From Aloha to Akaka

Christmas Eve 2008

2009-02-21T18:40:00.001-08:00

From my journal: 8:05 PM Christmas Eve

How fun is this! We're in a tent on Christmas Eve and it's sprinkling off & on. Of course it waited until I used our new clothespins to hang up our damp laundry ;)

There are Christmas lights and trees in homes all over the island. Looks so funny to see the icicle kind HERE where it's so warm!

We went to Ko Olina Resort and tried snorkeling but the water was murky and I was too chicken to go around the rocks of their first lagoon. They have 4- Whale, Turtle, Dolphin, and Fish. Nice sunset, though.

We were too late getting back to the campground. Had to park @ office & hike in. Many more clouds- fewer stars- to see tonight. Merry Christmas Eve!

Sunset at Ko Olina resort, southwest Oahu

2009-02-21T18:39:00.000-08:00

No, I didn't build the sand city. =)

The sun is just headed down for the night. We stayed to enjoy it. So did the couple sitting there on the beach.

2009-02-21T18:33:00.000-08:00

I think the sun takes its time setting in Hawaii. Like it too hates to go...

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Stars and skeeters

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This is Orion. And he wouldn't all fit in one frame. For the first time in my life, I actually could see his bow. I'd always known it was there, but in the two nights before Christmas, he was in all his splendor!

The campground had this alley of sorts in a little valley. During the day you could see all the carved floats, surfboards, nets, etc. that decorated it. I have no idea if it was a kind of homage to Hawaiian gods or if it was simply artfully stored flotsam that had washed ashore, but at night someone lit the candles inside the floats and it looked very Halloweeny. One night we decided to take pictures of what we could, and let me tell you, we called it Mosquito Grotto for the rest of our stay. We got eaten alive in there! I had over 60 bug bites in the three weeks we were in Hawaii, and most of them were from right here.

Views around the blowhole

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This one is my favorite.

Halona Blowhole, southeast Oahu

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Watch the left side of each photo:

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Halona Blowhole

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It was SO windy I was actually covered in goosebumps here!
This will give you a better idea of just how windy it was.
The view opposite the blowhole

Out and about on Oahu

2009-02-21T17:57:00.000-08:00

Admiring the water with our new friend, Tony.
"It just doesn't get any better than this."

At least they warn you, right?!

I could SO live here happily ever after

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This girl was the best at this beach:

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Turtle Bay, Oahu on Christmas Eve Day

2009-02-15T15:04:00.000-08:00

We decided to check out Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu. Their beach was pretty so I dozed in the sand and Scott played with his new Nikon 300D. We found lots of lava rocks in cool shapes, tiny crabs in the round shells that look like snails, and tried to stay out of the wind that was coming in on the other side of the cove. We found some photo ops for Flat Stanley too. We enjoyed it being warm enough to drive around with the windows down. When was the last time we got to do THAT in Ohio?

We stopped in a KMart to buy a journal. I completely forgot that it was Christmas Eve Day and couldn't figure out why there were insane amounts of people shopping. We'd done Christmas early with the kids before we left, so it felt funny that nobody else had ;) We had lunch at Wendy's. Merry Christmas to meeeeeee!

Turtle Bay pictures

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Random beach shots

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He liked that he got the palm tree shadown on me in this one.

He keeps taking my picture!

2009-02-15T14:55:00.000-08:00

Flat Stanley in a hibiscuis flower.
I'd never seen a blue stop sign before, so we took his picture here too!

Crazy girl in 3A

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Hawaii is unbelievably beautiful. Could take pictures all day and not get tired of it...

2009-02-15T13:33:00.000-08:00

This was our breakfast tree. We'd sit like monkeys on the low branch and eat our fruit and watch the ocean every day we were here.
Scott checking out cool rock/ coral formations.
Sea critters on the rocks. These ones were deceased, I believe...

2009-02-15T13:27:00.000-08:00

There's the ocean to the left. On the other side of the trees was the campground. We got to hear the ocean and the wind all night!

