Readlee: Hawaii, Day 1 (Hapuna Discovery)

For Spring Break this year, Doug planned a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. We flew out of Oakland on a direct flight to Kona, and stayed at the Waikoloa Hilton. We fell in love with the hotel and the beauty of the island. The hotel had a gazillion beautiful pools but we still tried to make it out to the beach most mornings. Our family is always up early so we were usually heading back from the beach by 10 am. Our favorite beach turned out to be just down the road from Waikoloa. The kids greeted us every morning with chants of "Hapuna! Hapuna!" before they were even out of bed. I can't blame them as Hapuna was an amazing beach.

It had gently breaking waves which the girls couldn't get enough of.

Jacob opted to stay closer to shore and had fun running from the water.

The black rocks around the island were spectacular.

I walked to this little cove and found some crabs. I called the kids over and they began to look for them as well. They searched dilligently...

Until they found some.

Then they would scream and run away.

But they wouldn't stay away for long.

Lauren was fairly brave while trying to catch a crab until she got pinched by one like this... (see him tucked into the corner of the rock).

After that, she began to use Doug's mask to try and scoop them up instead of her hands.

Anna enjoyed looking for shells and chasing the fish.

We attended a luau that evening at a different hotel. One of the dancers had a session with the children and showed them different items they use in their dances.

Enjoy these shots of Jacob sitting still as it was the only time all night that he stopped. We spent the rest of the evening chasing him all over the property.