Rick and Deena's Visit - Part 1

WOW! What a great 5 days! We had such a great time with AJ's sister and her husband! I reluctantly took them to the airport today. We were thinking about somehow missing the plane, but we thought we better not! I have so much to say about what we did. I'll tell you about the first few days and then finish it tomorrow. There are several pictures. Be sure to scroll down a long way to see them all!

Friday
I picked Deena and Rick up at the airport and then the three of us went and picked Jenna up from school. Deena and Rick got to get a quick glimpse of her school. We took a short drive down the main road through town which is by the ocean. The surf has been up lately, and the waves were HUGE! They were crashing on the beaches like mad! The beach that we call Turtle Beach was closed because it wasn’t safe to be out. Thankfully, by Saturday the surf had come down a bit. Jenna gave them a tour of the house and after a brief rest; we headed to AJ’s Christmas party for work. It was a lot of fun! I got to meet some more of AJ’s co-workers and Deena and Rick got to meet everyone! I think they had a good time. They fit in great! We had an awesome spread of food! Some of the girls that AJ works with made a traditional Hawaiian meal. It was like having our own personal luau. We had lau lau’s (rhymes with cow) and poi (rhymes with toy) which is made from the taro root. It’s not really very good, but I’m told it’s not too bad when it’s mixed with other food. Deena tried it mixed with some stir fry dish (I think). She said it was good. AJ said the poi was good only because she covered the taste of it! I'm told that poi tastes like wall paper paste, but how does anyone REALLY know what wall paper paste tastes like...? We had vegetable stir-fry, kalua pig, and rice. It was a great night. We went home with full bellies and went to sleep!

Saturday
Today was a great day! We borrowed some kayaks from Gus and kayaked across the Kealakekua Bay to the Captain Cook monument. It’s about a mile across the Bay and thankfully the waters were pretty calm. We each had our own canoe, except for Jenna. She rode with AJ. It was a beautiful day! The sun was shining and the water was a clear, deep blue in areas where the water was really deep and it was a crystal clear turquoise in the shallower areas. It’s such a beautiful color…it’s hard to describe! We were blessed to see dolphins on the way across!! Jenna was so afraid before we left. She thought the dolphins might tip the canoe over or we might fall in or something. But after we saw the dolphins and she saw that she was safe in the canoe with AJ, she did great! The dolphins are so amazing to watch! They’re so graceful when they swim. They swim in pods and they move together as a group…AJ called it synchronized swimming…! He’s so funny! We could see them cresting out of the water and we could hear them blowing out air when they surfaced. It was so cool!! When we got to the monument, we went snorkeling. It was great!! I love snorkeling at the monument! It’s AJ’s and my favorite place to snorkel. The water is so clear and the fish and the coral are so colorful! AJ, Jenna, Deena and Rick all saw an eel in the rocks before we started snorkeling. I just saw its head. Thankfully it wasn’t too big! We could see yellow tang swimming in the water just standing on the rocks! There were so many of them!! Jenna didn’t snorkel; she just played in the shallow water and watched the yellow tang from shore. There were so many beautiful fish to see! I took some pictures that I posted. We got a new underwater camera and we were quite happy with how well the pictures turned out! I tried to get some pictures of the coral and how it slowly goes deeper in to the dark ocean. I hope you can see it clearly. Of course, a picture does not do justice how beautiful any of it is!! There are so many different types of fish…all different sizes and colors. How fun it must have been to create all of them!! After we snorkeled for a while, we walked on the lava rock along the shoreline. We watched the waves crashing on the shore. One wave crashed so hard on the shore that Jenna ran and hid behind Deena! The power of the water is always so amazing to me!! It was great! On the way back from the Bay we were blessed again with seeing the dolphins!! This time they were in a playful, show off kind of mood! We saw a few of them jump in the air and spin in the air. It was so cool to see! Several of them went very close to AJ and Jenna in their kayak. Jenna said they went right under her kayak! One was so close she thought she could touch it!! Jenna got to see them spinning. She thought it was very cool!! Deena had several come close to her too. It was so cool!! I could make this trip everyday! The dolphins are so beautiful! The ones that we saw are called “spinner dolphins.” They weigh about 175 pounds and are about 6 feet long. The dolphins that are in captivity are usually much larger. It was so cool to see the dolphins in their natural environment. They don’t seem to be too bothered by having kayaks around them. We saw some people snorkeling around them too. I can’t imagine that you would see too much because they swim so fast, they wouldn’t be around where you were snorkeling for very long! We watched them for a long time. I took some pictures, but unfortunately I couldn’t get any of them spinning in the air! Oh well. Maybe next time!

After kayaking, we went to the Place of Refuge. This is the beach that AJ and I got engaged at. It’s a pretty special beach for us. It's a great place to whale watch. We didn't see any whales today, but it was still great to watch the water. We played in tide pools and watched small fish swimming in the water and crabs crawling on the rocks. We had lunch at the beach and then toured the historical Hawaiian grounds at the park. It was neat to see. We saw some sea turtles laying on the beach and swimming in the water. I took a few pictures that I posted. They are so cool to see. We stopped at a coffee store on the way home. The coffee always smells so good! Why can't it taste as good...??

We went back to the house and had a great dinner of fresh fish and salad and watched the sunset from our lanai. It was a great evening! I'll finish the rest of the story tomorrow, so until then...aloha!