Last day in paradise

Squeezed every drop of sun out of our last day on the big island – went through two full cans of sunscreen. Hit the beach (Anaiho’omalu Bay, or A Bay as the locals call it) all morning, then scarfed down a delish lunch at Lava Lava, right on that same stretch of sand.

Then we played and played in the pool. We were so lucky this trip to get to meet 8-year-old twins T and G, also born in China. They (and fun mama C, who I’ve emailed with for years) hung out with us earlier in the week at Higashihara Park (which the locals call Wooden Park) and then this afternoon we had a swimmy playdate. Thanks, guys, it was a blast! (They’re camera shy, so you only get to see pics of our wild crew.)

It was a wonderful trip to the big island and we saw so many amazing sights. The Hawaiian islands are all so unique, I’m not sure we could pick a favorite. Clearly need more research trips, heh!

For the big island, our top 5 faves were:

• Higashihara Park (aka Wooden Park, south of Holualoa on the Kuakini Hwy)
• Volcanoes National Park (hiking trails, steam vents, Thurston lava tube)
• Dinner at Keei Cafe (at Hokukana)
• Dinner at Lava Lava Beach Club right on the sand (Waikoloa)
• Punalu’u black sand beach
  

Cheers and aloha!

PS: Huh, almost all the trip pics this time ended up being taken with my iPhone. The big Nikon didn’t even make the packing list, but then the purse camera (Canon S90) was just never handy enough to get pulled out. The one exception would be the black sand beach – for some reason the iPhone couldn’t handle the black sand and grayed everything out. So I used the purse cam for those pics.