Some vacation snapshots

Here are a few recent shots of our week in Georgia. We've had a great time so far, even if it has been super rainy and thunderstormy (yes, that's a word.)

Relaxing after our grueling trip...





Cheese dip!!!! At Bubba Garcia's:





Cute kiddos:





Pool time:


Nakkkkkkey baby!!!

















Sleepy girl...


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We made it to GA.

Thankfully! It was a long overnight travel trip for me, my mom, J & C. Everyone survived though and we are all sort of adjusting to east coast time (A+ to Jack. F- to Caroline.)

A big huge thank you to Pop-Pop and SuSu for watching the kids last week. It's not an easy job, that's for dang sure. These kids keep you on your toes more than you could ever imagine!

Here's some recent pics from my phone. Poor little man is recovering from a fever on Sun/Mon, plane travel Tues/Wed, and a really bad cough and lung cold Thu/Fri. Here's to hoping he feels better tomorrow!!

Caroline in her bikini that I brought back from Hawaii:


We were delayed both in San Jose and Atlanta. Here's the kids running out some energy before our red-eye:








Once we made it, we all had a little fun:





And a little sleep!!






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my iPhone

more Hawai'i

Aloha! We are learning to talk like the locals now, so it's Hawai'i (pronounced "Ha-vi-eee") and we say "aloha!" and "mahalo!" at every chance. Yes, we are dorks. Did you doubt it?

Anyway, here are a few pictures of us from the last few days. We've done a lot of exploring! It's been really fun...mostly to have days unplanned and just do whatever floats our boat. 

At the Drums of the Pacific Luau at the Hyatt. It was pretty fun, especially talking to the
other people at our table (strangely, all from Georgia except one!) The show was really cool.
The kids would have loved it.

On the boat to go parasailing. I loved just riding the waves.

Monday, we drove up to Honolua Bay. Our concierge told us that we could either take a 45-minute, $50 boat ride to this reef, or we could drive, park for free and hike in. Guess what we picked?

View from above. Can you see the snorkelers?

The hike in was beautiful. It was around all these "sacred ancient graves"
that the parking attendant warned us about. Super neat.

Hawaiian Spanish Moss.

There were random chickens and roosters all over the beach.

We snorkeled there for about 2 hours, seeing super cool things, especially two giant sea turtles. They were really docile and let us swim all around them. It was amazing.

Monday night, we celebrated our anniversary by having dinner at Mama's Fish House. It was really beautiful - these pictures were taken on the beach right off the dining room. We had fresh fish and one of the best soups I've ever had (spicy mahi soup! YUM.) It was a bit of a drive from our hotel but worth every minute!

7 years...where has the time gone?

On Tuesday, we took the Road to Hana. All over the island, we kept seeing t-shirts saying: "I survived the road to Hana!" and we didn't know why. It didn't look that bad on the map. 

Yea, we were wrong. It was 2.5 solid hours of super-winding, very slow, one-lane bridged road. It was crazy. All tourists in rental cars mixed in with a few (very impatient) locals made for a slow trek up. We stopped at a few places, but by far our favorite was the random waterfall that no one else seemed to notice, where we got to hike down to it and swim in the pool at the bottom. It was freezing but so worth it! That and the Black Sand Beach were both really neat. 

The Seven Pools waterfall...that we couldn't swim in, because
the waters were too high and we might get swept out to sea. Darn.

Our special waterfall, before we hiking down.

I went in!

Brrr cold!

 After that, we stopped at a random roadside stand for lunch. I had fish and chips, and Justin had mahi and rice caught that morning. It was SO GOOD. We sat on folding tables and ate with our hands, but it was all so fresh.

After lunch we made our way to the Black Sand Beach. It was created by lava flow millions of years ago...and left a rocky coast and a pretty swimming beach.

Can you see the black sand?

Lava Tunnel.

This sign wasn't lying. I was scared with him even being on that side of it.

Today we didn't really have any set plans, so we took the (much shorter!) drive up to Halekala National Park to see the dormant volcano from the top. It was really pretty amazing. COLD! and WINDY! but amazing. We've heard lots of people say that the sunrise from here is beautiful, and we can only imagine. It must be! (We were way too pokey to get up that early.) 

The inside of the crater from above.

Above the clouds!

Overall, so far, it's been a fantastic trip! I will have to do a separate post just about the meals we've had. Delicious. I know I'll have some pounds to lose again once we get back, oops! I just can't resist some of these Hawaiian treats.

Tomorrow we are taking a morning catamaran to snorkel / dive at Molokini. It is sure to be beautiful so I will post pictures tomorrow.

We are sad that tomorrow is our last full day, but man, we miss our kids! Jack would have loved so much of the stuff we've done. We can't wait to see them on Saturday :) Xoxoxo!