For those of you who don't know, Lane's oldest brother, Shayne, is a Recruiter in the Air Force, and last year, he was stationed in Hawaii for three years. So, he and his family moved there last October, and ever since, we have planned and prayed that we would be able to go and visit them while they're living there. We started looking for airfare last year and had almost given up hope that we'd get to go, but luckily, airfare rates took a big dive and we were able to purchase tickets for half what they had been going for! So, the planning began. Shayne is stationed on the Big Island, which is great because we wanted to be able to spend lots of time (they may now look back and think it was too much time, but oh well!) with them and also get to see all of the many varied sights of the Big Island of Hawaii. The east side of the island is lush and tropical, the west side is dry, clear and full of beautiful white sand beaches and cool activities, and the south side is the location of the active volcano, Mt. Kiluaea (by far, Dane's favorite part of the vacation!).
To help preserve our great memories, I want to make a separate blog post for each day of our trip, so that we can look back and remember all that we were able to enjoy. I'm pretty sure that Sydni will have little to no memory of this trip, which makes me sad, but hey, she was the only one that was free the whole trip so she definitely got her money's worth. And Dane's memories may fade over time, so I want to try to include as much detail into these next posts, so that he can look back and hopefully be able to remember his favorite parts of the trip, too.
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Here's an overview of our daily itinerary - that way you can skip over the future posts that you find no interest in :)
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Friday, Sept. 11 - Flew from Houston, TX to Hilo, HI with layovers in Phoenix, AZ and Honolulu, HI. - there will be no post for this day because it was too long of a day doing nothing fun - just sat on a plane and tried to keep all of our hands and feet in our area and tried to teach poor Sydni how to pop her ears on the landings so she wouldn't let out so many blood-curdling screams. Thanks goodness she is a thumb sucker because that really helped her out with that a lot! Considering the long travel time and their ages, Lane and I were so proud of how they did on the flights. Dane was fantastic and spent most of his travel time studying the airplane safety cards and asking us questions about them - so funny! Sydni moved between Lane and me a lot, but for a 14 month old who's just mastered walking and wanted some freedom, she did super being so confined all day! Mainly, we are just so thankful that God kept us safe on our journey!
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Saturday, Sept. 12
Lane, the kids, Billie and Caleb - went to a local market, beach and got snowcones (Lane was thrilled).
Mary, Shayne and Tyler - did a zip-line tour with Big Island Eco Adventures (a series of 8 separate zip-lines in the rainforest near the northern coast of the Big Island). The eighth zip-line was 1,047 feet long over a 300 drop below, with an ocean view to the left and a waterfall view to the right! Breathtaking!
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Sunday, Sept. 13
Worshipped at the East Hawaii Church of Christ in Hilo where Shayne & Billie attend. Lane was able to preach both of the Sundays we were there, and he did a great job and, at the same time, looked great preaching in Hawaiian shirts! That's what most of the men were wearing, so he fit right in!
After lunch at Caleb's favorite restaurant, Panda Express, we headed out to see several of the spectacular waterfalls in or nearby Hilo. We saw Rainbow Falls, Kahuna Falls and Akaka Falls. I was blown away by the power and beauty of God's creation there, and it was such a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon! Beware, that post will be super long and will have an enormous amount of pictures of flowers and plants. That's what I love, so that's what I tend to take pictures of.
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Monday, Sept. 14
Volcano Day! We spent the day touring the sights of Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park and were able to see the active crater of Mt. Kilauea, got to walk through a lava tube formed hundreds of years ago, saw miles and miles of lava fields, and got to walk all over a lava field that covered a road near the ocean. By far, this was Dane's favorite day, and he really learned so much and just soaked up everything he saw and heard that day!
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Tuesday, Sept. 15
Explored the south side of the Big Island, visiting the Punalu'u Black Sand Beach, saw sea turtles, ate lunch at the southernmost bakery in the U.S., the Punalu'u Bakery, where they make wonderful Hawaiian sweetbread, and drove down to Southpoint, the southernmost tip of the United States. After our adventures that day, we made it back to Hilo in time for a fellowship meal at the church building with some wonderful fellow Christians. A great day!
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Wednesday, Sept. 16
This was somewhat of a down day for us, since we were leaving the next morning to go to Kailua-Kona for a couple of days. On the volcano day, we drove past a local coffee mill, Hilo Coffee Mill, and it looked so neat from the road, and I knew that we needed to go there, so we did on Wednesday. Lane was intent on spending as much time as possible on our trip at beaches, so after lunch, he took the four of us back to the beach park that he and the kids went to on Sat. Then, after that, Billie, Tyler and I headed out to see another waterfall, Umauma Falls and then toured the World Botanical Gardens near there.
