Hawaii part 2

So Sunday arrived and we had our full crew of there finally. Again, the previous night we all went to bed rather early because of the time change but all 12 of us were so grateful to sleep in without being woken up by the (wonderful) cries of our children.

We went to the small branch in the town close by of Hanalei. 95% of the ward was visiting. It was testimony meeting and we got to hear the wonderful words of both my mother and Casey as well as other members from around the world. How grateful I am to be able to go the our Father in Heaven's true church wherever I am in the world! This is the only group picture I have at this point! Hopefully I can get more from my brother later! Man how I love being surrounded by family. (I'm also realizing Casey is the tallest and I the shortest f this bunch…) Take note of my heathen brother Weston wearing jeans to church because he "forgot" his church clothes ;)

After church we did a little sight seeing around the island. We stopped in at a Tongan festival going on in a small town close by. We got to experience our mini luau while there and some of the others picked up some cool souvenirs.

After the Tongan festival we headed to the way south side of the island through a wretched bumpy dirt road (that was definitely not good on my pregnancy ha) to see some cool dry blow holes and just the interesting more desert side of the island. All that walking gave me a ton of contractions and gave both Casey and myself a little scare of too much activity. That was definitely the point my attitude changed of taking it a lot easier on myself during this trip. But the dry blow holes were still fun to see and the scenery beautiful!

 (a picture of Scott from the day before)

 The tunnel of trees on our way down south, way cool looking.

All the group pictures from this day are not on my camera sadly. I want so badly to get ahold of them!


Monday was a day of snorkeling. The newest 5 people were real eager to get out and snorkel! We went to tunnels beach this day, definitely the best snorkeling beach on the island. It was so fun to be with Casey! Exploring the ocean with him, holding hands showing each other neat stuff under water, laughing and such, oh it was just so great to have him around! But also being all together as a family of 12 adults was great. No kids to fight, nap times, diapers, it was just so fun to be a group of adults for  little while together.

After asking everyone their opinions about the week it was pretty unanimous that snorkeling was the winner. We all loved it so much. I especially loved the fact that I could keep up with everyone and experience as much as everyone else was without needing to be taken care of! I did have to watch the shallow areas that my belly wasn't going to hit, ha. But there were tons of turtles to see, so majestic as they fly through the water! Fish were just all so cool, totally felt like we were in the world of finding Nemo.

I can't really remember what we did Monday evening though…maybe more walking around shops? Ha who knows. But I should say that my SIL, Amanda, planned all the meals for the week and man did we eat good.

Tuesday we rented kayaks and kayaked up a river a couple miles to a beautiful waterfall, well at least at the end of the kayaking part you could hike another mile to the waterfall, ha. Back to the kayaking part, it was really fun. Casey did pretty much all the work so I didn't overtax my body, he was of course really fun when it came to splashing people and whenever he wanted to race someone or catch up to someone his body pumped it out by himself and we had a great time laughing and enjoying the beautiful scenery all around! I camped out at the base of the hike for a good hour or so while everyone walked/hiked up. From what I heard it was a fun experience.

I think later that afternoon we went to Lumahi beach. It was a tiny hike down (that I could do, yay!) to a secluded little beach with a large sandy area, gentle rolling waves to play in, and an area to jump off tall lava rocks. We kicked it in the shade, the water, the sun, all mean while feeding the little chicks all around.

It think maybe that night we all sat around the fire pit they had and talked and laughed about random things. The weather was always just so  perfect, maybe a 5 degree change at maximum from hottest to coldest. Pretty amazing!