We met up with Lindsay (my sister) and her husband Kris for the first week of the trip. We enjoyed spending so much time with them. We stayed on the North Shore of Oahu near Turtle Bay.
We hiked one day to some banyan trees. As you can see their size compared to my brother-in-law Kris, they were huge! The cool thing about banyan trees are they grow roots off the new branches. Those roots eventually find the ground and grow into a new tree connected to the bigger, older tree. My parents bought a picture of a banyan tree one year when they were in Hawaii. They brought it home and explained how the banyan tree was a symbol of our family. It has always had a special meaning to our family. Seeing these trees reminded me of my parents and made me miss my mom a little.
We enjoyed a delicious pulled pork dinner at the Polynesian Cultural Center Luau. It did not disappoint. The show afterwards was incredible - especially the fire dancers.
Ian and I always seem to mark our travels with the food we eat. Here were two of our favorites:
Matsumoto's shaved ice. The rainbow flavor with ice cream was delish.
Macadamia nut rolls from Ted's Bakery - Ian especially loved these which meant we went back almost every day to this lovely bakery.
I enjoyed spending some time with my sister Lindsay. It was nice to have another girl to shop with at the Aloha swap meet where we picked up these beauties.
Honestly, one of my favorite parts of the trip was watching Ian play in the ocean. He was like a kid in a candy shop which is evidenced on his face here. With Ian growing up in California and coming to Hawaii several times growing up, it is a little sad we have never been to the beach together before this trip. Ian surfed, body boarded, and jumped through the waves mostly while I sat on the beach and read cooking magazines. We were both enjoying ourselves.
On this trip I took some big steps out of my comfort zone. I have always been a mountain girl - loving the land. This trip really helped me learn to love the ocean. The last few months I have been certifying for scuba diving. We (myself, Lindsay, and Kris) all certified (in a snowstorm!) in a murky hot spring in the most rural part of Idaho, so needless to say I was excited to dive in the ocean for the first time and see something! Here we are before our first dive.
The first dive was at a turtle cleaning ground where the turtles come and rest for a while and the fish clean their shells. It looked something like this...
Here are Ian and I with a turtle.
The La'ie temple was so beautiful.
At this point in our trip we said goodbye to Lindsay and Kris. Ian and I continued on to Kona on the big island. Our first stop was Volcanoes National Park.
We woke up very early in the morning and hiked along the rim and into the middle of this crater. Underneath the crater is hot magma! This picture doesn't show it, but all along the trail were steam vents. When water trickles down cracks in the crater here, it meets with the hot magma and creates steam. I was glad to be back on the rim when all was said and done.
The last few days of our trip were pretty low key. We snorkeled, ate, lounged by the pool, and did one last scuba dive. Kona has a few spots along the shore where manta rays come to feed on the plankton. It is a well-known scuba dive in the area to swim with the manta rays at night while they feed. We took a boat out to the bay where the manta rays were. Once it was dark we put on our gear (yes, I am wearing 3 wetsuits in this picture!) and went to the very bottom of the ocean. All the scuba divers sat on the ocean floor with bright lights. The plankton was attracted to the light. After enough plankton was near the light, the manta rays would swim right over to your light and eat the plankton. Manta rays are big with their wingspan between 12 -18 feet. It was quite humbling to have these big creatures doing flips in front of you and then swimming inches above your head.
While I didn't have a camera on this dive, this is a picture of what it was like. It was definitely a highlight of the trip!