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Thursday, Sept. 17
We left Hilo Thursday morning and headed to the west coast of the Big Island to Kona. We located the resort that we had booked on Priceline.com, Kona Coast Resort, and let them know we were in town so they could call us when the condo was ready for us to check in. We ate a great lunch at Rocky's Pizza across the street, and then quickly headed over to the pier for Lane and Dane's Atlantis Submarine tour. After that, we checked into our condo and quickly got ready for dinner at the Island Breeze Luau, which was great, but ended up lasting well past Sydni's bedtime, so we had to leave it a little early and missed the fire show finale. Oh well!
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Friday, Sept. 18
Still in Kona, we had a full day ahead of us, filled with lots of fun! Lane had researched the area beaches, and he decided on White Sands Beach Park, which was a great choice! There was a partially shaded area that was great for the kids (and me) to play in the sand and not get burned, and the waves were gentle and the water was shallow with a sandy bottom going pretty far out. So, we were able to take Dane out with his floaties and Sydni in her inflatable boat for a little bit. I had never swum in the ocean before, and I truly think I could have floated out there all day and still have wanted to stay. The water there is just so clear and clean, jellyfish-free, and of course, salty, but hey, I really like salt, so that never bothered me! That afternoon, Lane, Dane, Tyler, Caleb and I had reservations on a 3 1/2 hour Dolphin Sighting and Snorkeling Cruise. We were able to see lots and lots of spinner dolphins swimming near our boat, and then we got to snorkel around and explore the shelf of a cool coral reef. Dane had a good first experience snorkeling, and we were really proud of him for trying so many new things without being hesitant or afraid. For dinner, Lane & Tyler went out for sushi, and the rest of us unadventurous-pallatted people went back the safe Rocky's Pizza for another round of some good, safe food!
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Saturday, Sept. 19
This was our last day in Kona. Lane went scuba diving, and while he did that, I got the rest of our stuff packed up and got checked out of the condo. The kids and I killed some time and went to Wal-Mart and took our sweet time eating at McDonald's for lunch and then headed over to pick Lane up. His tour was about 45 minutes late, and come to find out, had had quite the scary adventure. Long story short, on the 2nd of their 2 dives, the group got caught in a drift and were unable to swim back in the direction of the boat at all. So, they all had to wait at the surface while the boat circled around looking for all of the divers! Yikes! He said that it made for an interesting first open-water dive for him. Thankfully, everyone was fine, and Lane said he got to see some amazing things and wished the 2nd dive had worked out better for the group. That afternoon, on the way back to Hilo, we travelled north of Kona and stopped at Hapuna Beach Park for a couple of hours. This is the most popular beach on the west coast of the island, and it was really nice and was much bigger than the others we went to. Of course, Dane spent his whole time there building sand volcanoes. Sydni just ate sand and collected rocks, and then toward the end, she decided she wanted to start running into the ocean, so we pretty much decided to leave after chasing her for a while!
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Sunday, Sept. 20
This was a day we were very excited about. This December 18, Lane and I will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, so we wanted to take a few days on our trip to spend just the two of us and celebrate our anniversary a few months early. After church and lunch, we headed back to get packed and made sure that everything was in order for Dane and Sydni to stay with Shayne and Billie for a few days by themselves. Lane and I then flew over to the island of Oahu and spent three nights in Waikiki. We wanted this part of our trip to be relaxing and to be a time to get to spend time together having fun. Not that we don't have fun all the time with our kids, too, but sometimes, it's nice to have time just the two of us, too. We didn't arrive in Oahu until almost dinner time, so we hurried and picked up our rental car, a blue Mustang convertible, got checked into our hotel and rushed out to dinner in Waikiki. We really had not done our homework well on restaurants, so we were kinda overwhelmed by all of our choices, so we ended up parking in the beach parking lot, and just walked down the beach and down the main drag of Waikiki until we saw something we liked. We ended up eating at Jimmy Buffett's Beachcomber restaurant, and it was so good. We sat out on the upstairs terrace and ate and listened to the live music. This was really the only night we sat and soaked up the Waikiki area atmosphere, but I think we did pretty good for being so unprepared. Our hotel, the Hawaii Prince, was beautiful and was situated right at the Waikiki Marina and all the rooms had an ocean view - so pretty!
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Monday, Sept. 21
We started Monday morning off fulfilling one of Lane's dreams - we ate breakfast at the fancy hotel restaurant. He said that that's what people do in the movies, so he wanted to try it for once. It really was good and fun, but as a result, we had to eat at Burger King for breakfast Tuesday morning! Then, we spent the morning and some of the afternoon touring Pearl Harbor. We saw the USS Bowfin submarine, the USS Arizona Memorial (very moving), and toured the USS Missouri, the battleship where Japan surrendered to the Allies in WWII. After that, we spent the rest of the day, before the sun set, driving around to interesting sites around the island. We saw the Haloma Blow Hole, a place in a cliff where waves crash nearby and ocean water is sucked into and up through the blow hole. This was a very beautiful part of the island, and we also saw sea turtles swimming near the blow hole. Then, we drove to Pali Lookout, which is a cliff's edge that overlooks most all of the eastern side of the island of Oahu. Supposedly, Mark Twain considered this view to be the most beautiful in all the world. By that time, it was starting to get dark, so we headed back toward Waikiki and ate dinner at a great burger place called Islands Fine Burgers. It was so good, but was especially good since we had been walking and going all day without having lunch!
