Also, I am going to try to include as many pictures as possible. Most are mine, but some are stolen from the photographer of the family (Melissa). View all of Melissa's photos on her SmugMug page.
Back to the recap....
Thursday morning was an early morning of everyone getting ready, and a full day of travel. Kayla was a gem on the flights and we made it safely to the house around dinnertime. We had a heck of a time picking rooms, but eventually every one settled in and we put Kayla to bed. Justin, Brendan and my mom then went to Costco and to pick up my dad from the airport. That left us girls to test out the pool and hot tub. Here's a few shots of the house and of the view from the house.
On Friday, we didn't do much. Brendan and my dad played golf; the rest of us spent some time outside by the pool. It really was the perfect house. Kayla LOVES the pool.
On Saturday and Sunday, we did more lying around (you should start to see a pattern here) and took a drive down to the town 3 miles away. We walked around, grabbed lunch, and did some shopping. It was a cute little touristy area. We also had dinner with my dad's President and all of his family. Kayla was a champ again and Brendan tried tofu for the first time. :)
Monday, we did more sunning and lying around. We also had the luau, which was a lot of fun. We took the family picture that I posted earlier. The girls had a little hula lesson....
Melissa tested out a few silhouette shots and got a couple nice ones of the three of us....
We saw a nice sunset....
The luau show was great. Melissa got some great shots of the fire dancer and I managed to catch some crappy shots of the dancers.
At this point, the days are starting to blur. I know we did paddle boarding, but I can't remember if that was Monday or Tuesday. It was really fun and I think a good prep for surfing lessons later in the week.
Wednesday, we took a two-hour drive out to the Volcano National Park. On the way, we stopped at one of the black sand beaches. This is the day I took most of my pictures. A few of Melissa's are mixed in because obviously, I cannot take photos of myself from behind. :)
I love the black sand beaches.....
Then we made it to one of the craters. The volcano wasn't active so we wouldn't see any lava. Instead, we had to settled for steaming craters. Commence photos of steam....
Still cool though right?
I also found the clouds so puffy and amazing while we were there.
Then we drove down to the arch. I know there is background story to this, but I can't remember it now. Isn't it gorgeous though?
Then, on our way back up crater drive, we stopped to hike to the petroglyphs. They said it was a .7 mile hike. What they failed to mention was that there was no real "trail" and it was all on the hot lava rock. OMG. That was a rough .7 mile hike. Luckily, my family enjoys joking around with each other, so we made it in one piece.
They had a boardwalk set up that you could walk around and see a bunch of them. It was pretty cool.
Then, our final stop in the volcano park was to the lava tube. Essentially a cave/tube made in the lava.
On the drive home, we decided we couldn't pass the "southern most point of the USA" without actually stopping. So we drove... in a very questionable drive.... down there. It was very pretty and they had cliff diving boards. I don't know who does that cliff diving, because it was god-awful scary, but it was there.
That looks safe, right????
Thursday morning was the morning we did the surf lessons. Then Lauren and I went to get our tattoos in the evening. And Friday was our day of traveling home.
I forgot to mention a couple things. First, there was one evening that "the kids" went out to dinner to a place I was recommended from a guy I was talking to at O'Hare. I didn't write about it because it was lame. Lame, lame, lame. Thankfully, we know how to have a good time together, so we had a few drinks and a bunch of laughs.
Second, we did manage to make a few friends while we were there. Our inside friend, the tiny gecko that was living somewhere in the kitchen. Isn't he cute?
And then the few sea turtles we managed to see outside the house.
That pretty much wraps up the trip. I'm sure Melissa will post her own versions of the trip with more of her photos.
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