Day 2- Friday February 6th

Friday morning we woke up early and headed to the Beach. We stopped at a grocery store for trail mix and some fruit to snack on at the beach and drove the 20 minutes to this beautiful beach we had seen on trip advisor. When we arrived, the beach was no where to be found. A friendly local advised us that in the winter the beach gets washed away because of the large waves and strong current. The beach returns in May. Luckily he told us where we could find Hapuna Beach. We got there early and found a nice little spot to set up camp. I had my hat, and my sunscreen and I felt quite confident sitting in the sun.

Background- When I went to Hawaii with Brett and Wyatt almost 7 years ago I was totally disappointed. Oahu was busy and crowded and HOT. I remember being surprised how hot it was, and everything is open air. The whole mall is even open except for when you were in a specific store and then you are blasted with air conditioning. We had a baby with us, so one of us was always on the beach with our things and the few times I went into the water I felt silly playing by myself, or I got water in my mouth and wanted out right away. Brett actually said that if I didn't like Hawaii this time that I shouldn't tell him. I think he did not plan to ever take me back. That's how great a time I had. As a disclaimer, I did have my camera stolen out of our rental car, losing 300+ pictures from our trip. Totally ruined the whole thing for me.

Back to the recent trip- it was TOTALLY different. I don't know if it was the company, or lack of children or both, but I was happy to play in the ocean, felt semi comfortable leaving our things up on the beach while we did and was never too hot because we frequently took a dip when we were feeling cooked.

Elesa said we had to try boogie boarding. I had read some recent blog posts from other people who had experienced almost fatal experiences in Hawaiian waves so I was a little nervous. I soon realized you don't have to go very deep to enjoy the fun in the ocean waves. They were quite powerful though, I almost lost my bathing suit a few times, and had Elesa cinch up my top to avoid over exposure.

We had planned this amazing tour for Friday evening, it was the main reason we had chosen to visit the Big Island. It was where you head up the highest peak in the USA _ Mauna Kae, and they have all these observatories and telescopes up there and the stars are incredible because you are higher than the clouds. Sadly, the winds on the mountain were too strong to go all the way to the top and so we decided to wait and see if we could go on the full tour another day.


















That evening after dinner of fish tacos at Humpy's we headed to the Kona Temple. It is a mini one like the one in Edmonton, but it was fun to add it to my list of foreign temples I've been to.

Elesa likes to play these games.... so at dinner or any lengthy car ride she comes up with some great game. Random questions really. I don't remember the question exactly, but it made me think of the time we'd already spent in Hawaii, and how much fun we were having together. There is something nice about old friends. I feel like I can be myself completely because we've known each other so long. Elesa is totally different than me, she is daring and outgoing and so much fun. She was definitely rubbing off on me, someone who is typically very safe and pretty boring. It was nice to be pushed out of my comfort zone a little, and I'm pretty sure she is one of the only people I know that can do that for me.