Hawaii 11/28 - 12/3/09

We waited so long for this vacation & now its already over! On November 28th, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we went to The Big Island, Hawaii. We went with Janet & Robbie, and Dave & Ashley. We stayed at Dave & Ashley's condo in Waikoloa at Paniolo Greens. It was right on a golf course that had wild turkeys that would wake us every morning with their greetings.

The first day there we went snorkeling at Honaunau (Place of Refuge). We saw a lot of fish! And even a sea turtle! (The middle picture & the one with Bonnie are of the sea turtle, kind of hard to see!)The fish were beautiful & so colorful! The coral was really neat too with all of its sea life.

We also went to see the volcano but stopped first to see the Thurston Lava Tube. We then hiked out to see the volcano craters & boy were they HUGE! After that we went to the visitors center & were told that we couldn't get all the way to the volcano so we settled for the steam in the distance & ate at the Volcano House overlooking the craters.

The line that goes through the bottom right picture is a hiking trail that goes through the crater. The people on the trail looked like ants from where we were.

On the way back from the volcanoes, we stopped at all the waterfalls we could find. First stop was Rainbow Falls. It was raining on us so each stop was a short but pretty one!

At Rainbow Falls they had these trees that were amazing! Each picture has somebody in them & when you find them then you will realize how massive these trees are! (Clicking on the collage will make it bigger!)

We found a waterfall on 22 acres of private land of a luxury bed & breakfast that was a beautiful drive to get to. Its the Inn at Kulaniapia Falls (http://www.waterfall.net/ if you ever want to stay at an awesome out of the way place in Hilo). The owner was very nice & let us see the waterfall, if you are staying there then you can swim too. Absolutely gorgeous, relaxing location.

And isn't the towncar sweet?! So grandma-ish but it fit all 6 of us!

We also hiked down to a black sand beach in Pololu Valley. It was a gorgeous hike down a steep hill side but worth it! It wasn't so much of a swimming beach though, it had some sand but mostly rocks. There were waterfalls down the coastline, off the cliffs, that were also beautiful.

We, of course, went to some beautiful white sand beaches with the turquoise water. Each beach we went to, the boys would dig themselves "beach chairs" to sit in. They were quite comfortable considering! I loved these beaches! I think my favorite was Hapuna Beach.




We couldn't go to Kona without a temple stop! The had beautiful landscaping of course! Pretty orchids! They also had their manger scene set out.

It seems like we did a lot of eating & sitting! We ate at some fun places like Bamboo (the top two pictures) & on the last night we went to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Good food! We also hit some other little places that were fun & tasty.




Doesn't that look fun?! What beautiful beaches! I am ready to go back!!