Hawaii from my iPhone's perspective

I wasn't great about lugging my camera around with me last week...but I think that's a good thing. I was too busy relaxing or having fun :) I did snap some shots with my phone though. Here is a quick recap of our trip, via my iPhone.

Ryan and I started our trip in Kona at the Hilton Waikoloa Village resort. It was amazing!! The grounds are HUGE...there is a tram and a ferry that travel throughout so you don't have to walk so far, but we chose to walk every time because we didn't like waiting for the tram, and the view was so stunning. The picture above is the view from our balcony.

We spotted several sea turtles at the resort.

We spent most of our time relaxing at the pool. We brought books and lots of sunscreen and even took lunch down with us. It was so nice to enjoy quiet time together. There were a ton of people there with toddlers and they were chasing them all over, that definitely did NOT look relaxing. We kept looking at each other with that knowing look that said "we're so glad we left Brady with my parents!" We were really able to enjoy ourselves and recharge on this trip.

Even though our main goal was to relax, we chose Kona as one of our stops because we wanted to see the volcano flows, so we took 1/2 day to go to Volcano National Park.  We saw lots and lots of lava, old and newish. We hiked around on it and were just amazed at how much land was covered.

My favorite parts of the park were walking through the lava tunnel (I might have pics on my camera to blog later) and seeing the glow of lava at night.

After Kona, we headed to Kauai to meet up with Ryan's family. 

We stayed in a condo in Princeville with the most amazing view. We had a very relaxing week, we filled it with a few activities or beach visits each day, but we enjoyed just hanging around the condo taking in the gorgeous view too.

 a glimps of the view from our balcony. We ate every meal here. So amazing!

We went to Hanalei Bay a few times. The first few days were mostly rainy, but by the end of the week, we were able to enjoy more sun filled days.

There were some cliffs that led down to the ocean just below our condo. Ryan, Luke, Courtney and I hiked down to explore and the boys got in the water. They found a cave with lots of sea turtles and got to swim/snorkel around in there. I mostly just got eaten alive by mosquitos out there, so I chose not to go back.

We went to visit the Kilauea Lighthouse one day, it was beautiful!

And then we went down and hiked/swam around at the Queen's Bath. There were a few little "baths" created in the rocks when the tide was low. The water was warm and lots of people were there swimming.

On our way back, we saw some people cliff jumping, so Ryan and Luke decided they had to get in on the action.

scoping it out

jumping

We did some other things that didn't get pictured, including several trips to get shave ice (NOT shavED -- I've decided I'm just not a fan. Too sweet for me. I'd rather have ice cream!), a trip to the Smith Family Luau for dinner one night, more time spent at the pool, and the guys golfed several times.

It was a week full of the perfect amount of relaxation and activity. We never felt pressured to go anywhere or do anything. We were truly on Hawaii time!

On our last night all together (us kids all left Friday, but Rick and Arlene stayed for another week), we went to a restaurant in town called Kalypso. It was delicious!

We tried to take a cute picture, but as always, we just got silly instead :)

All of us

The trip was AMAZING and we are so grateful for the opportunity to go and spend some quality time alone together (which I think is SOOO necessary) and with the family. After a week and a half though, we were pretty anxious to see our little Brady again!!