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Tuesday, Sept. 22
A pretty much unscheduled day that ended up being a very fun-filled, relaxing day roaming all over the island. At 10 am, we had a reservation to go parasailing. That was so fun, and I thought that it felt like I was a human kite, which is basically what it is! While we were waiting to do this, we met one of the men that worked there, and he had grown up in Longview, and he had family in Longview, Marshall and Mt. Pleasant! Small world. He had moved over there in 1985. Anyway, we went up about 750 feet parasailing, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. We got to go up together, and that was neat, too. After that, we headed out for the North Shore of Oahu, where all of the surf beaches are. The waves there are dramatically bigger than any we had seen at the other beaches, and we both found them pretty intimidating. I opted to stay on the beach and only ventured out to barely get my feet wet. Lane let one wave crash over him, and then he, too, beached himself. We were able to see the Bonsai Pipeline, the surf beach where some international surf competition is held, I think. We really like the show Lost, and they film it on Oahu, so we set out to find the Lost beach, and we found it! At first, we thought we had found it, at this beautiful, secluded and unpopulated beach. I think that this was, by far, the prettiest beach we saw on the entire trip. As we were leaving, we turned the wrong direction, and as we were looking for a place to turn around, we stumbled upon a YMCA Camp, Camp Erdman, and on the sign, it read, "Welcome Lost Fans" and had the Dharma Initiative symbol on it. We stopped and checked with one of the workers, and he said we could look around all we wanted, as long as we didn't take any pictures of any children. There were several schools there that day. We saw the "Others" village, the official beach where the plane crashed, the assembly hall that was used as a set for several scenes, and a golden retriever dog that was a dead ringer for Walt's dog on the show! A very fun discovery, but in reality, the beach they crashed on is across the street from a small airport, and the "Others" village isn't on the other side of the island, it's right there! Lane was so sure that he would get cast as a main character for next season, but alas, it didn't happen!
On the way back to town, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Heiweila Joe's, and we sat out on the patio and had a good meal. We also stopped to tour the Dole Pineapple Plantation, which turned out to be disappointing to us. It just seemed like a big tourist trap to us. Maybe we were just tired, but for some reason, we weren't that impressed. I still like pineapple, though! Since we got back to the hotel tired and sandy, we cleaned up, got dressed up and went out to eat a late dinner at the restaurant next door to our hotel, The Chart House. It ended up being our favorite restaurant, I think. As we were walking from our hotel and were about to enter the restaurant, a huge fireworks show began out over the ocean. So, we stopped to watch it before we went in. We ended up sitting at a table up on the terrace directly above where we had stood to watch the fireworks, and we were wishing that we had arrived five minutes earlier, so that we could have watched it from our table. Still pretty neat, though.
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Wednesday, Sept. 23
Our last day in Oahu, and it was a good one, too. I wanted to do some more snorkeling, so we went to snorkel at Hanuama Bay, which is a marine preserve. After going through all of the red tape of watching the required movie about marine life and safe snorkeling practices, we were finally able to get down to the water. Hanauma Bay is a dormant volcanic crater that had one side collapse and eventually was filled with water and formed a beautiful bay. We snorkeled for 2 or 3 hours off and on, since Lane was, for some reason, getting sea sick. We kept laughing because in the movie they told you to never snorkel without a buddy, and I really wanted to keep on snorkeling while Lane had to take breaks to find his stomach. Unfortunately, I love rules and could not bring myself to break the buddy rule for fear that Lane would report to the Education Team that there was a red headed girl snorkeling alone. And, I wouldn't have put it past him. So, I was patient with him and still had plenty of snorkeling time. After that, we ate lunch at a local burger joint, Teddy's Burgers, and after that, it was about time to start heading toward the airport to head back to Hilo. The kids were glad to see us, and we were really glad to see them, too.
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Thursday, Sept. 24
Mainly a day to get packed up and shop for last minute souveniers. We did go to Big Island Candies, and I'm glad we did. We got these wonderful chocolate-dipped shortbread cookies there, and we ate on those for days, kinda like my dad does with summer sausage on trips. We started our long trek back to Texas at 9:15 that night, and we flew through the night, which worked out great for the kids. Dane fell asleep as we took off from Honolulu and didn't wake up until we landed in Phoenix. Sydni slept most all of the 6 hour flight, but did wake up every couple of hours and fussed a little until she could get comfortable again. We arrived back in Houston at 1:45 Friday afternoon, and Lane's dad picked us up from the airport, and that's when I officially declared it a successful and blip-free trip. We were so, so tired, but had such an amazingly fun trip that we will never forget!
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