Photography Blog

We stayed in several different places while we were in Hawaii, and had some amazing views, but this one was right on the beach and pretty amazing.  Loved hearing the waves so close as we went to sleep and woke up every morning and watching the sunsets together.  

Its weird starting to blog about Hawaii.  It feels a little redundant.  I kept a really detailed journal the whole time we were there. I figured a trip that long together as a family doesn't come along very often and I would want to remember every detail.  I wrote every single day a few pages worth and almost filled a notebook.  It felt so good.  I haven't kept a hand written journal since high school.  I was inspired by Kyle who kept one for school and wrote every day beside me.  Every morning we would wake up and sit at the table together and write about the day before, usually before everyone else was up and out of bed. Sometimes we would sit out on our patio or balcony and listen to the waves.  It was a fun part of the trip for me.  It made me realize how important jotting down my thoughts and our memories as a family is to me. I know I say this a lot on here, but this blog is so special to me.  I am so grateful I have it. 

So this day was towards the end of our trip and I was getting anxious I hadn't taken any pics of Riley on the beach like I had last time. I loved those pictures so much from our last visit out and wanted to be sure and take some more.  I even put her in the same outfit.  It is a size 2 but still fit her fine.  I sorta kept putting it off being lazy in the mornings and missing that beautiful light and then one of our last days, Riley and I were up early anyways one morning so I threw her hair up real quick, stuck a flower in it and drove up the highway just a little to this beach.  I have always been fascinated with that amazing tree in the background.  I think it so stunning.  It catches my eye every time we drive by.  And for the last three trips out I have really wanted to take pictures of it. I didn't know it was a"black sand beach" until we parked near it down the road.  I think the contrast is so lovely in the pictures with her white dress.  The only problem was this huge black dog.  This guy and his son were boogie boarding out in the water and they had a dog running wild on the beach.  It was big and Riley was scared to death of it.  It was hard to get her to look normal and not terrified in the pics. We tried to do more casual stuff, but I did get her to laugh and smile pretty good after a while.  It was quite comical me carrying her up the beach to get away from it all the while carrying all my camera equipment, shoes, purse while Riley was screaming and the dog was practically jumping on me.  I'm so grateful I got them, even though it was a little hectic. ;) 

 

We love staying in Hana. It so wonderful not to be rushed and just get to really enjoy it for a few days.  We probably would have stayed longer, but the cottage was only available for those two nights for the whole month.  We did the same thing as trips before and stalked up on food and treats at Wal-Mart.  We usually buy a cooler and we always get stuff to make smores. We got in to the cottage quite late after flying in earlier that afternoon to Maui.  So After doing only Twin Falls for a bit we settled in for the night. The campgrounds were quite full that night.  Weve never really seen a lot of other people there. They had this really cool cot thing that unfolded into a bed in the cottage, so even Riley had her own place to sleep.  For some crazy reason she woke up screaming in the middle of the night and scared Dave and I half to death.  Or at least me.  It was really strange for her.  I think that there was a noise outside and I woke up thinking she had fallen out of bed and I think my surprise is what actually scared her, but either way my heart was racing and it took forever for me to calm down and go back to sleep. 

I love waking up here. The view is unreal.  I love going out in the morning and exploring with the kids.  The boys were off pretty quick doing there own things this year, trying to find and open coconuts while Riley and I found a fun swing in a tree, gorgeous flowers, bananas and huge spider webs!

We always stop at Halfway to Hana when passing through, especially for breakfast!  It has the very best banana bread that we all love. It has this cute map out front that you can add pins to where you are from, so the the kids and I added San Francisco to the map. A little ways down the road there was a small grove of these amazing trees I was just fascinated with.

 

These next few pics were taken at Ke'anae Lookout.  Such an amazing spot. 

We decided this trip we should try some new hikes.  We heard from our cd about this one that you climbed down a ladder, underneath the bridge to hike down to three waterfalls, called Three Bears, and thought it sounded really cool.  It was AMAZING.  Like our very favorite hike ever.  We ended up taking Uncle James back with us a week or so later because it was so fun. 

 

 The Ke'anae peninsula is always one of my favorite stops.  The coastline here is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen.  The water is incredibly blue and with the contrast of the black rocks, its just stunning.  Plus, the waves are crazy huge.  This is overlooking Shark Bay.  On our cd it warns us not to enter these waters due to the high populations of sharks found here.  However, we sat and watched two locals go way out boogie boarding for about an hour.  I was so amazed they would boogie board in such a dangerous spot.  Not just because of the sharks, but because of what a rocky area it is with such huge waves.   

 

 We saw this fruit growing in vines in many trees.  We later found out it is called Lilikoi.  Kyle LOVED it.  I later found near us a Lilikoi soda Dave and I bought for him to celebrate him being all done with all his independent study work for school.  That's another story but when we got home we found Kyle had forgotten to take a lot of his work and we sat at a table for a few days trying desperately to finish it!

This bayon tree is found on the walk down to the Pools of Oheo.  I love this tree and have photographed it many times.  The light surrounding it on our walk that day was just gorgeous as was the light on the path in the pic below it.

