Happy Thanksgiving! Another year at the Grand America.

Our trip to Paradise!

Hen and I were blessed to go on a 6 night trip to the Big Island of Hawaii with my work. Here is a brief itinerary of our schedule while we were there.


Friday, November 11- Arrive in Kona
Saturday, November 12- 11am Massages, Snuba diving off of the captain cook monument cove
Sunday, November 13- Church in Waimea (story to follow), brunch at the famous Merrimen's, Luau in the evening
Monday, November 14-Stargazing trip up Mauna Kea, Poker/game night
Tuesday, November 15- 11am Massages, Manta Ray Night Snorkel
Wednesday, November 16- Shopping in Kona, Lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp, East Coast Lobster Bake at the Hotel
Thursday, November 17- 12pm Massages, Sunset Sail, dinner at Hualalai Grille, flight left at 10pm
Friday, November 18-arrived home to Salt Lake City

Day 1-Saturday, November 12

Hen and I took one of the convertible rental cars and headed out to go snuba diving at the cove of the captain cooks monument.

Now I had picked this company because I knew they had snuba diving available. They were the only ones on the island with a certified instructor. And I had snuba dived two other times, but Hen hadn't before so this was his first experience. Out of about 60 other snorkelers on the boat we were the only ones smart enough to take advantage of this opportunity. So you may saying, does she mean "scuba" diving, and to that question I would say no. Snuba is the combination of scuba and snorkeling. You have a snorkel mask, but you also have a mouthpiece connected to an oxygen tank. The oxygen tank, instead of being strapped to you back like in scuba, sits on a raft on the waters surface and the hose connects down to your mouthpiece. This allows you to go down about 15-20 feet and stay down there for 30-45 minutes. It was incredible! The marine life we saw that lived in the coral was so vibrant and the variety of fish were endless. I think I have made a fan out of Hen of the snuba diving. We will definitely go again if the opportunity presents itself. On the way back to the dock lots of spinner dolphins showed up and put on a show!

Day 2-Sunday, November 13

A sacrament meeting, we won't soon forget. 

Sunday we woke up planning to go to the Kona ward that was by the temple at 11am. Our friends Sarah and Kerry called and invited us to go to the 9am Waimea ward with them instead. Kerry's mom has a time share at the Waikola up the street and that is the ward she always attends when she is in town, so that is why they wanted to go. So the four of us started the drive, about an hour, to the Waimea ward. When we got there we were pretty early and the Bishop of the ward met us in the foyer. He then proceeded to tell us that he would "love if we would do something for him." At which point, Henry and Kerry said, oh our Wives would Love to do whatever you need. Sarah and I agreed, thinking it will be like the opening/closing prayers. We were very wrong. He asked if we would give 2 minute talks about why we decided to attend church on vacation. Sarah and I were pretty surprised by the request, but were happy to oblige. So sacrament meeting starts and the four of us are sitting there singing ( with the greatest chorister of all time btw) and in walks two of our co workers and their wives. They sit down and don't even see us. I turned to Sarah and said, I wasn't nervous before, but now I am definitely nervous. I thought we were going to get to be anonymous....After the sacrament, the bishop announces that we will now here from Sis. Sarah Jackson and Sis. Kara Becker. Our co workers turn around looking for us in the audience and when they spot us their jaws drop to the floor. It was pretty comical. Sarah got up and bore one of the most beautiful testimonies I have ever heard. When I got up I shared that I attend church while on vacation because being at church makes me feel like home. The spirit and peace that I feel there brings such a comfort when we travel especially since the church is the same whereever you go. After the meeting our coworkers invited us to brunch at Merrimen's which is a famous restaurant in Waimea. It is also the reason they had chosen to come to the Waimea ward that morning. We all had a good laugh about  how interesting the circumstances were that we all ended up at the same ward at the same time. That night at the luau, this story had clearly made it's way around my coworkers and people were coming up to me and commenting how they wish they had to come to our ward to hear Sarah and I speak instead of going to the ward in Kona.

Day 3-Monday, November 14

The day started out with some time at the beachtree pool. Of course Hen had to order a pina colada in a pineapple. He is on a beach chair in a cabana.

This is a picture of the pool we spent the most time at while at the Four Seasons

Next was our adventure to the top of Mauna Kea

"Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano on the island of Hawaii. Standing 4,207m above sea level, its peak is the highest point in the state of Hawaii. Elevation 13,803 ft. Much of the mountain is under water and when measured from its oceanic base, Mauna Kea is over 33,000 ft tall, making it the world's largest mountain from base to summit, surpassing Mount Everest! With its high altitude, dry environment, and stable airflow, Mauna Kea's summit is one of the best sites in the world for astronomical observation. Since the creation of an access road in 1964, thirteen telescopes funded by eleven countries have been constructed at the summit. The Mauna Kea observatories are used for scientific research across the elctromagnetic spectrum from visible light to radio, and comprise the largest such facility in the world." (taken from Wikipedia) They say it does actually snow on Mauna Kea at times in the year and the locals drive up and ski down and then drive up again!

Our adventure started in these vans being picked up from the hotel

https://www.hawaii-forest.com/

When got to about 7,000 feet we stopped and had a picnic dinner to started to get acclimated to the elevation. The further we went up the volcano, the less oxygen there was. Whenever we stopped we had to move slow to not get dizzy. At the summit at almost 14,000 feet it was about 30 degrees by the time the sun went down. The sunset was so gorgeous! Being above the clouds was like we were on the top of the world! After watching the sunset at the summit we came down to about 9,000 feet to the visitors center and our tour guide had an awesome telescope where we star gazed for about an hour. It was the night of the super moon! And the super moon was so bright it was hard to look directly at it. It was big and beautiful! And the number of stars we could see and Planets was incredible! Our tour guide was so knowledgeable a really awesome!

On our final descent down the volcano, our guide pointed out a moon bow. Something so rare, and that only comes out when there is a full moon and the moisture in the air is just right. It is like a rain bow but it is all grey. I wasn't able to get a picture of it, but this is what it looked like. Our guide said he had only seen 4 in his life time and that ours was the brightest one he had ever seen! I didn't even know they existed!

Day 4-Tuesday, November 15

Manta Ray Night Snorkeling was an experience we will never forget ! It was incredible! We went out into the ocean at night time and you put on snorkel gear and fins and then you jump into the pitch black ocean and hold onto the sides of a raft that has lights shinning down into the water. The lights attract the plankton and then the manta rays come and eat the plankton. In a superman pose holding on to the raft at times the manta rays were sheer inches from us. It was sooo incredible! Would do it again in a heartbeat! The company we went with took these photos the night we were there.

Earlier in the day we spent some time on the beach

Sitting on the beach live feed

Day 5-Wednesday, November 16

When we drove into Kona for some shopping, we stopped by the beautiful Kona temple.

We went up to the Hamakua Macadamia Nut Company and ended up mailing a boxful home!

On our way back to the hotel from the Macadamia nut factory we stopped at a food cart and tried "Hawaii's Ultimate Donut"

Shots taken at the East Coast Lobster Bake

Day 6-Thursday, November 17

We squoze in every last minute of this trip! We literally got off the sailboat and only had 45 minutes before we needed to catch our plane home!




A sunset sail on a 40 ft. catalina sail boat. The sunset was gorgeous and we even saw dolphins swimming by the boat and jumping in the waves.

Day 7-Friday, November 18

We were so sad to leave Paradise, but were excited to see our fur "babies"!