Here is 3A, our campsite. Flat Stanley is that little blob inside the tent. The trees that shielded us from the wind & rain.

Saying hi to the ocean. We had to do that first thing!

I had trouble in getting to Solla Selew...

2009-02-15T12:44:00.000-08:00

...or something to that effect, anyway. There's an excellent Dr. Seuss book by that name (not necessarily by that spelling though), but I'm going to begin with our trip to Honolulu. On December 22, 2008, Grandma Barb and the kids dropped us off in Detroit so we could stay at a hotel the night before our early flight out. It was heartwrenching to leave the kids. Liam is too little to truly understand how long 3 weeks is, but Carrie had a really hard time saying goodbye. We've left her with grandparents while we've done other trips, but never for as long. And I think the most I've ever been away from Liam is probably 2 days. The farewells were rough, that's for sure.

We were flying Delta from Detroit to Atlanta and then straight on through to Honolulu. On the Detroit to Atlanta leg, the oxygen masks deployed. I'm not kidding when I say everyone said, "Oh!" as they dropped down. We were told to put them on, so we did. Most people started taking pictures with their cell phones. The pilot told us he'd keep us at 10,000 feet so we could stay safe. He said we were still closer to Atlanta than any other airport and that we would continue there. He also joked that they'd probably let us land ahead of everyone else. We did land about 10 minutes ahead of schedule, but that was it. Apparently there was a slow outgoing air valve leak that triggered the decompression alert in the cockpit. We did take pictures on my cell phone of us wearing our masks. Scott travels all the time for work and that has never happened to him before!

The flight from Atlanta to Honolulu was hitch-free, thankfully. I'm glad any possible trouble happened over land an on the short flight! It was over 9 hours direct from Atlanta to Honolulu. Never been so glad to get off a plane in my life. And to step into warmth and greenery was the icing on the cake!

We picked up our Hertz rental car- a goldish tan Ford Taurus- and drove straight to the northeast side of the island. We found our camp called Friends of Malaekahana off of the Kamehameha Highway and checked into the office. We met Tony, a 7th grade science teacher from Seattle, who would be camping near us. We finally found our campsite, 3A, and it turned out that Tony was beside us in 3H. The map said there were "hot showers" which did indeed have warm water, but were stalls that were open to the sky. Being right off the ocean, the breezes combining with wet skin led to considerably less than "hot" showers. But at least we got clean!

We pitched our Hubba Hubba tent (yes, that's the real name of our tent. There's also the Hubba tent and the Mutha Hubba tent...) near a grove of trees and were sheltered from most of the wind and even most of the rain that we did have there. However, there were tons of chickens and roosters who like to roost in the trees and wander the campsite. We learned quickly that roosters really don't crow at dawn. They start when the stars are still out in the wee hours of the morning. I threatened to pluck them. It didn't help.

Aloha!

2009-01-29T04:52:00.000-08:00

Aloha! As you probably know, aloha means hello, goodbye, kindness and compassion to the people of Hawaii. My husband and I were blessed to take a three week trip to the Hawaiian islands for Christmas 2008 and our 10 year wedding anniversary. Our parents took wonderful care of our children in our home while we were away. We can't thank them enough. Truly.

This blog, Aloha to Akaka, is going to be a journal of sorts of our trip. We started off by saying Aloha and ended our trip at Akaka Falls on the Big Island. It seems to be a fitting title. However, it's going to take awhile to sort through the 3000 (no joke) photographs we took to decide which ones to post. I'm sure it'll be a team effort to recall all the stories of what we experienced as well, but we did keep a handwritten journal while we were there so we already have all the info about where we stayed when, where we ate, what we ate, etc.

Add to that the fact of the aforementioned small children, and you have a recipe for a blog long in coming. So please be patient with me... I'm going to need it! My hope is that it will give you a glimpse of the incredible place that is the Hawaiian islands. Enjoy!