week 3

What did we do this week?  Well see week 2!  Ha Ha!  We snorkeled, visited Hapuna Beach, Kua Bay Beach, did our favorite hike, Pololu (we spent 5 hours this time climbing trees, exploring, building structures with driftwood, balancing on fallen trees, eating strawberry guavas and hiking!) and we visited the waterfalls of Hilo again!  This time we found a waterfall way in the back of Rainbow Falls.  There is a giant pool of fresh water leading up to the waterfall.  The sides of the pool had sheer rocks that were all squared off--it almost looked manmade!  I've never swam in clearer fresher water!  It was amazing!!  We got to spend a lot of the week with the Sanders Family who are visiting!  It's been great to get to know them!  

Lauren enjoying the fire show! 

Pololu

We came across this shelter, which prompted the kids to make their own!

We got some rain this day, which made for the most beautiful rainbows up top!

The kids had to climb every branch they could!  This log is actually very high up!!

Lauren and Sydney's driftwood tent!  They finished it just as the rain started coming!

We spent 2 hours at Kolekole park, the kids did this rope swing for a solid hour!  I don't know how they find the strength!  After you swing off the rope into the water, you battle the waves from the ocean that are hitting the stream flowing in the opposite direction.  Then you have to pull yourself up out of the waves onto the rocks to do it all again!  

Behind the waterfall!  

Thanks Sanders Family for being so fun and adventurous this week!  

This is the waterfall behind Rainbow Falls!  Beautiful swim!! Kaycee had changed out of her suit after Kolekole, and she was SO mad that she couldn't swim with us!  Next time Kaycee! :)

When you see a giant Banyan tree, it's always best to climb it as high as you can!!

The whole gang on top of Rainbow Falls

Hapuna Beach

Snorkeling at Mauni Lani Beach!

Here are the videos of our week--I guess you can only see these if you are on a computer though, they won't pull up from on a phone or tablet.  

Week 2

What an amazing week!  The kids are all feeling better and we were able to get up and go!  We hiked our favorite hike, Pololu, and while there took a new trail up the mountain and over to the next valley--we met some local girls on the hike who showed us how to pick strawberry guavas, and they were DELICIOUS!--we swam & snorkeled twice at our Mauni Lani beach club beach, which turned out to have AMAZING snorkeling--we swam at Hapuna beach--we took the beautiful drive up to Hilo and stopped at our favorite waterfalls along the way--at Kolekole park we swam to a waterfall, walked under it, and swung on the rope swing back out to the water-- we met Michael, who owns and runs a farm and who had the best homegrown pineapples we've tried--we got to play some tennis, and found one court that wasn't so great, but found a different one that was awesome--we watched the sunset driving over Mauna Kea, a volcano thats summit is 14,000 feet (we were probably 5,000 feet up??)--we watched a hula and fire dancing show--and we made our own leis!!

These leis smelled SOOOOO good! Wish I could send the scent through the computer!

 Mike's pretzels was finally open!  We got our macadamia nut fix, but found our new favorite-- salted carmel and chocolate pretzel!  YUM!!

Our FAVORITE hike!!

Campfire anyone?

This is the top of the 600 feet ridge!  

Facing inland to the valley and the freshwater streams

Facing out to the ocean

The trail that takes us up and over the ridge to the next valley

Don't fall off Lauren!!

The black sand beach at the bottom of Pololu-- after Lauren and I waded in the water we discovered several Portuguese Man-of-War washed up on the shore--glad neither one of us got stung!!

The name of our street!  (Our cousin's name is Maile!)

The only public tennis courts on the whole island!  

All of us, (Josh, Kelly and us) all ended up with the same color rental vans!  Here we are headed to the water falls!

Akaka Falls 

It's a rare thing to have a sunny day, when you do all the rainbows come out!  It was so beautiful!

Just outside of Akaka Falls is a coconut farmer!  He chopped up a coconut, and sugar cane for us!

Kolekole park--this is the drive down to the park: 

We swam over to this waterfall!

This video is from a small little hike that takes you behind the Hawaii Botanical Garden.  The kids always find coconuts and love to do all they can to crack them open!

Almost made it to the top-- (ha ha I was like 2 feet off the ground)

Rainbow Falls!

This is all of us climbing to the very top of Rainbow Falls

The very edge of Rainbow falls!

The sunset over the ocean from Mauna Kea

Hapuna Beach (we haven't uploaded the go pro pictures yet from here!)