Aloha Hawaii!

As I've mentioned in previous postings, the Vance family took an amazing Hawaiian vacation January 1-8. We arrived at The Dolphin House on New Years day and were welcomed by this:

and more importantly, this:

Our first full day was a lot of the above picture, at least for myself, my sister Julie, and my nephews. We weren't needed for the Costco/rental car errands so we got to relax in the sun. We definitely got the better deal!

Tuesday was the most amazing day ever! My parents booked a charter boat for just the 10 of us to take us out and find some wild spinner dolphins to swim with! Only about a 1/2 hr into the trip we found our pod of dolphins and started following them.

Dolphins come into shore in the morning to sleep, so the hope is to follow them until they find a place to sleep then you can jump in and swim all you want with them. Our dolphins were on a mission though. We played leap-frog with them for a couple of hours; getting just ahead of them for us to jump in w/our snorkel gear and have them swim right through us on up the coast. Then back in the boat to get back in front of them. Since the dolphins didn't seem to want to settle down, our boat captains decided to take us over to Captain Cook, one of the more popular snorkeling areas. On our way we came upon a couple of humpback whales!

Caught the tail as it went back in

Captured the full body breach!

We saw 2 different sets of humpbacks on our way to Captain Cooks which was incredible. We finished up the boat trip with some easy, gorgeous snorkeling and headed in.

Very happy family after the dolphin excursion!

The next day, we woke up with the news that mom had taken a bad fall while hopping over the small retaining wall from our house to the beach. We found out after the trip that she has indeed broken her nose! (She has since had surgery 1 of 2 to repair the damage and is doing well) Poor mom stayed home all of Wednesday to recuperate as best she could. So while she and dad hung back, the rest of us took the cars up the coast in search of awesome beaches. We found one that had a small lagoon but then out a ways was lava rock that broke the waves. Had incredible surf that day!

 We ventured further up the coast to Mahaiula Beach, part of Kekaha Kai State Park which was where we spent most of the day.

My nephews built sand barriers to keep the waves from getting us

On Thursday we took a family trip even further up the coast to Hapuna Beach. It was a pretty windy day and the surf was intense so we didn't last the whole day. We attempted some boogie boarding just long enough for Del to really tweek his neck and me tweek my back. So back in the car we went for a short drive to get a glimpse of the other side of the island - a much wetter, greener side.

 

Hapuna Beach

 The rest of the trip was unplanned. We all did our own things for a couple of days, whether it be swimming, snorkeling, or shopping. Del, my bro-in-law Jake, my nephews and I went out for one last snorkeling trip on Saturday and my goal was to see a sea turtle. And that I did! Within the first 5 mins of the snorkel Jake yelled "turtle!" so we headed for him and saw the small sea turtle gliding along about 10 ft below us. My nephews dived down closer to it and Bret almost got to touch it! It was only about 24 or so inches across, but it was a sea turtle!
We saw a few gorgeous sunsets. Not every night though, so the few we saw we soaked right up.

Sunset from our lanai

Nephew, Bret helping the sun go down

 Towards the end of the trip we went to dinner as a family and got a little dressed up and took lots of pics. Here's just a couple.

Dad with his girls :)

I like him sometimes

Hang loose!

 On the very last morning as everyone was packing things up, Dellas was sitting on the lanai watching the ocean when he saw a coconut fall right of a palm. He went and grabbed it and we decided to try and break into it.

 He picked the best kitchen knife he could find and started hacking away.

Cut off the end

 Once he got the end cut off he dug inside a bit to get to the coconut milk and we all tried a bit. It was good!

Look at Bret's face (one with cup in hand) then look at next pic

 As Del was trying to cut the coconut in half he encountered a problem...the knife handle broke off! Haha he managed to finish the job and we tried a bit of the coconut jelly or the insides but it wasn't as tasty as the milk.

 All-in-all it was an amazing trip!! I have lots more pics on Facebook if you have access. Thank you Mom and Dad Vance for such a fabulous family trip!! We couldn't have asked for a better one!!