Hawaiian Adventure

How do you sum up 15 days in paradise in one little blog post? I don't know but I'm going to try (which means there will be a million pictures). We had the most incredible vacation with my family to the big island of Hawaii. My parents surprised us with places to stay for Christmas and it was such a fun trip.

Poor Asher came down with what we thought was a cold the night before we left. He was pretty miserable for the flight there which made it kinda rough and he cried a lot. It was a long day. But once we got there it was obviously all worth it. Asher actually had hand, foot and mouth disease and Marcus and I caught it too. What a miserable sickness! It put a damper on several days of our trip but definitely couldn't ruin it. Asher got blisters all over his body but especially his feet, legs, hands and around his mouth. He wouldn't eat or drink so I'm sure he had them in his mouth as well. Such bad timing!

We stayed in the most beautiful condos with a gorgeous pool and a few minutes walk away from the beach. We spent hours and hours just hanging out at either the pool or the beach. We ate lots of good food, and had so much fun all together.

So happy to be on the island...

Our little shark baby:

Asher had an amazing time with all of his cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents. He was spoiled with attention and soaked up every minute of it. He loved waking up to play with his little cousins, and especially he and Stella had so much fun together.

We spent lots of days at other beaches, saw beautiful Akaka Falls and Rainbow Falls, hiked down to the gorgeous Waipio Valley black sand beach, and did lots of snorkeling. 

Akaka Falls:

Rainbow Falls:

Waipio Valley:

We swam with turtles and probably one of our favorite things was going out on a chartered catamaran and then swimming with dolphins. They were wild dolphins and it was amazing. There were so many of them and we were able to be so close to them and just swim around with them. It was incredible. Everyone helped with the babies so everyone could experience it.

We hiked out to Kiholo Bay which was so pretty and completely secluded. There were dozens of turtles down there and it was so fun to watch them and swim with them.

Asher was obsessed with the water and loved the pool and the ocean. He loved crawling around in the sand and was constantly shoving fistfuls of sand into his mouth. He also loved rocks and tried eating plenty of those as well.

(Yes, that is a rock in his mouth...story of our trip...)

Even though Asher was sick and pretty miserable some of the trip, he was such a good sport and just a good little boy.

My dad took us jeeping down a crazy road to the most beautiful, secluded beach. We bobbed around in the ocean and enjoyed being the only ones there.  We rented stand up paddle boards and spent lots of mornings out on them.

We ate giant banana, coconut and macadamia nut pancakes. The boys found and fell in love with Costco's pretzel rolls. We shopped and found sea cucumbers in the tide pools.  We enjoyed Hawaiian shaved ice.  My dad treated us to a delicious seafood feast at Bubba Gumps.

My dad and his sea cucumbers:

We spent a whole day driving around the entire island and going to the volcano park. It was a long drive and day but it was totally worth it to see Miles and my dad in heaven checking it all out. The giant crater and lava tubes were pretty cool.

I was kind of terrified for the flight home after how hard the first flight was. I was so worried that Asher would be awake and crying during the whole red eye. Surprisingly though he did awesome and fell asleep just as we took off and slept for about three hours of the flight.  After that he was awake for the rest but so calm and really good.  The flight from LA to home was a little bit harder, but he did ok. 

We had such an amazing, wonderful trip.  It was so fun to be in such a beautiful place for so many days with all of my family (except for Joe, who we missed of course).  I hope some day we get to do it again!

(And, you better believe I am going to post more pictures once I get some group pictures from my mom and some really cute pictures that Katie took...)