Summer Vacation Part 1 - HAWAII

Our family summer vacation was a big one this year - twelve days in Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai.  We had been planning this trip ever since Joe and I went alone to Maui five years ago, and the kids fell in love with our pictures and begged to go as well.  It was not difficult to say yes!  And since the flight is so long and the time change is so significant, we decided to extend the vacation to island hop - a decision we do not regret!  I have been asked many times which island was my favorite, and I can honestly say that I don't know.  Each island was so unique and had its own fun activities to do, so they are actually difficult to compare.  I took over 1,000 pictures on this vacation (hey, it was 12 days after all!).  I have attempted to narrow it down in these three vacation posts.  

HAWAII DAY ONE

Flight to Kona, Hawaii = = Swim at Hilton Waikoloa = = Dinner at Boat Landing Cantina

The kids did a great job on the flight to Hawaii.  The plane left St. Louis at 6am, and we ultimately arrived in Kona, Hawaii, at 12:30pm Hawaiian time.  There is a five hour time difference between Hawaii and Illinois.  No one slept on the plane, so we were basically awake for 22 hours total by the time we fell asleep at night.  Here are the kids in the Kona airport, ready to begin their Hawaiian vacation (which was delayed by 2 hours after the extremely long wait at the car rental place!).

Checking into the Hilton Waikoloa.  There were several birds around the lobby that kept the kids entertained.  And you can see in the background the tracks for the tram - the resort was so large that you had the option of taking a tram (it looked exactly like Disney's monorail) from one end to the other.

A view from the lobby that looks straight to the ocean.  Due to Hawaii being the youngest of all the islands, there were not many traditionally sandy beaches on this island.  Our hotel was surrounded by a black and white lava rock beach, which we actually found to be beautiful and a lot of fun to explore.

In the middle of each hotel building was a nicely landscaped area.  Our building had a bird (I am guessing a crane?) that stayed on an island.  We named it Kevin, like the bird from the movie Up, and the kids always had to say good morning/night to Kevin.

After arriving at the hotel, we decided to let the kids swim in the pools for the remainder of the day.  Joe and I were feeling so jet-lagged that we had no energy for anything else.  We were shocked by how much energy the kids seemed to have, going on the water slide and swimming the lazy river for hours.  After a terrible dinner at the hotel's mexican restaurant, where the theme is "Hola Meets Aloha" (yes, that is the theme, and yes we ate here because it was easy), we fell asleep at 8pm.

HAWAII DAY TWO

Breakfast on the Lava Rock Beach = = Father's Day Cards = = Hulihee Palace = = Mokuaikaua Church = = Lunch at Da Poke Shack = = Greenwell Farms Coffee Tour = = Captain Cook Monument = = Kealakekua Bay State Park = = St. Benedict's Painted Church = = Holualoa = = Donkey Ball Store = = Kona Henna Studio = = Kope Lani Cafe = = Dinner at Lava Lava Beach Club

We woke up at 5:30am on our first day in Hawaii.  It was too early to start exploring the island, so we decided instead to explore the hotel grounds.  We grabbed a quick breakfast and Kona coffee at the Waikoloa Coffee Co. and ate on the lava rock beach. None of us had ever seen a beach like this before, and it was beautiful and so much fun to explore.  The majority of the beach was rough, sharp lava rock, but there were also some white coral rock pieces mixed in.  We enjoyed "writing" with the white rocks on top of the black rocks.  There were also tide pools to explore, waves to watch crashing onto the rocks, blue crabs to watch crawl along the rocks, and so much more.  This was one of my favorite things that we did all vacation.

JOKE - our initials ;)

We learned the hard way that flip flops are not always the best shoes to wear in Hawaii.  After this morning, we wore our sturdy water sandals everywhere since we never knew what terrain we would be tackling.

Ethan contemplating life.  He did this a lot over the course of the vacation.  He seemed to be burning the memories into his brain.

Joe and the kids celebrating Father's Day while enjoying the view from our balcony.  We had a perfect sunset view from here each night.

Our balcony view.  Not too bad!

We spent some time exploring the town of Kona.  We were able to see the outside of the Hulihee Palace (it was not open on Sundays).  It is built from lava rock, and is one of only three royal palaces located in the USA (the others are in Oahu).  

We also took a quick peek inside the Mokuaikaua Church, another lava rock building that was the first Christian Church in Hawaii.  After driving around the island for a few days, we noticed that there was a large number of churches of all different denominations on this island.

We ate lunch at Da Poke Shack - one of the best meals we had all vacation!  Joe enjoyed the Pele's Kiss Poke with a side of spicy crab salad, Olivia ate the Dynamite Poke with a side of crab salad, and I had the Wet Hawaiian Poke with a side of teriyaki calamari, and all meals came with white rice.  Ethan loved the Kalua Pork plate with a side of edamame.  My meal was the best ;)  This restaurant was recently ranked #1 on all of Yelp, and we completely agreed that it is delicious and well worth the stop.

