The Journey Home...

We had a red eye flight to Seattle, most of which we slept through. When we arrived in Seattle, we found some nice cushy benches that were out of the way so we could all stretch out and go back to sleep. The day went by much faster than I had anticipated and we put the boys to work on homework since they had missed a week of school due to our vacation. I really wanted to eat at Beecher's in the airport, we missed it. They closed early because it was Christmas Day! Instead, we ate Chinese food which the kids thought was the best Christmas dinner ever. They had all picked out Christmas candy before we left Hawaii, so they filled up on that too. 

I got on my phone to check in for our next leg of the flight to SLC, and found that our connection had been changed to earlier that morning and we had missed our flight! I was FREAKING out! It was Christmas day and we had been in the airport all day long, and we just wanted to go home!

I went to a check in desk to find out what had happened, and I could have just kicked myself. I'm still really mad at myself and my impatience. So, on Christmas Eve, the day before we were coming home, I called Alaska Airlines just to see if we could change to an earlier flight. I was hoping with the holiday maybe they had an empty flight that would get us home sooner. I was on the phone with an agent who didn't speak English very clearly for quite a while. He finally came back and said that for $3000/person, we could book and earlier flight. Of course, I said no thank you, and thought that was the end of it. A couple hours later, I had a message from this agent asking me to call him back. I didn't bother because James said he didn't care how much it would cost to change our flight, he didn't want to pay any money. 

What happened, we found out too late, is that the agent got Alaska to book us on a Delta flight that would have gotten us home to SLC at 1pm, instead of midnight. Had I called the guy back, I would have found this out, but I was too impatient. Huge bummer!!! And a huge lesson that I need to slow down. This nice guy was doing us a favor and I messed it all up. I'm still regretting this situation!

The Hilo Zoo, Waterfalls, and Mary Poppins...

Christmas Eve, and sadly, our last day in Hawaii. We are so glad that we went to this FREE zoo in Hilo! We were some of the only people there, and we saw the coolest animals like sloths, lemurs, tigers, lots of beautiful and rare tropical birds, crocodile, and many more!

The kids loved posing by all of the themed park benches. They are just too cute not to include!

When I pulled my camera out, we all noticed that this tiger stopped and held up one paw as if he was posing for the picture! It was so cool to be this close to a tiger! There was a pure white tiger on the other side of the fenced off living area. 

The plants and trees here were just as beautiful as the ones from the Botanical garden. I loved the smell...it lightly rained on and off and the flowers smelled so sweet and fragrant!

The kids loved watching the lemurs play with each other, poop, eat etc. We also watched monkeys play up close for a while. 

We stopped to see a couple of waterfalls in Hilo. It had begun to rain pretty hard by then. James decided to make his own rope swing in a nearby banyon tree, and I have a video of him falling to the ground. It was hilarious!

Our flight didn't leave unil 11pm, so we went to a theatre to see the new Mary Poppins movie. We loved it! It was the perfect end to our Christmas Eve and vacation together as a family. 

Day of Relaxation...

It seems funny to say that we needed a day of rest in Hawaii, but it was Sunday, and the kids were dying to just swim in the pool. We also read Christmas stories and scriptures, but it was hard to believe that this was Christmas Adam!!

Kahalu'u Beach Park, More Shave Ice, and back to Place Of Refuge...

After having Ululani's Shave Ice the first time, all the kids talked about was going to get more. I can't blame them! Look at Alanna's cute little Lava Lava!

The Kahalu'u Beach Park is the BEST place to snorkel. I mean, you don't even have to put on a mask because it's like an aquarium and you can see so far down into the water. Alanna and I just went out on boogie boards and chased tropical fish around.

What the kids remember is playing in the shallow part here and they swore there was a huge piece of poop. I think (and hope) it was really a sea cucumber, but none of us was about to touch it! 

We just had to go back to the Place of Refuge, and because of the government shut down, it was open but no staff or bathrooms were available. There were plenty of great snorkel spots and tide pools around here, although parts of the beach were pretty rocky and lots of waves. It might just be best for adults to go in here. We saw plenty of sea life and even two more sea turtles that we watched for a while!

All of those yellow objects are fish!

Now this is an ideal image of Hawaii! We were lucky enough to be here when a beautiful rainbow came out, and I couldn't stop taking pictures!

Waialea Beach, Kiholo Bay, and a horrible hike!

We went to Wailea Beach, also known as Beach 69, with the Chris Willi's and Joe and Leslie to snorkel. It wasn't the best snorkeling, and the beach was pretty rocky, and there were hardly any waves, but the kids still had fun. 

We hiked out to Kiholo Bay and saw an amazing house owned by the inventor of the pace maker! 

Queens Bath was pretty hidden, but luckily we ran into a family who had been here before. I'm glad we didn't miss it because James, Paul, and Jacko had a cool little dip in the pool here. Jacko was hesitant at first after seeing the grimaces from those who jumped into the cool water, but a guy who was there with us talked him into it. 

After hanging out at Queen's Bath and then hiking further around the beach to see the sunset (which ended up being clouded over), it was pretty dark and we had to make it back to our car. I think we had forgotten how long the hike out to the beach was! We ended up taking a very circuitous route which included hiking through a margin between the shoulder barrier and highway to get back to our car. NOT FUN JAMES! He loves that kind of "adventure". We saw plenty of weird little bugs and on beetles on our way back. It was a very creepy walk, and I hope we learned to not get ourselves into that situation again!