Our Trip to Hawaii

We arrived at Kona Airport after a long flight. The airport was like none other I have been to so far. It was incredible. The buildings themselves were made out of wood that you could smell as soon as you walked into each building.
The planes parked away from the building as we exited the planes via a stair ramp.
Everyone was just relieved to finally be in Hawaii and ready for a vacation.

Our Condos that we stayed in were nice! Each Condo had two bedrooms with two bathrooms, a family room, and a kitchen. They also had a washer and a dryer in each Condo. The kitchen was very useful as we decided to mostly cook our meals the whole week to save money.

We waisted no time and went straight to snorkeling at a spot which quickly became my favorite beach on the entire trip.

At this spot we saw several turtles.

Paul and Staci Joined us. They had already been on the island for a few days before we arrived.

After the first day we decided to take a trip around the island to see the green part of the island. Kona is covered with a lot of Lava rock while the opposite side of the island at Hilo gets a large volume of rainfall every year making it a jungle of green foliage. We stopped at rainbow falls to take a few pictures.

It's hard to get a good perspective on just how dense the vegetation was. It was awesome to see!

There were several trees that had a huge base of what looked like many trees combined. The canopy of these trees spread clear out beyond the base.

More of the dense foliage.

This is the caldera of Volcano on the southeast side of the island.

It is an active volcano that has lava flowing on a regular basis. The lava has switched direction several times and ruined some of the roads that we couldn't travel on any longer due to the lava. Later that day we walked out onto the lava fields and saw where the lava goes into the ocean growing the island every year. Unfortunately the pictures didn't turn out well as it was late at night.

We finished after a long day by driving the 3 hour trip back around the island where we all prepared for the wedding the next day by trying to get a few hours of sleep.

The Wedding Day

A few days before the wedding, Paul and Staci found the perfect spot to be married. There was beach, ocean, rocks, and palm trees. It took some convincing to get Maverick to wear a lei.
This is looking back from the grassy spot where the wedding took place onto the adjoining beach.
Tim and Amelia were excited for Staci
Several wedding photo's were taken before the wedding.

We had to take a few of our own.

Finally the wedding. A Bishop who lived in Kona took time out of his schedule to come and perform the wedding. He had been in touch with Staci and Paul previously to make all the arrangements and suggested this location for the marriage ceremony to take place. After a while Maverick got used to the lei's

In the background behind the wedding party were several surfers taking advantage of the waves and the beautiful day!

A picture of all of Julie's family who attended minus Paul Staci and Maverick.

A wedding dinner was held directly after the ceremony at a small seaside restaurant called "Huggo's." The food was amazing and so was the view.

Tim and Amelia searched the island before the wedding to find a cake.

The restaurant had a view all of the ocean up and down the coast.

The day ended well with Staci and Paul headed off on their honeymoon which would eventually take them to Maui. It was a perfect day and place for a wedding.

Our Final Days in Hawaii

Our last few days at Hawaii we got to enjoy some of the scenery and sights. Everywhere we looked there seemed to be something new to look at.This is a picture of the resort we stayed in from above

For dinner on our second to last night we ate at the "Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory." As you can see in the background, it was all about the movie Forrest Gump
This was a scenic view of the golf course which was attached to the resort we were staying at.
Along the Golf course and along the ocean, there were several tubes in the lava that would spout out water as the waves came in.

We got a chance to go through a session at the Kona Hawaii temple. It was small but beautiful!
Again our favorite thing to do was back to the same beach to snorkel. We heard from several people that this was the best place on this side of the island to snorkel. It doesn't look like much but under the water there were TONS of amazing fish and turtles.

The turtles ranged from small to big. Julie is posing next to one of the smaller turtles that was just relaxing in the sun.

A final picture of Scott and Jen in front of the beach we snorkeled at. We were here at least once a day, sometimes twice.

The final sunset.

We had sooo much fun on our trip and it was soooo relaxing. We missed our kids but we were sure glad that Staci and Paul invited us to spend the special occasion with them. I hope we get a chance to return again soon. It was also the perfect trip for our tenth year being married as we always said we would go to Hawaii on our ten year anniversary.