Visiting Hawaii

Paul is from Hawaii, but until last month I had never been back to see his house/where he grew up. Paul was born and raised in Keaau on the Big Island of Hawaii. It's on the Hilo side where it's all tropical and wet. When Paul tells people he is from Hawaii I think people are a little skeptical because he is white, doesn't speak pigeon, doesn't like pineapple or coconut and can't surf. But he really is from there! We had a blast being with Paul's parents. I can't even remember what we did on what days... so it will just be jumble of things for now.

The first night we got there we stayed on the Kona side. We walked around downtown Kona for a bit. 

Beach babe 

Sailor man

We went to the Kona Temple before we left for the Hilo side. What a beautiful temple! 

Went to the beach at Hapuna

Paul got super burnt. I called him "my lobster" the entire rest of the trip

I wanted to eat all of the local Hawaiian food I had heard talk about. Here is a sampling of all the food we ate...

This is a Loco Moco. It it rice with a meat patty and fried egg on top smothered in gravy. And Mac salad of course!

This is spam musabis. So good! But I just try not to think about what's in the spam.

We went to the Keaau Farmers Market a couple times while we were there. All of the fruit was to die for. Paul has a banana tree in his backyard and then we would buy papayas and mangos at the Farmer's Market. I was in heaven! We also toured the Mauna Loa factory. They have the BEST chocolate covered macadamia nuts. Ok, I'll stop talking about food now.

Farmers Market

We toured the Mauna Loa Factory

We hiked to Paul's favorite beach, Shipman beach. You have to hike a couple miles to get there, but it's so worth it. We saw sea turtles and enjoyed the beach!

Hiking into Shipman

We also went to some other beaches. The first couple days we were there is was pretty "voggy" (the volcano on the island sometimes blows ashes/fumes over to the Hilo side, which makes it really overcast) So, it wasn't the best weather. But we made it work.

We went up to Namakanipaio- the prettiest camping place! Paul grew up going there with his family. We had tin foil dinner with Paul's parents. We also walked over to the Volcano National Park and checked out the volcano.

Our last day we went to Akaka Falls on our way driving back to Kona. We took our time going back and made a bunch of fun stops a long the way.  

I know I missed a lot of fun things: long walks, visiting friends, playing Mario Kart, watching home videos of little Pauly, Mother's Day dinner, flea market shopping, and much more. Hawaii was awesome and hard to leave. We hope to be back soon!