Kona is nicknamed the Napa Valley of Coffee for good reason.  As we drove the highway through the Kona area, there seemed to be signs for coffee farms everywhere.  We toured the Greenwell Farms Coffee farm, and we were not disappointed by that choice!  It was a wonderful coffee farm, our guide was so great at explaining how the coffee cherry is grown, picked, processed, and sold, plus there was a huge variety of fruit trees on the farm that our guide would allow us to pick and sample.

Greenwell Farms also had a large number of these chameleons on their trees - this one is on an orange tree.  This chameleon is a boy since he has the three horns; the females have no horns.

Greenwell Farms also introduced us to our new favorite fruit - lychees!  The taste is difficult to explain - sort of like a citrus, grape, berry blend.  We all ate these throughout our vacation and will miss them when we are back home.

The various coffee samples at Greenwell Farms.

Next up was to view the Captain Cook Monument from the Kealakekua Bay State Park.  This monument marks the place where Captain Cook was killed in 1779.  We did not want to take the hike to the actual monument since we were still feeling jet-lagged, but had a great view of it from this Bay.  We stood on the pier for a long time since the waves were very choppy and were crashing onto the pier soaking us.

A Spam display in the Bay.

We walked about 1/4 of a mile to this small black and white lava rock beach to relax for a bit.  Joe and the kids had a good time skipping rocks into the ocean, and we enjoyed watching the waves and the blue crabs on the rocks.

After the monument, we drove to The Painted Church (St. Benedict's).  This was a very old church where the entire interior had been painted to show various Bible stories.  It was used to teach the Bible to people who could not read.

We drove past the Donkey Ball Store in Holualoa and decided we had to stop to see what it was about.  It did not disappoint!  It was a candy, ice cream, and coffee shop.  The candies were in the shape of balls, and there were about 100 different flavors to select from.

The three of us had a henna tattoo done so that we could enjoy it for the rest of the vacation.  Ethan wanted a shark, Olivia a mermaid, and I got a Hawaiian floral design.

A view of the drive from Kona to the hotel.  It is all black lava rock as far as you can see until it ends in the turquoise waters of the ocean.  The only sign of life was the shrubbery.  While it looks fairly drab and dead, it was actually beautiful and fascinating since we had never seen anything like it before.  It was also here that we found our favorite sign on Hawaii - "Donkey Crossing Next Two Miles; Dawn and Dusk Hours" (the picture I attempted to take of this sign from the car turned out blurry).  Turns out that Hawaii has feral donkeys on the Kona side of the island.  These donkeys are relics from when the coffee farms would use them as work animals, and now they are no longer needed for work.  Joe so badly wanted to see a wild donkey in the fields, but we never did - we saw several wild goats instead.

Our day ended with a wonderful dinner literally on the beach at the Lava Lava Beach Club.  The tables on the beach are available on a first come basis, and we were lucky enough to get one to enjoy the view and ambiance.  Plus the food was wonderful!

Back at the hotel in time to see the sunset.  The view of the sunset is so beautiful that there was a large crowd gathered to watch it, and people clapped when it was over.

HAWAII DAY THREE
Hawaii Volcano Tour day trip with Mark DeVita = = Waipio Valley Lookout = = Akaka Falls State Park = = Hamakua Coast = = Onomea Bay Scenic Drive = = Hilo = = Rainbow Falls = = Big Island Candies = = Hawaii Volcanoes National Park = = Kilauea Visitor Center = = Steam Vents = = Thomas A. Jaggar Museum = = Halemaumau Crater = = Kilauea Iki Overlook = = Lava Tube Caves = = Dinner at Malolo Lounge

The Big Island of Hawaii is just that - a big island!  Driving around the entire island takes all day.  With that in mind, we decided to hire a private tour guide to do the driving for us so that Joe could relax.  And after a full ten hour day, we were very happy that we did hire Hawaii Volcano Tours!  Our tour guide Mark packed in a full day of sites and activities, and was full of knowledge about the island, its flora, and the history.  We learned so much from him!  Our first stop was at  the Waipio Valley Lookout, and it was a gorgeous view.  You can see here how green and lush it is compared to the lava rocks that surround our hotel.  This tour was also an eye opener for us to see how diverse Hawaii is - it has 11 of the world's 13 different ecosystems, all on one island.  After our tour around the island, I feel that we saw the majority of the eleven!  

Our first view of a waterfall was Akaka Falls.  There was a short hike to get back to the waterfall, but it was completely worth it.  The waterfall was stunning, and the walk to it was also beautiful with foliage.

Our tour guide taught us a great optical illusion with this waterfall (it won't work in the picture, only in real life).  If you stare at the waterfall for about one minute and then look to one side of it, the background will appear to be moving and very wavy.  

