Week 7

What a fun and busy week!  We kept seeing a gigantic yacht up and down the island.  We found out that it belonged to a Russian Billionaire!!!  It's a 400 foot yacht, has 3 swimming pools, a helipad, costs $20 million a year just to MAINTAIN, costs $500,000 to fill it up with gas, and requires a staff of 37 to run it!  Here's the article about it: "A Yacht" 

This week we tried to snorkel at our beach club, but the waves were way too big and had stirred up all the sand, but we still had a fun time!

We went on a walk at Kiholo Bay.  This is a fun walk along the beach, where there are a couple of mansions. One is Earl Bakkens, who invented the pace maker, and the other is the CEO of Paul Mitchell products.  There is also a cute little care takers shack, and some beautiful rental homes.  The fun thing about Kiholo is all the turtles!  We saw at least 20, and we were able to wade right up to them!

Also at Kiholo is a queens bath.  This is a lava tube that gets filled with fresh rain water, so it forms a fresh water pool.  The kids all got in and enjoyed a very cool refreshing dip! 

That night the kids had fun making real flower leis, and watching a hula show.

The next day we hiked Polou again.  We love this hike!  We got all the way to the top of the second ridge and enjoyed some beautiful views, as well as some strawberry guava and passion fruit that grow along the trail.  Just as we were about ready to head back down the skies opened and it began to rain!  We slipped all the way down the muddy path, and when we got to the beach we decided that since we were all wet anyway, we might as well take a swim!  The water was warm and it was so fun!  The kids thought swimming in our clothes was the best idea EVER!  Hiking up the second and final ridge was quite the experience!  It was the slipperiest, wettest and MUDDIEST walk ever!  We were covered in mud and soaking wet!  But it sure was fun!  We were rewarded at the top with some fresh pineapple juice from Michael, a local farmer.  He has the SWEETEST white pineapple that we've ever had!  He is such a nice guy and told us that if we ever came to visit in the off season, (not summer) he'd give us a private tour of his farm.  He has 20 acres and he said there are waterfalls and water holes that we could swim in!  How cool is that offer!?  Now we just need to get back here!

Lauren got a GREAT surprise that night!  One of her BFF's flew over for a visit!  We're so happy that she made it!  It's been so much fun for Lauren too. I only have video of it.

We spent a day in Kona and snorkeled at Kahalu'u Beach.  After all the kids had gone in, Gary and I went out together.  We went a lot farther than I had been before and on the way back we swam right over a turtle!  We floated above it for several minutes.  It was so cool to swim with one!!  Of course that was the one time we didn't take the go pro with us!

After snorkeling, we did some shopping, then stopped at the beach on the way home.  Then that night we saw the hula show again!

 This is how we eat pizza in Hawaii!

Most of the family did the night Manta Ray dive this week too.  It's technically not a dive, it's snorkeling.  Kaycee was really afraid to do it, so she and I had a night on the town, while everyone else swam with Manta Rays!  We all had a really really great night!!  If you get a chance, watch the video--you can hear each time a Manta Ray got close to Lauren!

Finally, we spent a day on the road and visited South Point.  This is the most Southern Point in the Untied States and it is BEAUTIFUL!!!  The road to the cliffs are covered with bright green fields that were so amazing!  The adventurous thing to do at South Point is to cliff jump!  There are jumps everywhere from about 10 feet up to almost 50!  The smaller jumps are into a hole in the rock!  So, you either jump 50 feet straight off a cliff, or jump 15 feet into a rock hole!   My kids are WAY braver than I am, and most of them did at least one jump!  The hardest part is the only way up after jumping in is to climb a rickety ladder that has been anchored to the side of the 45 foot cliff!   The water is CRYSTAL clear, and is the most beautiful I've seen!  There were two little girls snorkeling while their Dad was out spear fishing.  I thought snorkeling was a great idea since I was too chicken to jump!  I got my mask and snorkel on, got in the water, turned to my left and saw a shark on the edge of a rock.  I was out of the water in about 3 seconds!!!  I asked the little girls if they saw the shark right there.  They said, "Ya but it's dead."  I said how do you know it's dead?  They said, "Well it would have bitten us if it wasn't!  Plus there are fish starting to eat it.  It's a baby shark."  We asked,  is this shark one that would kill us, or just hurt us?  They said, "Oh, just hurt you, it's too little to kill you!"  Wow, these local kids!!!!  I tried to get back in an just take a look around, but I was too nervous!!!  Ha ha!

Our next stop this day was at the Volcanos!  We visited the lava tube, which was pretty lame compared to the one we explored earlier in the week, we saw the steam vents, and we got to the actual volcano around 5:30 pm.  We listened to the ranger give a little speech about it.  She said the very best time to see it was at night, because you could see the lava glowing.  During the day it just looks like a huge plume of steam.  Well it was 2 hours until it was dark.  But we talked our husbands into getting some dinner and coming back to see it at night.  I'm SO glad we did!  It was amazing to see it all glowing, knowing there is a lava lake producing that glow!  Really an amazing sight!!!

Finally we ended up our week right back at our beach, which was as calm as could be!  We got some fantastic snorkeling in!  We all went out further and I am just in awe of how beautiful it is.  Coral of every color and every shape, the most colorful display of fish too.  I feel like I can just float there for hours and enjoy the show.  Everyone and then, that eerie feeling comes over you, knowing that you are in a predators environment, but all in all it is just beautiful!

This was taken a Mauna Kea beach.  You can see the A Yacht way in the background on the right! 

This summer has been incredible!  I'm so so sad that it's coming to a close so quickly!  There is no price you can put on having your family together for the ENTIRE summer like that!