Spring Break - Hawaii - Day 1

Randy has always wanted to visit the Big Island of Hawaii to see the volcanoes and even though Kilauea wasn't actively flowing, we decided to go see it anyway for Spring Break.  Since we flew standby, we had to be a little flexible with our schedule and flights and as the date got closer, we could tell we wouldn't be able to fly out of St George so we decided to drive to Salt Lake Saturday and stay a night before flying out on Sunday.  The flight we hoped to take through San Francisco didn't work out so we took a flight through Seattle that got us to Kona a little later than we hoped but we got there.  So we just got some dinner and checked in our hotel and wondered around a little bit before going to bed after a long day of traveling. 

First picture in Hawaii at the airport

On Monday, we got up and headed out to explore the island.  We drove around the south side of the island to the East side where there we stopped at a black sand beach for a little bit.  The sand looked soft, but it was just volcanic rock so it wasn't soft at all but we got to see some sea turtles sleeping on the beach.

Mia buried her feet

Can you see the turtles behind Mia?

There's 1 turtle on the left & about 5 more on the right

They don't think this arch will last much longer

For the main event of the day, we visited Volcano National Park.  Since Alex is a 4th grader, we got in free...even better. :)

We just hiked around for a little bit and got to see several "holes" where the sulfur gases are still coming out of the ground so there's a little bit of "smoke" in the air and it smelled.

It was a little windy

There were a couple of these huge craters

After driving around the park for a while, we went to hike the 'Akaka Falls waterfall near Hilo.  It was SO pretty!!!  Pictures just don't do it justice.  The hike wasn't really that long and the kids loved exploring around the trail.

You can see the Falls in the back

The trail was nice and paved with a lot of steps but it was so pretty.

Randy found this flower for me ;)

I love this pic of us

We made it...Beautiful!!!

After the falls, we were starving so we ordered some pizza and thought we'd look for a park to go eat it at.  Well, we didn't find a park, but we saw one of our churches and I knew there would be a pavilion in the back so we went to see...sure enough, there was!  It looked like it was p-day for the missionaries because there were a lot of them in the church just in street clothes but we didn't go talk to any of them.  But we ate and let the kids run around in the huge grass area behind the church before taking the 2-hour drive over the mountains in the center of the island back to Kona.  It was dark and rainy on the drive back and the kids got a little restless since we didn't let them bring any electronics but it was nice to unplug and spend some quality time together.

It was a long day but the kids were dying to try out the pool at the hotel so we let them swim for a little while before going to bed.  We had the entire pool to ourselves but I didn't bring my phone so I didn't get any pics. :(  It was such a fun day though!