beautiful. Pictures definitely do NOT do it justice.

Because it is so steep you have to have 4 wheel drive to get down there or walk, so it was empty.

We sat there and just watched the waves come in. They were huge.

Getting out of the valley wasn't as easy as going in! Some of the locals passed us when we were going down and they said, "1 mile down, 10 miles up". And man were they right! I am glad Chris LOVED it down there because I thought he was going to die on the way out!

We stopped for lunch at a little place called "Hulie Sue's". Thanks for recommending it Staci, it was delicious!

Our next stop was Akaka Falls.

We were glad that it wasn't nearly as far of a hike to see the falls as Waipio!

From this look out point the falls are pretty far away, but still huge. They are almost 3 times longer than Niagra Falls. Crazy!

It was a nice little stroll just taking everything in.

We tried to go to the Volcano National Park, but we couldn't see anything!

We did waste our money going in, but it was pretty funny though. There was a guy on the phone and he said, "it is like a horror movie out here. you look to the right and there is fog, to the left, fog. In front of you, fog. Behind you, FOG."

So we just kept on driving around the island.

We found another black sand beach.

The weather was pretty crazy, so we didn't stay long.

And then we continued on. It was a very long day in the car, but still fun because we made lots of stops and had so many beautiful things to look at. We went all the way around the entire island in one day!

Hawaii- Day 2

We started our second day at Hapuna Beach. We were only there for about an hour when we both looked at eachother and decided to go, we had a whole island to explore!

We didn't really have anything planned for the day so we just started driving. We kept stopping to take pictures because everything was so beautiful!

After we got some lunch we found this cute little island park. There were some kayak -ers that were there that were jumping off a bridge into the water. We watched them for a while.

And right next to Coconut Island is another garden/park. The trees in there were huge! We couldn't get over it.

By late afternoon we made it to the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens. I think this was one of my favorite parts of the trip. Everything was so neat and we had fun exploring and messing around. They offered us umbrellas when we bought our tickets, but we declined. It started to drizzle and then all of a sudden it was pouring and we were wishing we had taken one (especially for the camera's sake)! It made for fun time though as we were running uphill in flip flops trying to get back to the car.

We stopped for fresh smoothies at a little stand and took our time driving back to our hotel. Actually we got lost looking for a restaurant that didn't exist. Good laughs though. We just settled for the Outback by our hotel. Can't got wrong there!