Hawaii- Hanauma, Kayaking, and Leis

 Our family went on a trip to Hawaii in October! We have been planning on doing this for a few years (we originally planned to go during one of Ryan's conferences), but because of Covid and everything it kept getting postponed, so we decided to just do it during the kids' fall break this year. We're so glad we did!

It was a full day of flying, with a long layover in SFO on our way out. Our kids were awesome on both of our travel days, which was so helpful:

Shenanigans while we waited for our second flight:

We were definitely all tired after the long travel day:

Our first day we went snorkeling at Hanauma bay! All the kids but Ivy tried it, and those who tried it loved it! We saw lots of different kinds of fish, including the humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa, coral reefs, sea cucumbers, and Ryan and I even saw an octopus!

When we weren't snorkeling, the kids played in the sand:

The bay was beautiful and the best snorkeling of our whole trip!

That night we ate at a restaurant nearby Hanauma Bay called Teddy's Bigger Burger- it was delicious!

The next day we went to Kailua Beach State Park. We started just playing in the water and sand:

Then we rented some kayaks and tried out some ocean kayaking:

We first kayaked out to a little island called "Flat Island," which is a sea bird sanctuary:

Then we kayaked to nearby Lanikai Beach, which was beautiful, where we swam and played in the sand some more:

That night we took a friend's tip to get Bento boxes for dinner at the local 7-11- it was definitely interesting! We also got desserts from the Hukilau Marketplace near our hotel that night- Hyrum and I got malasadas, Ryan got an amazing acai bowl, and the three other kids got shaved ice.

The next morning, Ryan and the kids went swimming in the hotel pool (it had a little waterfall), and then they made leis and bracelets in our hotel lobby:

Then we went to lunch at Pounder's, which turned out to be the kids' favorite restaurant of the trip because they got to make their own pizza:

Hyrum tried a fish called "hebi" there that he liked, and he also tried something else new- flowers. These purple flowers were in each kid's water, and the waitress told us they were edible, so Hyrum went ahead and ate everyone's flowers!