One nice day, my Mom and I and the kids headed off shopping or something and Steve and my Dad drove down south to Kealakekua Bay, rented two kayaks from the locals and paddled across the bay for some more snorkeling and hiking near the Captain Cook Monument.
Just up the road an hour is the beautiful Hilton Waikaloa Resort. If I didn't already have a great place to stay on the Big Island, I'd be staying here. The resort is right on the ocean with its own little swimming cove, plus has some really neat pools and spas and slides. You can swim with the dolphins there and my favorite as a kid, a boat or tram takes you to your room!
Sea turtle chillin next to us during lunch
Brian was sooooooo excited for the boat ride!
They have Parrots you can hold and have your picture taken with. You can even take your picture home with you for $25.
It was so cute, we had to buy it! Best $25 ever spent on a picture with a bird, ever.
This boat ride to Kealakekua Bay is the best! Our family has been taking the Fairwind every visit to the Big Island for 25+ years now. The boat departs in the morning and takes a 45 minute tour along the coast, looking for whales, dolphins, and trolling for fish, and ends up in the beautiful, protected waters of Kealakekua Bay. Also know as Captain Cook's cove since he was killed there. The cove is full of coral and bright, beautiful fish and spinner dolphins. Steve and I went alone together one day and got to snorkle for hours while the crew makes our lunch. After lunch, we tested out the slides and high dives off the ship and then enjoyed another long whale-watching ride back to port. It was awesome!
When we first started talking about our trip to Hawaii, Brian was very interested in hearing more about and possibly seeing the active volcano on the island. So one day when the weather wasn't supposed to be great for the beach, we loaded up the car and headed south to the Volcano National Park, with a few stops along the way. Here we are at the most southern spot in the US!
My Parents getting their southern on too!
Then a stop at the black sands beach where Emily was able to taste black sand to add to her repertiore of sand tastings. She enjoyed lots of lovely Hawaiian white sand and has also sampled AZ playground sand many times. I hear Mediteranean sand is delicious, so we'll have to let her test some of that out. Brian never enjoyed sand too much. Hmmm.
I thought it was going to be very course but it is actually very fine sand.
Then we finally made it into the park and onto the crater rim road, where there are lots of steamy vent things. You really can't see any lava, because to see the current lava flows would require about a 6 mile each way hike or a helicopter ride or a boat ride, so maybe when our kids are older. But the steamy stuff was cool.
We walked through the Thurston lava tube, pretty cool and very rainforest-like on the short hike down to it
After this, we made the long drive north east to Hilo and then turned left and headed west across the saddle road, where we drove between the two inactive volcanos, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Mauna Kea is the most massive volcano on earth and if measured from it's beginnings on the sea floor, it is the tallest mountain in the world! It also can get snow on it in the wintertime! Snow in Hawaii! It was impressive in person at sunset and worth the drive.
Some more pictures from our big trip! Here we are arriving after a long day, waking up at 430am, two flights, with two great, well-behaved but tired kiddos. My parents had flown in about 1.5 hours before us and had time to get the traditional welcome leis for us.
We got right to work the next day playing on the beach across the street.
My morning routine. It sounds boring but while the little ones were still sleeping off their jet lag, the adults would trickle out onto the lanai with a cup of Kona coffee and watch the going-ons of the beach below. Locals were in the water body surfing and boogie boarding the second it was light enough to see the water. By mid-morning, the only easily accessible white sand beach with waves in the area would be packed and stay that way until sunset. We watched Humpback whales surface, spout, and dive with their babies in the water and I think someone saw dolphins at some point but I never did until we went on our deep sea fishing trip.
One day while my parents were out snorkeling and our beach has dissapeared (more on that later), we took to kids to a small, calm beach near the pier in town so they could frolic there. Both of them loved climbing on the lava rocks and playing in the tide pools.
