There's a conference in Hawaii?!

I just dusted. That's how far I'm willing to go to not do an update. I hate dusting. A huge reason I don't like cute stuff in our house is because I don't want to dust them. I was at the store with a friend and she picked up a wire ball thing and said I should get it. I asked what one does with something like that and if I would have to dust it. She just laughed and I'm not sure if it was because I didn't know what to do with the object or the fact that I asked if I would have to dust it. Either way it stayed at the store because I hate having stuff, especially stuff that I am expected to dust so that when people who like stuff come into my house they say,"oh I like your stuff." Instead of,"oh, you should dust your stuff." Anyway, all I'm saying is that I hate dusting. Blah, blah blah. Ok, so B needed to get continuing education stuff for work. Last year he just did it online and we stayed home and it was great. This year, he wanted to go to a conference in Hawaii! It didn't take a whole lot of convincing for me to agree to tag along. However, I was worried that A was going to freak out when grandma B came to watch the kiddos. A doesn't really like people. When we go to Costco and people talk to her, she bursts into tears. I was just a little worried about leaving her. I was worried that she would cry the whole time and B's mom would go totally nuts. Taking care of kids is hard, especially not your own and if one of them cries the whole time, it might lead to... swearing. Anyway, we prayed real hard that she would be ok and off we went. His conference was Monday-Wednesday until 1:00. So in the morning I went running and read my book. In the afternoons we hiked and swam and hunted for sea turtles.

We didn't know that there was a temple in Kona and so we didn't take temple stuff but we went to Target on Saturday after we landed  and of course B was wearing a BYU shirt. The cashier was a member and told us where church was and what time. We went and the temple was right behind the church. It was beautiful! It's always amazing to me that the spirit of the temple can be felt even on the temple grounds.

Of course when one is in Hawaii, you go snorkeling. The water was moody and there were some spots that weren't too cold and then you would feel like you were in the Arctic Sea. Truly, the freezing spots were shockingly freezing.

These yellow fish were fearless. Not that we gave them a reason to be scared of us but all the other fish in the sea would swim away. The yellow fellas would swim towards us. I think fish are freaky anyway but to be stared down by one is almost nightmarish. 

We went on a manta ray dive. At night. In the ocean. It was scary. Really scary. I had no idea that manta ray's are so big. You can't tell but they have an average wing span of  14 feet. They don't have a barb or teeth so they can't hurt you. We learned that to get a baby manta ray they lay an egg inside their belly. The egg hatches in utero and then the baby grows and is born alive. Baby is born wrapped with it's wings wrapped around itself, like a burrito. At birth, they open their fins and swim away, they are born totally independent. I thought that was pretty awesome.

The resort had a pretty sweet pool.I hate swimming because the water is always always too cold. B got me a long sleeved swimsuit. It's made out of wet suit material so it was a little warmer, but not enough to be in the pool for real long. Truthfully, I think I lasted about 20 minutes and 10 minutes of that was trying to get a good kissing under water picture. I may or may not have messed those pictures up on purpose just so we would have to try again 😉. 

We rented some paddleboards and from the top of the water, we saw sea turtles! We went and grabbed our snorkel stuff and tried to see them under water.

They were so cool!

Here's my question. Can they give off a film? We would be swimming  and then all the sudden the water would go really cloudy and when it would clear, the turtle would be pretty far away. We tried to give them space but when the water would go cloudy and we couldn't see them, sometimes when it would clear, there would be one right under us. I felt bad for crowding them out, so we didn't linger by them for too long.

See that beach waaaaaayyyyy down there? We hiked down to it. It's a mile down a 25% grade hill. You can drive it if you have four wheel drive. If not, you walk it. The walk down wasn't too bad.

Although I did feel like I was going to fall backwards if I didn't keep walking.

We made it to the bottom and touched the black sand. It was pretty cool. Who are we kidding? I hate sand no matter what color it is. I did everything in my power not to get my shoes wet so the sand wouldn't stick to them. 

Holy crap the mile up was so hard! We both feel like we're in pretty good shape, not perfect, but good enough.  However, walking up hill for a mile at a 25% incline the entire time was a lot harder than we thought it would be. We saw people walking down with their little kids. Taking kids on a walk on a flat sidewalk has potential to result in whining that they want to go home and can't take another step. I feel like the hike up would have been a true disaster with little ones. Like, call in FEMA we need some assistance, type disaster.

This is what all restroom signs should look like. By the time I get around to going, this is exactly how I feel. 

We saw Akaka Falls, the tallest free falling waterfall in Hawaii

We saw Rainbow falls. Not the tallest free falling waterfall in Hawaii.

We saw the glow from the volcano from a distance. We had scheduled a lava hike where we would hike out to the lave flow and see it up close, but our tour got cancelled because of bad weather. This was the closest we got to it. It's probably for the best because I want to touch lava so bad! I can't wait to get to Heaven and be able to touch lava and ride on a tiger and swim with a hippo. It'll be so so awesome!

We saw this cool sea arch. I was standing on the rocks reading the sign and some guy came over to me and said,"um, your foot's in my picture so you need to move." Got it. Sorry that my foot, on land, is going to be in your picture of a sea arch. What a weirdo. 

Hawaii sent us off with one last beautiful sunset. The week had gone by too fast and we were sad to leave but ready to be home. We loved being together and I loved having my boyfriend's total attention. It was cool to hold hands when we wanted to and make out on the couch before dinner. When B was at the conference it wasn't great but the time we had together was amazing!