Hawaii!!

What an incredible gift Hawaii was! Thanks soooooooo much Mom and Dad! We will remember it forever!

We all went to the Big Island and stayed on the Kona side in a nice little neighborhood-y 3-bedroom house, which was just perfect. It was the kids' first plane flights, and they did great, especially on our 24-hour door-to-door trip home. 

Highlights included:

• A beach day with great fish--electric yellow, iridescent green, striped--you could just wade out into the warm water to see, and the kids having a great time playing in the sand, including Sis making me into a "sand palm"
• A drive to and picnic at a coffee farm with incredible high views of the ocean.
• An evening boat ride with my dad to do a night manta ray snorkel...the manta rays weren't out but we still had fun
• A trip to the black sand beach where we saw a turtle and then the volcano...I would have liked to have spent a lot more time there...we went in the rainforest and lava tubes (high on the kids' TO DO list) and saw the steaming vents and the crater itself and the (cooled) lava all over the island was incredible, otherworldly, like nothing I'd ever seen
• The evening of the volcano we went to a luau, I'd never been to one and I thought the food and the entertainment and the setting were all fantastic. Loved the hula dancing, so lovely...
• Another beach day on a sandy beach shaded by palm trees...beach time is so great.
• Jeff and I had a date night and sat by the ocean and drank Mai Tais and listened to music and then had a yummy sushi dinner and talked about all sorts of stuff...it was divine
• Hilo one day, wow that drive was beautiful (all the drives we did were but this one especially), and saw Rainbow Falls and banyan trees you can go into and we saw some bandits in the back of a pickup truck trying to get away from the police (the kids thought that was pretty cool) and we had a picnic in a pretty little park and walked around town and had ice cream in a little local spot, and then on the way home did a delightful hike, green hill in the midst of a lava field and saw rainbows everywhere
• The Hilton where we held this great pink bird and swam with the dolphins, the kids and I, it was such a thrill for all of us, truly one of the coolest things I've ever done...

And also meals at home and Kino Bay Rummy and Moana and Free Willy (Sis sobbed at the end when she wasn't sure the whale would make it) and a bird that chirped every night and sitting out back on the lanai and the kids rolling down the hill in front of the house in little cars and geckos in the yard and heavy rains every night and amazing fresh fish, and warm and breezy sun and the sea turtle and rays and crabs at the marina and the Asian grocery store and the animals on the loose (roosters, goats, etc.) and Yahtzee and the question game in the car and running around the Honolulu airport...just generally the best time imaginable. Love everyone I went with so much and loved, loved, loved Hawaii...

XOXO