Hawaii Part I - Arrival and Honolua Bay

Back in early fall our good friends Josh and Andrea mentioned that it was really nice that our spring breaks lined up in the spring and they would love it if we could join them for a trip to Hawaii.  That sounded really great but I was surprised our spring breaks lined up.  The more I thought about it the better the idea seemed so I was already half committed when I found out our spring breaks didn't align......oh well I guess the kids will get 2 weeks off for spring break.....I'm sure they learned more important stuff in Hawaii anyway.

 

Clearly we were a week early on the spring break thing....I love the Spokane airport.  Small airports are nice for getting through security and having a relaxing departure.

The excitement is building....

Its a good thing the tropical air, palm trees, ocean waves, sunset,....ect is calming because our arrival was not without incident.  Josh had told me they had a very stressful time getting their rental car and it took over 2 hours, so I was getting mentally all prepared for that sort of thing, but it turns out that wasn't our issue.  I found that having children watch 6 hours of movies in a tight plane and then endure a very rough approach on the landing was a bad recipe.  Lane was about as white as a piece of paper by the time all the wheels were on the ground and luckily we got our rental car quickly but we were only in it for about 5 minuets when Lane lost all his lunch all over the front seat.  Luckily we were minuets from Walmart and baby wipes can clean up almost anything.  New change of cloths, lots of baby wipes, and windows rolled down, we were on our way.  Its nice and warm there so you can have the windows down.

The little jungle path on the way to our first good snorkel spot. Honolua bay.

I have to put in a picture of the chickens.  If you have ever been to Hawaii you know they run wild all over the place.  The kids thought it was great fun chasing them of course.

Honolua bay was a favorite spot for us to snorkel I had been here with Jeannie when we went 11 years ago.  There are always tour boats that come in here, drop anchor, and let people snorkel from the boat.  We opted for the more inexpensive route and found it to be just as good.

Here's the whole crew getting ready

Even though the water is warm it was nice having the wet suits for the kids.  They could stay out much longer (remember the Christmas presents...swimsuits, wet-suits.....turns out that I had a reason for them)

I got a cheap "go-pro" knock off camera before we went and it didn't do too bad.  I figured at least it was a way to document some of our underwater stuff.  Here is Josh herding 3 of the kids around.  It wasn't long before they were just taking off and we kept telling them they needed to "buddy up"

misc coral formations

We saw lots of turtles.  They are fun to follow around.

Bright colored fish.....no shortage of them.

Logan signaling his approval.....he would point wildly at everything the first time we went out.

Logan getting a good up close look at a turtle.

Morgan and I doing a selfie

turtle...

Taking a break in the sun...ya!! we had lots of good sun. 

lots of little hermit crabs kept the kids entertained while they were sunning themselves by the waters edge.