 

At the Pools of Oheo, the boys had so much fun walking under the waterfall to the other side and jumping off the rocks into the pools below.  Dave jumped from the ledge above.

 

The picture above cracks me up.  The kids were out like this pretty much every night on our trip, we wore them out so much.  But this was just after our very first full day. Just having to drive back half way back to the cottage is SO much better than the long drive back to the other side of the island.  And below. About 100 pictures (many different angles) of a morning at the cottage.  Its such a perfect spot.  I love walking around in the morning here trying to capture it.

 The next morning we promised the boys they could jump off this waterfall.  Well, actually Dave did.  I never went along with this plan.  Dave has jumped off it many times and promised me it was safe and he would check it out.  Well, when he swam out he actually found it wasn't safe and there were rocks all over the bottom of the falls. Not sure how he has managed to be ok on all those previous jumps!! But any rate, I was so grateful and relieved since I wasn't wild about the idea of it! Of course.  I do think they boys would have done it.  They were incredibly brave on this trip! So we let them swim out a little in it instead, however it was freezing!

Grandma and Grandpa picked us up at the rental car place a few hours later and we headed over with them to their condo for lunch together.  We loved seeing heir condo!  It was so beautiful and so nice to be together there enjoying it.

One last trip over to Hana for the day.  One more day of adventures with my kids.

  

Oh these Rainbow Eucalyptus trees were one of my favorite things about Hana this year!!  Kyle and I have always wanted to find them.  We saw them the fist visit to Hana, but didn't see a good/safe place to pull off to get out and take pics of them.  When we wok up to rain one Saturday ( the only rain on our entire three week trip!) and decided to go back to Hana with James for the day, I was excited so I could try to find these to finally get some pics of them. It usually rains in Hana anyways so it was the perfect place to go with rain in the forecast. My good friend Erin had been to Maui a few months before and had taken such a gorgeous pic of the trees.  When I showed it to Kyle we were both determined to find some!  It was an added bonus to have it raining.  The colors really pop when the bark is wet.

  

Our next stop was to find this cool swing we had seen from the road our last time in Hana.  It looked like a swing you could swing out and fall into a pool of water.  We were so excited to find it and swing off it with the kids.  It reminded us of a cool swing in Kauai we loved so much called Kipu Falls.

Unfortunately the water fall was dry, so the water was stagnant and really gross. If the water isn't moving it is too dirty to swim in.  So we didn't get to try it.  We will have to look for it next time and try it then.

  

Our next stop was The Ke'anae Peninsula. Only this time it looked so different.  I have never seen it so stormy and the waves were out of this world. The waves are always really huge here anyways, but we stayed and watched them for probably a half hour.  We filmed them with our phones and almost got swept away a few times.  It was raining, but not cold.  It was so entertaining to watch the mighty sea put on such a show. Riley was not so impressed.  She waited in the car pretty much the entire time. After we went and bought more banana bread at Halfway to Hana. And Kody bought with his own money a shave ice to split with Ry.

 

Next we went to show James the Three Bears. It was pretty much the whole reason we drove back over to Hana.  It was so much fun we wanted to do it again with James.  By this stop though, it was POURING!  Since we all had our swimsuits on and Dave had brought about 40 towels (no joke) from the Marriott that we had lining the car floor, it was no big deal.  The rain just actually added to the fun.  I didn't take my nice camera since it was so wet and muddy, but I did get a few on my cell Ill post later. It was a memory I'll always remember.  Letting the Hana rain soak us all through a through.

We tried to get as dry as possible, drying off and then wrapping up in the many towels we had back at the van.  Thanks to Dave.  I totally teased him on how many towels he had brought and sure enough we used every single one!  And then headed to lunch at the Hana Ranch.  We love this place.  It has a lot of really good stuff.  I love how the Restaurant sits high above Hana the town overlooking the ocean.  However, due to how stormy it was outside we sat inside and didn't see much of a view this day.

The we headed out to The Pools of Oheo. On the way we stopped by a little fruit stand (on the honor system) and bought Guava, Lilikoi and Cacao, which James opened up for us later on at the condo.  It was very interesting to see!  Nothing like I thought it would look inside.

 Our last stop of the day with James.  The kids were so excited to jump off the rocks with James.  When we pulled in a Park Ranger told us the pools were not safe to get in.  She said the water was stagnant.  We were puzzled because we had just been here the week before and the water was great! 

 

And I thought it was confusing with all the rain that day why the water would be lower, but sure enough it was was!  It was crazy how low the water was.  I have never seen it so low.  It was really amazing to see how deep some of the water normally was.  The boys were all really sad they couldn't do any of the jumps or swim, but honestly it was the coolest thing and I loved seeing it like that.  It was so interesting to see the caves and deep holes and the depth of the different pools.  I had a lot of fun taking pics and exploring it in this state. It had stopped raining, but the wind was really blowing down into the ocean.  You can really see it in the trees.

  

We saw a double rainbow once the sun started to come out after the rain.  And ended the day enjoying the beautiful light as we headed back to the car.  It was so absolutely gorgeous I couldn't help but take some pictures...

Really such a beautiful day.