Paradise

For Jordan's graduation trip with the family we all went to Kona, Hawaii. We were all so excited, I was especially excited I had never been anywhere tropical. We left early Sunday morning and got to Hawaii by lunch time with the time change. Tory was a great traveler, she was awake for the flight to Seattle and then slept through the flight from there to Hawaii which arrived an hour early. We have been so lucky in our travels with Tory she is always so good. We stayed at this cute little resort that was very comfortable for our herd of 10. We had three different condos that had two bedrooms each, a full kitchen, 2 bathrooms, living area and a lanai. There were beautiful flowers and little green geckos. We went snorkeling, on a island bus tour, to a luau where they roasted a whole pig in an underground oven, went shopping and did little shopping. All in all I loved every moment of the vacation and I think that everyone else did too. It was so beautiful and exotic. I would go back in a heart beat. Enjoying our plane ride, Tory is the best little traveler ever. She slept most of the way there and watch Elmo and colored the rest of the time, what a good girl we have.
The first view of the tropical water out or plane window

This is a beach just down the street from our condos

Our bedroom, the tub was amazing not only was it deep it had jets too We had a great bbq area outside our condos, here is Jimbob, Tory, Jordan and Hunter cooking dinner and playing a game of cards.
The first time Tory and I put our feet into the warm Hawaii water

Tory enjoyed her tartar sauce at Bubba Gumps
Aren't those pig tails the cutest things ever
Poppy and Tory checking out the Geckos

These little guys were everywhere, Tory loved them and would point them out where ever we would go she ever learned how to say "Gecko" while we were there.

We walked to an open air market just down the road and at one of the booths there a man had a snack bar set up for the Geckos, kind of funny to see. They seemed very happy though to have the canned fruit just for them.

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We took a bus tour that went all the way around the island, it took about 12 hours. I really enjoyed it we were able to see all the island and learn about it from our tour guide Sal. He was very educated about the island, lots of great information. These are the things we got to see and do that day..... First was the Kona Coffee Company, we drove through all the coffee orchards and then stopped at their gift shop. Then on to the bake shop, where they had the most amazing sweet bread, oh my goodness I can't even explain how yummy it smelt and tasted.

Us at the Black Sand Beach


This is the entrance of the Lava Tube

At the lookout of the Volcano in the center it was erupting, this is the reason we had some foggy days or should I voggy days
We stopped at Rainbow Falls which is all the way on the opposite side of the island from where we were staying. The vegetation over here was so huge, they have a climate like a rain forest. Everything was so green and growing like crazy.
We had quite a few more stops on the bus, including a candy factory, the Muna Loa Nut factory, and a Cattle Ranch information center and gift shop. Who would have thought that there would be cattle ranchers in Hawaii, in one area of the island it's all pretty much cattle land. If I remember right Sal (the tour guy) told us that there are 13 different Eco systems on the planet and the island of Hawaii as 11 of them. Kind of crazy, I thought that the whole island would have been all tropical, not so though.

We got to see and swim with sea turtles

Carl and Tory hanging out with a wise old sea turtle

Mom and Jimbob enjoying the water together
Another adventure was snorkeling, we went out on a boat the took us to a couple different places where the snorkeling was wonderful
This is Captain Cooks Monument, this was my favorite place that we snorkeled. The water was calm and there was lots of fish to see. I had never been snorkeling before, the fish and all the other living things in the water were so perfect they didn't seem real. It was amazing.

While we were out on the boat the Captain was trying to find some dolphins for us, we weren't having much luck and didn't think that we would see any when we stumbled upon these guys, at first we thought that they were dolphin but as we got closer we noticed that they where black and not grey that's when the captain told us that they were Pygmy Killer Whales and that it was quite a treat for us to see them I guess that they are uncommon to see and are usually pretty shy. They were just lovely we were so close to them, we could hear them blow out there blow holes and make little noises. We even saw a mom and baby. It was awesome. Everyone was so excited including our captain, he had only seen them acouple of time in all his years as being a guide.

The birds there were also so beautiful with completely different sounds then are birds at home have, these are just a few that where around our condo, as well as some of the beautiful flowers.

These are pictures from the Luau we went to, we even ate real Hawaiian food. It was not so tasty, but its all about the experience though right?




On Saturday it was King Kamehameha Day, they had a beautiful parade with lovely ladies all done up in flowers and gorgeous fabrics. Every one in the parade rode horses to King Kamehameha's Palace to honor him.

One night we ate at the little place called "Bongo Ben's", right across the street was the ocean. This sunset happened as we were having dinner, it was picture perfect.
Us getting on the plane to go home, back to the sticks.