The Place of Refuge and St. Benedict's Church

Today we headed a bit south to St. Benedict’s Church in Honaunau, Hawaii: St. Benedict Catholic Church is also known as the Painted Church. This storybook picture church dates back to the 1800's. From 1899 to 1904 Father John Velge from Belgium painted the church which includes colorful frescoed ceilings and walls. The murals on the walls and ceilings depict many biblical scenes.

We then continued on to the Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park, called the Place of Refuge. Here in the national park you can walk through an ancient Hawaiian village and see firsthand how the kings of Hawaii once lived.

Snorkeling and Firenesia Luau

In the morning we gave grandma a break because her ankle had been bothering her.   We took a 5 minute drive down the street to one of the best snorkeling beaches on the big island, Kahalu'u Beach Park.  They had snorkels for rent, so Jon and I took turns snorkeling while we hung out with Evan.   We were lucky enough to see a sea turtle basking on the rocks, as well as lots of fish.   We liked this beach as much Hanauma on Oahu.

Firenesia was a very nice luau, the setting was beautiful on the grounds of the Sheraton on Keahou Bay. The food was delicious, including the kalua pork (pulled pork from a pig baked in a pit) and the weather was great. The fire dancing was amazing and kept Evan entertained.

The Glass Bottom Boat

Back when Grandma was a travel agent, she apparently booked someone for a tour on one of these things. It’s a great idea, you sit on a boat, and look through glass boxes built into the bottom of the boat. Like a cross between snorkeling and being at an aquarium.

We found a tour in Kailua-Kona through Kailua Bay Charter Co. aboard a 36-foot glassbottom boat called the Marian. Of all of us, Grandma was the only one who sat still staring through the bottom of the boat the entire time, and the only one who didn’t feel the slightest bit of seasickness.

Evan had fun learning how to drive a boat!

Traveling

Today was a travel day. We departed Oahu and took a flight over to the Big Island of Hawaii. Unfortunately, at some point in the past 24 hours, Grandma twisted her ankle. She did a fantastic job traveling today, but I think was a bit tired by the end of the day.

Our condo here was great. We had a two-bedroom townhome at the Keauhou Kona Surf and Racquet Club, in townhome 177. We were so close to the ocean that the first night we were there I didn't sleep very well. I felt as though we were on a boat and was convinced that the sea was raging and the waves were actually hitting the exterior walls of our condo. Once I woke up the next morning and was able to analyze the situation, I was able to see that the waves were not, in fact, hitting the condo at night, but that we actually had a significant blowhole situated in the rocks right outside of our condo. The remaining nights I slept pretty well after that, now that I knew what was the source of the sound. Jon slept great, as he loves white noise, so apparently he appreciated the ambiance. If you're ever looking for a place on the Big Island, I'd highly recommend this one. It was nicely decorated, plenty of room for 3 adults and a child, right on the water. It was affordable. The location couldn't be beat, a five-minute drive from a large grocery store and restaurants, some of the best snorkeling on the island and a nice luau.

My Favorite Beach

Today we took Grandma to see one of my favorite beaches, Kailua. This time around we drove down past the main Kailua Beach entrance to the parking lot at the south end of the beach, which worked out well as there are virtually no waves here, plus there was shade from the trees for Grandma to sit under.

Evan had fun playing with his construction trucks in the sand and chasing Jon and me through the gentle waves coming up on the shore. It was a pretty relaxing time and a lot of fun, plus it was sunny, which was definitely a good thing, considering it often rains on that side of the island.

To give you an idea of how nice this beach is, this happens to be the area of the island where Barack Obama rented a vacation home and brought his family this past year for Christmastime.

Tonight Evan, Grandma and I were also able to make it over to the lagoon at the Hilton to grab a spot on the grass and watch the fireworks. I think Grandma was happy, she said she hadn't seen fireworks in quite some time. I got a neat little video of the fireworks as seen through the shadow of a palm tree.

Happy Birthday Grandma

Today was Grandma's 66th birthday, and what better way to celebrate than kissing a dolphin, right? Did I mention Grandma doesn't swim? She won't even take her feet off the ground in a swimming pool. Anyhow, we made our way down to the Sealife Park about a half an hour south of our condo to hang out with the dolphins. Evan was quite excited, which made it a little difficult when we had to wait a bit to get into the water with the dolphins.

Jon, Grandma, Evan and I all got into the dolphin show pool with a group of about 8 other people and a dolphin trainer. I think we all had a good time. All that Evan cared about was getting to feed the dolphin, so fortunately the trainer allowed Evan to toss our dolphin a fish once he was done posing for pics kissing (licking) and dancing with the dolphin (which apparently wasn't as exciting as actually feeding a dolphin). Then Grandma had her chance as I held onto the back of her lifevest so that she didn't take a dive into the quite deep dolphin pool. Her pics turned out great. Hopefully I'll get the pics scanned in so I can post them here. Again, no instant digital camera gratification this time.

Evan enjoyed the touch pools with Jon, complete with getting to pet a small sea turtle. The touch pools were reminiscent of Evan's story where Curious George goes to the aquarium, so it was fun to make comparisons between the images in the story and real life. We also had the chance to feed the sea turtles once again, and Evan had a close encounter with a manta ray through the glass of the aquarium.

The Peacocks Will Get Me!

Today we took Evan and Grandma to the Honolulu Zoo. It was definitely worth the price of admission, which for us happened to be free, as it is part of a network of zoos that allows free or discounted admission if you have a family membership to another zoo in the network. In our case, we have a famiyl membership to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, so that worked out well.

We like the zoo there. It's easy to get around for Evan and Grandma, and it lends itself well to entertaining small children. There's a large playground in the middle, so Evan took his turn playing with the other children running around before we headed into the Keiki (children's) Zoo area where he enjoyed crawling through the glass tunnel that leads through a large tank of Koi (big goldfish).

The only way to convince him to explore the rest of the zoo however was to allow him to believe that the numerous roaming peacocks were out to get him. This became quite an amusing game for Evan and Jon. Evan would run from exhibit to exhibit yelling, "The peacocks will get me!" It provided us an efficient way to go through the zoo and see the exhibits. At one point however, as Evan was running from the peacocks, he went through an area with two exhibits on either side of him, where he was nearly cornered by two peacocks who started to "yell" at him. I guess it's hard to describe, but Jon and I couldn't stop laughing. We started to wonder if the peacocks really were chasing Evan. Hilarious.

Some other really cool exhibits to note are the big turtle exhibits, and also, that we got to see a baby tiger. The tiger exhibit is interesting because, at one point, there is just a glass door between you and the tiger, as you can see in the photo above. Hopefully this is as close as Evan ever gets to a tiger!