Kona Temple - Kona Trip - Part 6 (final)

The whole reason for the trip to Kona was our ward temple trip. We went to the Kona Temple on Saturday, March 6, 2010. It is a small temple so we had to schedule our appointments. It was so nice that other families were there so all the kids could play together while the adults were in the temple. Two adults stayed with all the kids. It was so nice to go to the temple after such a long time. Our temple in Laie has been closed for more than a year so this was a great trip for all of us.
James will be 8 in September so I thought it would be fun to get some pictures of him at the Temple. He was such a good sport. He HATES to have his picture taken.

I am not a great photographer and he needs a hair cut, but this is the best we could do.

This is the only part of this temple that stands apart from the other mini-temples, the cool palm fan plants. I am pretty sure that is their official name!

You could either have us up close or the temple in the background, not both!

Sophia

Daniel

I tried to get a picture of James at the front of the temple but he was really done by this point. So, no picture of James at the front.

After our temple session we had a few hours to kill before we had to be to the airport. Sister Alkire and her son came with us because her flight was the same time as ours. They had flown in that morning and didn't rent a car so they came to explore with us. We went to McDonalds to pick up some lunch and then went to the park to eat and let the kids blow off some steam. We found this really great community park that had lots for the kids to do.

Sophia is at the top of the stairs. The top kite looking things are for shade. This was a very clean, fun park.

She was tired, we had woken her up so she could get out and play before going to the airport.

What a cute girl!

She loves to climb. This was a great playground. It had something for everyone!

I like this picture of Sophia through the tunnel!

Daniel playing 'peek-a-boo' through the climbing wall.

So Big!

He was so proud he could climb to the top.

After playing at the park we went to show Sister Alkire the tide pools that were close to the airport since she hadn't seen anything on the Big Island but the temple. It was lots of fun and Daniel was such a great tour guide to show her around. We went to the same tide pools we had been at the day earlier so Daniel knew his way around.

After a mad dash back to the airport and checking in the rental van we were on our way home.

This isn't a great picture.. but here is Sophia, Daniel, and Sterling getting ready for the plane to take off, we were heading home!

The only picture James would allow, sort of!

We had such a great trip. It was so nice to go and relax and enjoy nature. We can't wait to go back to the Big Island. It is much more slow paced and amazing to me than Oahu!

That, to me, seems like the mystique and quaintness of Hawaii.

Looking for Manta rays- Kona Trip - Part 5

Friday, March 5, 2010

After swimming we went for another adventure!

Some people in our ward had told us about a place at the Sheraton where from the shore you could see manta rays in the water. They had gone out on a boat to snorkel with them.

We thought it would be great just to see them from the shore.

We went to the Sheraton to see what we could see, we saw some beautiful sights, but no manta rays.

The sun set was spectacular. The sun was actually glowing orange, for some reason my camera couldn't capture that. Even this is pretty.

James walking on the lava rocks to get closer to the shore to look out.

Sophia and Daddy walking around waiting for the sun to go down.

When the sun went down the Sheraton turned on their lights along the rocks. It was so pretty and as it got darker the water became so clear and we could see right into the water. We saw several schools of fish and lots of rocks, but not manta rays.

We waited and waited, the kids had had enough waiting.

There were so many cool colors in the sky that night and it would change every 10 or 15 minutes.

On the way to the car James spotted this huge spider. It was pretty creepy.

James loves creepy!

I love this picture with my cute boys looking at the water so intently waiting for the manta rays to come.

We had such a busy Friday: tide pools, sea horse farm, swimming at the hotel, dinner at Bubba Gumps and looking for manta rays. It was such a fun day! After it all we went back to the hotel for a movie and bedtime for the kids!

Swimming at the Hotel - Kona Trip - Part 4

After the tide pools and the sea horse park the kids wanted to come back to the hotel and go swimming. One of their favorite things about staying in a hotel is the pool!

The water was a bit cold so it took them a while to get all the way in.

This wasn't a very big pool but my kids would be happy with a 5 ft square pool. Anything bigger than the bathtub will do.

Sophia loves to jump in off the sides, over and over and over again.


Daniel was perfecting his belly flop. He was hilarious.

Daniel would do his whole monologue before his great belly flop attempts.

James wouldn't let me take his picture so I had to sneak them when he wasn't looking.

Sophia and Daniel are little fish. They love the pool!

Jumping, splashing, swimming, what could be better!

Her face says it all... She loves to jump to daddy.

This little girl has daddy wrapped around every little finger.

Here is a great video of Daniel doing his pre-jump show and well practiced belly flop. My favorite is the nice dog shake at the end. He is the funniest kid!

Sea Horse Farm, Kona Trip - Part 3

After checking out all the tide pools we made our way to our Sea Horse tour at Ocean Riders. We were the only family there with kids but everyone was so great to accommodate the kids.

While we waited for the tour to begin we snuck in a family picture.

Before we could go into the sea horse area we had to wash our arms and hands with soap.

Sophia thought just washing in the big sinks was cool enough.

After washing up they started the tour by taking us to the food source for the sea horses. They had a whole pool of bright red shrimp that the adult sea horses eat. James got to be the lucky cup holder to collect the food for the sea horses.

All the specks in his cup of water are little shrimp.

We didn't get a very good picture of the whole/pond of shrimp but that is what we are sitting in front of. It was pretty fascinating to learn all about shrimp and algae and sea horses.

They had a lot of blue tubs that were all used for different things. They were all about the size of a Jacuzzi tub and each had a different stage of sea horse in them. The purpose of this sea horse farm is to bread sea horses to sell to aquarium distributors so that they will stop taking them from the ocean.

Each blue tank had huge groups of sea horses in them.

At the end of the tour we each got a chance to hold a sea horse. The sea horse would wrap it's tail around our fingers. It was pretty cool. This was James' favorite part of our whole weekend.

The guide was good at helping Daniel's sea horse to attach to his fingers.

It was pretty amazing to watch these tiny sea horses and be able to have it hold on to us!

James and Sterling holding Sea Horses.

James' sea horse held onto him the longest. James was fascinated!

Mom's turn.

Mine didn't want to hang onto me at all.

Sophia was a bit to small to try and hold a sea horse but they were prepared for little ones. They had their own small tide pool area with small hermit crabs and star fish for the little ones to hold. Sophi wasn't so sure she needed to hold anything. She was much happier just playing in the water. James and Daniel loved holding the crabs and things.

She was brave and held them, but didn't love it!

James holding the two types of star fish that they had.

James and Daniel wanted to explore every part of this little "tide pool".

At the end of the tour they had a small aquarium are where they had several different kinds of sea horse and some other cool animals. The big thing behind James is called a Frog Fish. It was pretty cool and pretty big.

Daniel checking out a different kind of sea horse.

You can't see it very well in the picture but the plant in the center is covered with sea horses. Se horses do have the ability to camouflage themselves to a certain extent much like a chameleon. Our tour was very educational and the kids loved it!