Oahu Girls

Laneah and Brooklyn stayed on Oahu with my parents for two additional days after the rest of us left for The Big Island. On Thursday my brother Alex and my parents took the girls to Haunama Bay. Apparently Brooklyn did great and even had fun in the water. My mom did say the water was warmer that day, but still! Little stinker. Anyway, they got some cute photos that I wanted to make sure got added to my blog for my blog book. 


My mom bought Laneah this Barbie and Ken beach set. She loved playing with them at the beach, and they currently live happily together in our bathtub.

 Laneah's first time on a boogie board.

 Brooklyn enjoying the water. They played a little shark game that she loved.

 Laneah getting a ride on Poppa's back.

 The girls together enjoying a beach day.

I am glad they had so much fun with Nana, Poppa and Alex. It was knowing how much they would be loved, watched over and spoiled that allowed me to relax and have fun while I was away from them. Huge thanks to Nana and Poppa for watching the girls for us.

Hawaii- The Big Island Day 3 & 4

 On day three we went to the beach again. This time we went  to Hapuna Beach and it was a beautiful beach as well. We went snorkeling and this time I saw two sea turtles. I was so happy. They are my favorite thing to see when snorkeling. We also saw lots of fish, coral and a couple of eels. 


That night we went to the observatory. Now the volcano park and the observatory are the two most recommended things to do on the Big Island and we struck out twice. It was almost a two hour drive and part of it was on the side of an unpaved mountain with gravel that didn't have a guardrail. We were sliding and it was scary and kind of fun. We drove up this part as the sun was setting and the view was breathtaking because we were above the clouds. We got to the top, turned off the car and a guy knocked on the window and told us we couldn't be there after sunset, that we had to go to the center at a lower point. But it was also a very bright full moon, so the stars didn't even look that great. Bummer.

 On our last day on the Big Island we did some more sightseeing. We went to the Pu'ukohola National Historical Site. There wasn't a lot to see, but this was part of the original structure.

 A statue of King Kamehameha.

We drove to the north side of the island to see the  Pololu Valley lookout. It was so pretty, much better in person than in these photos.

 The last place that we had time to see was the Waimea Valley. We just went to the lookout. You can hike to the bottom and see a waterfall, but we didn't have time to do that since we had to get to the airport. It was beautiful anyway though.

On to Kauai!!!

Hawaii-The Big Island Day 1 & 2

While on the Big Island, we stayed at an awesome resort in Waikoloa Village. The Big Island is an interesting place. They have lots of animals and there are signs warning of donkeys crossing everywhere. There are several ranches with cows, horses and sheep and we saw goats all over the place. We stayed on the north west side which is the dry side of the island and it was just tons of black volcanic rock. The first day we went to a couple of beaches. The first beach we went to was Anaueho'omalu beach.

 It was a great beach but didn't have a lot of waves and the snorkeling wasn't very good so we packed up and headed to another beach. We ended up at Puako beach and it was gorgeous. The current was strong, but the snorkeling was great. The visibility was fantastic and we saw lots of colorful fish. It was fun being able to snorkel again.

 On our second day on the Big Island we drove all over the island. We started at Akaka Falls.

 It was a short hike through a lush jungle full of exotic flowers like these.

 The amazing waterfall.

 Our next stop was at Rainbow Falls. Their was no rainbow that day, but it was beautiful none-the-less.

 Then we went to the Big Island Candies factory and store. It was amazing. They let you test taste any of their candies that you want. They had chocolate dipped coconut shortbread, passion fruit cream dipped in white chocolate and then dark chocolate, all kinds of cookies, every kind of yummy macadamia nut combination you can come up with and more. Needless to say, we all bought a lot of things. Then we went to the Mauna Loa macadamia nut factory. It ended up being a short self guided tour with a gift shop at the end. They also let you taste taste and I fell in love with the butter candy macadamia nuts.

Next we went to the volcano.

You would assume that the above picture is what we saw, but that is actually a picture of a picture I took at the museum at the volcano park, lol. Below is what we actually saw....pretty much nothing.  The vog (and yes I mean vog, no typo) was thick and wet and smelled and you couldn't see more than a few feet in front of you. It was also cold. 

Since they still made us pay to get in, we decided to go the museum and I am glad we did. It had some cool things. The picture below was my favorite. It looks like hair, so they call it Pele's hair (Pele is the Hawaiian Volcano Goddess), but it is actually thin strands of volcanic glass.

They had a display from the green sand beach as well. It is green because of the sulfur from the volcano.

We had planned on staying at the volcano park for the rest of the day but only stayed for about 30 minutes. Since we had to drive around the rest of the island to get back to our resort we decided to do a little sight seeing. We stopped at Puluuau Beach on the south side, which is a black sand beach.
It is a popular spot for sea turtles to come up and nest. There weren't any turtles there unfortunately, but they had these signs everywhere.

The last place that we visited for the day was the Place of Refuge in Pu'uhonua o Honaunau. In ancient Hawaii, if you broke ANY law (as silly as a forbidden food) the punishment was death. But if you made it to a place of refuge (they had several on the island) then you would be pardoned. This one had been rebuilt to look like it did at that time. We got there just at sunset, which made for some beautiful pictures.

Hawaii- Oahu Day 5

 On Jason and my last day on Oahu we went to Sea Life Park. We started by feeding the sea turtles lettuce. 

 Then we went to the touch pool and touched starfish, sea urchins and even a baby sea turtle.

 They had several dolphins and even a wolphin. It is a one of kind, and it wasn't an experiment, it just happened. A false killer whale dad and a spinner dolphin mom.

 The dolphin show was amazing.

 This trainer surfed on the dolphin.

 After the dolphin show we went to the aquarium and saw sharks, stingrays, spotted eagle rays, and lots of fish. 

 Both of the girls loved the aquarium.

 Laneah saying hello to the dolphin.

 Brooklyn was throughly entertained by the shows. She would laugh and clap and watched intently.

 Laneah showing off her new hat that Nana bought her.

 The last show we saw was the sea lion show. The sea lion did some painting.

 Then it was time to say goodbye to my parents and the girls and go to the airport. It was bittersweet.


This is just a beautiful picture that I took on the way to the airport.

On to the Big Island!!!!