Driving along the Hamakua Coast was breathtaking - the rugged shoreline with the greenery stretched for miles.

After a quick lunch in Hilo, we drove to Rainbow Falls.  This waterfall was located in the middle of the town, and the parking lot was basically right next to the waterfall's pool.  I cannot imagine living in a town with a waterfall in the middle - that would be a beautiful thing to see while running errands!

As Joe observed, Ethan's behavior next to this sign pretty much sums him up.

Before leaving Hilo, we had to make a stop at Big Island Candies.  This was a large store, pretty much a bakery with tons of free samples.  Ethan was fascinated by watching the woman wearing blue gloves - she is making milk chocolate covered ika (cuttlefish that has been dried and shredded).  Yes, chocolate covered fish.  I actually had wished that there was a free sample of that one since it sounds so ridiculous but might have actually been tasty.  We left the store with multiple boxes of chocolate covered shortbreads, guava cookies, and ginger cookies.

The final leg of our journey was Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.  We stopped at the Kilauea Visitor Center to watch a movie on the Kilauea volcano and to learn about the park.  Unfortunately, we were unable to see any lava actually flowing as the active part was an eight mile one way hike and no one was allowed in the area.  But, we were still able to see the crater (active part) of the Kilauea Volcano and other things.

The second stop of the park was to see the sulphur and steam vents.  The sulphur smell was present but not overwhelming.  The steam is made by water entering into the cracks in the ground, traveling down to the heated lava rocks below, and then condenses as steam.

The steam vents inside the Kilauea Caldera.

If we had had any chance of seeing active lava, it would have been here.  There is a crater inside of this crater where the lava is located.  About six months ago the lava level inside rose to the point that it spilled out of the smaller crater and pooled inside of the larger crater.  Unfortunately, the lava level has since decreased to the point that we were unable to see it.  Our guide told us that when the lava level rose, the line of cars to enter into the park was miles long all day and night!

The Jaggar Museum was very informative.  This little bit fascinated us the most - below is actually lava, sort of like a wisp of lava.  However, if you saw it in person, it looked just like a clump of human hair - it actually looked soft, but was fine lava glass.

A painting depicting the story of Hawaii - it shows Pele (a goddess that lives inside of Kilauea), her love Lohiau, and Pele's sister Hiiaka.  

A view of the crater from the Kilauea Iki Overlook.  If you look closely you can see people walking along the smooth and rough lava rock.  While it looks sort of gray in the pictures, in real life all of this was jet black with some white veining.

Walking through a lava tube cave.  The pictures did not take well inside of the cave, so this was all I could get.  Inside of the cave actually reminded us of our trip to Meramac Caverns in Missouri.

A view of Mauna Kea - the world's tallest mountain if you count the base below sea level.  We had to take this picture from the car as we did not make the drive up the mountain during this trip.  

HAWAII DAY FOUR

Breakfast at Waikoloa Coffee Co. = = Explore the Hilton Waikoloa Village = = Stand Up Paddle Board = = Lunch at Kona Brewing Co. Pub & Brewery = = Flight to Maui With a Layover in Oahu = = Dinner at Da Kitchen

We were still not quite on Hawaii time, so we continued to wake up very early each morning.  To pass the time, we would walk around the Hilton Waikoloa Village checking out their expansive pools, dolphin enclosure, and lava rock beach.  I don't know what it says that the kids would get just as excited by a manmade waterfall as they would by one in nature!

We continued to love the lava rock beach surrounding the hotel.  This smaller area was mainly white coral rock with only a little black rock.  I am not sure if it was naturally like that or created.

We were up so early that the pools were not open yet!  So the kids could only look at the pool from the suspension bridge at this time.

A rhino statue was found on the grounds, so that made Ethan ecstatic.

Exploring the tidepools during low tide.  Many blue crabs and sea urchins were found.

Ethan contemplating life some more.

So sweet!

We were the first ones into the lagoon when it opened!  This lagoon had a small snorkel area, several waterfalls, turtles, fish, shrimp, and allowed different water activities.

All four of us enjoyed stand up paddle boarding.  It was not as difficult as we thought it would be, and it was definitely easier to stand on the board versus kneeling on it.  We had such a good time that we were sad when our time was done.

After we checked out of the hotel, we decided to grab some ice cream for the road.  Olivia and I could not decide between all of the Hawaiian flavors, so we opted for a double scoop!  Olivia got strawberry and vanilla, and I got POG.

We enjoyed a late lunch at the Kona Brewing Co. before catching our plane to Maui.  The pizza was very good, and there were beer varieties that were only sold on the Big Island.

Due to a plane mix up, we arrived in Maui much later than planned.  However, we did manage to make it to dinner at Da Kitchen, and we highly recommend it to anyone!  We were surprised that we did enjoy the Fried Spam Musubi; we figured that we had to eat Spam at least once if we were in Hawaii!