Hawaii (part 1)

Thanks to my amazing husband, one of my dreams came true and we were able to go to Hawaii together!!  I've been to Oahu twice as a kid and loved it so much. I always knew I wanted to go with Mitch. This time we went with some wonderful friends and visited the actual Island of Hawaii which is the biggest of the Hawaiian Islands. 

Our first morning!  I was feeling much better after some good sleep and was ready for some Island exploring.

We headed over to a beach really close to the condo and ended up finding lots of crabs of which we couldn't catch any and a few little fish.

Just as we were heading back to the car, we stumbled upon two sea turtles!!  This was the one thing I was hoping to see on our vacation and we found them on our first day!  I was so excited that while trying to take a picture with Mitch's phone it found it's way to the bottom of the ocean floor. Kind of a rough way to start the week but thankfully it started working a couple days later.

After the beach we headed back to pack up our stuff and head over to the condo we would stay the rest of the week.  Then we changed and went to church.  Later in the afternoon we went back to the same beach from the morning and tried out our snorkeling gear.  Then enjoyed a beautiful sunset from our lanai!

Monday we got up early (thanks to the time change it didn't feel early) and drove down south to pick up some kayaks. Then we headed out to Captain Cooks Monument for some amazing snorkeling.  All of our water pictures are on a different camera so I still have to upload those pictures.  The fish were incredible. It seriously felt like you were in an aquarium because the fish would swim right up to you.  We even saw two different eels!  Definitely a highlight of the trip.

In the evening we went to a luau at one of the fancy resorts(I can't remember the name).  They had the prettiest flower gardens. I kept wishing that I could transplant them home. 

Mitch was trying to be a little too silly for the picture and quickly found out just how sharp lava rock can be when he slipped.

Here we are learning how to fire dance.

Kathrine and I also got some Hawaiian tattoos. 

It was another beautiful sunset.

After a delicious dinner they put on a pretty great show. Nothing quite like at the Polynesian Cultural Center but this is a much smaller scale.

Tuesday we started our tour around the entire Island.  Our first stop was at the green sand beach which is just east of South Pointe. They don't like you to drive out here so it is about a 2.5 mile hike along the edge of a rocky beach.  It is so gorgeous and soooo windy but because of the distance to hike, there weren't very many people of the beach and these were some of the best waves. Since we still had a lot to fit into our day we couldn't stay very long.

Our next stop was to the Punalu'u black sand beach. I'd read that this was a sure way to see the turtles and they were right.  We saw three just laying on the beach and several more out in the water. We were hoping to do a little more snorkeling but because of the wind it wasn't safe to be out in the water.

In the afternoon we headed up to the Volcano Park. We really didn't have much time to spend here so we settled on hiking the four mile Kilauea Iki trail. You start off hiking through the jungle and end up hiking out onto and across the volcano. This was the first time I'd ever been on an active volcano.

You could still see and feel the steam coming from the vents.

By the time we got across the volcano I was so tired but still had enough in me for a jumping pic.

As the trail loops around, it connects with a trail to the Thurston Lava Tube.  It wasn't as cool as I was anticipating but that is probably because we have a lava tube not far from our house that is much bigger.

After this long day we were excited to head over to our bed and breakfast and relax.  Before we got all checked in we drove down to the coast where you can sometimes see the lava entering the ocean.  Sadly we saw absolutely nothing but it was neat to walk out on the lava in the dark.