Hawaii - One Last Family Trip

My request to my husband was that before Andrew left on his mission for two years I wanted a big family vacation.  When I asked Andrew if he had any suggestions he immediately asked if we could go to Hawaii.  It sounded perfect to me.  I was thinking Maui or Kauai.  My husband wanted to go to Oahu to tour Pearl Harbor.  But Andrew wanted to see an active volcano.  So I booked the trip and hoped the volcano would be active while we were there.  I got more than what I bargained for.  A few weeks before we were due to leave a major volcanic eruption started.  Not the typical calm eruption from the Kilauea Volcano.  This was a major lava flow that was destroying homes and evacuating neighborhoods.  New fissures were opening up daily.  Ash was spewing from the crater and earthquakes were a frequent event.  The National Park was shut down and the evacuation area kept growing.  Suddenly the volcano was too active and I worried about our safety and if there would be anything open that we wanted to do.  We decided the money was already spent and we might as well go to the island.  Kona was far from the volcanic activity and although the air quality was terrible due to the continuing eruptions we hardly knew anything was going on.  We had a fabulous time exploring the beaches on the Kona side of the island. We loved snorkeling with the fish and sea turtles, playing in the sand, watching dolphins, and body boarding.  The one thing lacking was some sunshine with the constant haze and cloudiness overhead.  We were even able to visit the Kona LDS temple.  It was Kaitlyn's first time being able to go inside a temple and do baptisms!

The last few days on the island we headed up to see the top of the mountain Mauna Kea.  It was crazy driving from sea level to over 13,000 ft in less than an hour.  We were finally able to get above the hazy air for a bit.  Then back down the mountain we went to the Hilo side of the island.  We decided to bail on our place to stay in the town of Volcano due to the daily ash eruptions.  Instead we found a charming little house to rent in Hilo complete with a pond the kids could paddle board and canoe on.  We loved the lush vegetation on the other side of the island even though there was a lot of rain that came with it.  We had fun exploring a lava tube and viewing all the waterfalls.

Other than the haze we still hadn't seen any action from the volcano.  I felt sad because that was the whole reason we had picked the Big Island.  We finally heard from some tourists that there was a company that had started doing boat tours out to where the lava flow was entering the ocean.  I had some hesitation knowing my tendency for motion sickness and the ridiculous cost of the boat ride but we finally decided it was our ONLY way to view the volcano.  We woke up at 3 am to catch the 4 am boat from Hilo.  We boarded the boat and headed out the bay in Hilo.  As soon as we were out of the bay I realized my mistake bringing Skyler on board.  It was a ROUGH ride!  Just minutes into the ride he was saying he wanted to get off and NEVER do this ride again!  But at this point we were stuck on the boat for the next 3 hours.  As soon as we had exited the bay we could see the glow in the night sky from the eruption even though we were still miles away.  It was incredible how it lit up the whole side of the island.  Fissure 8 was putting on quite the show spraying lava several hundred feet into the air.  After over an hour speeding up the coast we arrived at the area where lava had been flowing into the ocean.  It was incredible to see lava rock coastline that hadn't existed days ago literally being created right before our eyes.  The flow itself had slowed to a trickle and we couldn't see much lava actually flowing into the ocean but the smoldering fresh lava rock and the lava spraying from fissure 8 was a sight I'll never forget.  I was hoping when we slowed to view the eruption we would get a bit of a respite from the rough ride.  But instead the boat rocking back and forth on the big waves at a slow speed was worse then riding over them and crashing down at high speeds.  Many people on the boat were getting sea sick and soon Skyler and I joined them.  In retrospect I think I'm still glad we did it but from now on I'm keeping my sightseeing adventures on land!

 This day turned into what felt like the longest day ever since it started at 3 am and we were taking the red eye flight home.  We went back to the house and packed up then headed to the south side of the island to drive back to Kona and see some areas we hadn't seen yet.  We spent most of the afternoon at a black sad beach which ended up being one of my favorite outings of the whole trip.  The beach was gorgeous with the black sand, coconut trees and sea turtles resting on the sand.  Skyler thoroughly enjoyed playing in the sand.  We all had fun watching the turtles and the teenage boys kept entertained trying to break open coconuts.  As I sat on the beach watching everyone having so much fun the tears started to flow.  It was all over.  Not just the vacation but it suddenly hit me that Andrew would be leaving in a matter of weeks.  Almost 19 years and it was gone in the blink of an eye.  Although our trip didn't end up much like we had originally planned it really was perfect just to spend the time together knowing we won't have that for a while.