Hawaii 2010- Day 3

Brad was at conference from 7am-1pm, so I enjoyed sleeping in, taking my time and spent my morning sitting out in the sun with my book. When I got a little warm, took a little dip in the ocean.... REPEAT When Brad was done we went for a snorkel together right off the hotel beach. The fish here were great too, and some we hadn't seen before, and a couple more sea turtles that were bigger than the day before. You feel like you are swimming in a fish tank at the aquarium!

We then came back and warmed up and dried off in the perfect temp. Hawaiian sun! For supper we headed up to Hawi, a small town out of the way of tourists, and ended up at Luke's Place. It was kindof like "Cheers." It seemed everybody knew everybody and they were hugging each other... except us. I really liked the local feel, rather than the resort feel.

We enjoyed some entertainment there especially this Jazz flute.

I had to try out the virgin Pina Colada! Mmmmm! And so ended ANOTHER day in paradise.

Hawaii 2010- Day 2

Day 2 I woke up to this (I took this picture laying on the bed)

I wish you could hear the birds and the ocean, and smell the flowers- no noisy elevator here!

Day two's first mission: Get snorkel gear!

We started at Miller's Surf and Sport where an awesome guy set us up with everything we needed and was kind enough to show us the best places to go, and the secrets of getting into the "private" beaches, and other suggestions. It was great.

We also picked up a new version of "The Bible", aka: "Big Island Revealed" while we were there and set out to a beach just down the road for some snorkelling.

I can't tell you how many hours I spent pouring over this book!! I read a good portion of it on our flight over to the island (an older version Brad's colleague lent him) Then once we got there I wanted to make the most of our time there and didn't want to miss anything. So I studied and studied it until by the end of the trip I had this interesting love/hate relationship with it... I loved all the places it sent us and all the great tips and suggestions, but by the end I was sooo tired of checking the book... I didn't care if we missed something. It is a MUST though, if you ever go!! Our first snorkelling experience was at Kahalu'u bay. It was a great fist stop. There was a LOT of coral and a LOT of fish. It was the strangest feeling to be swimming with the fish. I was surprised at how oblivious they are to you swimming around in their territory and that they aren't really afraid of you. One really fun thing about this bay is the plethora of sea turtles. I think Disney got "Crush" just perfect. They really do just kindof float around without much care. It was really cool to be able to swim with them and have them brush up against you as they floated by. Very cool! As you can see they came in to the really shallow areas We snorkelled a little, had lunch, then went out again. Once we'd had our fill for the day we decided to head back up to the market on Ali'i Drive. Lots of different fruits I had never seen before.

On the top shelf there you can see the bag of macadamian nuts... we ended up eating 3 bags of those while we were in Hawaii!! There was lots to see and shop around and look at. You can see the chalk writing on the road... that is left from the Iron Man triathalon race the week before we got there. We found the best spot for a sunset supper at Kona Inn Restaurant. It is right off the ocean.

My handsome hubby
A yummy strawberry daiquiri (virgin, of course)
As the sun went down the lit torches led to an awesome "ambiance"
The evenings there are so perfect!
A little more shopping at the board walk after supper.
And this WEIRD painting at a gallery.
A great first full day in paradise!!

Hawaii 2010- Day 1

Mom and Karl arrived on Thursday Oct. 14th to help watch the kiddos, and without whom we would not have been able to make this trip. Thank you!!

Friday was spent running my mom around and showing her the lay of the land, then Friday night Brad and I headed up to Portland for the night so we could fly out of PDX in the morning.

We stayed at Aloft which is a "modern" hotel with a night club scene in the lobby.

I was happy to be greeted by this guy singing Hawaiian music :D

I thought the bar looked super cool!

Our "modern" bathroom

Too bad our "modern" hotel came with a lot of "modern" reminders of noise. Our room was right by the elevator and was the noisiest elevator shaft I have ever heard! I had trouble sleeping and woke up early from all the noise

(you'll notice I look... a little less than rested in the remainder of the days pictures)

We started with the crumbliest chocolate croissant for breakfast at the airport

The 6 hours later, we got off the plane in Honolulu and I saw this:

Hooray! We were really in Hawaii!! We had about a 2 hour layover before our flight to Kona, so we got to hang out in these beautiful gardens, right in the middle of the airport!!
We saw a couple birds in the airport there too!
We arrived safely in Kona, got our rental car and head out to where everyone wants to go first when they get to Hawaii.....

COSTCO!!!

Pathetic.. I know... but we wanted to stalk up our hotel fridge with cheap eats for breakfast and lunch while we were there.

When we got to our hotel, the Hapuna Prince, the sun was just starting to set.

This is the beautiful view from our balcony in our room.

We got set up in our room, went down and listened to the lounge singer in the open air lounge looking out over the ocean, with the smell of the sweet flowers air, then went for a walk along the beach with a beautiful, near full moon.

We made it! We were actually IN HAWAII!!