Hawaii--Day One

Christopher and I celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary this past February and we wanted to celebrate with a very special trip.  We started saving for and planning our trip to "the big island" about 2 years ago.  I had very high expectations for this trip, and I can tell you that it did not let us down.

The boys stayed with my parents in VA for the first half of our trip, and then went to Christopher's parents for the second half. We woke up at 3 am on June 21, boarded a plane at 5:30 am, and landed in Kona, Hawaii 15 hours later (12 hours of flying time).

We literally landed on a runway in the middle of a lava field.  The airport consisted of open-air huts.  We stepped off of the plane onto the runway and walked over to the huts to get our bags.  I took in a deep breath and was instantly converted to island time.  I will say that Christopher and I embraced true island time; we didn't have a care in the world during our trip.  We came and went as we pleased.

As we entered the hut, we were greeted with leis (btw, they don't automatically do that; you must have that arranged ahead of time - thanks Elaine and Craig!) made of fresh orchids.

During the 30-minute drive north to our resort, we could see the beautiful Pacific ocean to our left and several mountains to our left.  We drove through old lava flows dating back to the early 1800s.  It is tradition in Hawaii and their form of graffiti to decorate the lava on the sides of the road with white coral.  All graffiti is loving and positive (see the "aloha").

Our resort was ah-mazing (again, a HUGE thanks to Elaine and Craig for selflessly giving us Hilton points for 6 nights!!!).  The resort was a horse-shoe shape with many buildings, pools, walkways, lagoon, etc. all next to a beautiful bay right on the Pacific Ocean.  From the lobby, we could walk 15 minutes or ride a boat or tram to our building.  We saw many beautiful animals and plants on the property like this beautiful bird who greeted us every morning when we walked out of our room and plants like this bird of paradise (did you think it was a bird?). 

This was taken from our lanai.  Not a bad view, eh?

See those blue chaise lounge/umbrella combos?  We sat in one every single night after sunset for a few hours looking at the stars, reading, listening to the ocean, and drinking beer.  That was my true paradise.

 

And the sunset over the Pacific Ocean every night.  Everyone stopped what they were doing, gathered round, and watched the show in awe.  I miss those Hawaii sunsets.

We were so exhausted that we fell asleep at 7:30 the first night.  We had been up since 3:30 am, and our bodies were thinking it was 1:30 am!  We stretched out in our king size bed (what a luxury for us double bed sleepers) and had a good first night's sleep in paradise.