How Many People Can You Fit on a Padddle board- Day.

Jumped in the van, drove two hours across the island, and stopped at this

beauty for a 7am session. It was so pretty.

After the temple, we drove across a lava rock field that was more like lava-hell. 

 This went on for miles before we got to paradise. 

Keakaha-Kai Beach 

Sandy mouth.

If you look in the very far distance you can see Maurice trying to paddle board on a board with no fin.  In the nearer distance you can see the rest of us waiting like sharks to take over the paddle board. 

We were successful and spent most of the remainder of the day trying to see how many of us could stand on it at one time. It was a major workout.  

Tasha, Katie, me, Kai, & Dirky

Just before sunset we drove down to a cliff called The End of the World,

 where you can jump off right in front of a cave. 

Dirk

You can see the cave here.  Every time a wave came, it would rush into this cave, hit the back and then come rushing out. We spent a long time standing there trying to time our jumps just right so that we wouldn't get swept into the cave!

 

 

It was sort of an ordeal getting onto the rocks again.

As soon as we jumped, the sun set.  It was perfect.

Romantic Sibling Getaway- Death By Sea Urchin

We're half-way done people.

On this day, before jumping in the van for the 2 hour car ride, we stopped for some yummy Hawaiian ice cream.  There was this random jungle behind the ice cream shop for us to enjoy our food in (below).

After the treacherous journey, we made it to this crazy little beach.  The name is debatable.  It's either called Waialea or 69 beach.  Either way, we took this beach by storm.

Me, Kai, Katie, Tasha, & Dirk walked all the way to the other end of the beach and swam over there where there were no rocks.  The water was so warm there and so nice!  I got this bright idea we should swim back to Aaron and Maurice, rather than walk back.  We didn't have our fins with us, and we were going to have to navigate through a ton of rocks, but we were up for the adventure.  We almost got all the way back, when we took a family-excursion rest stop on a rock.  That's when Dirky stepped on a sea urchin and nearly murdered his foot.  The same foot that he got stung by a ray in a few weeks earlier in H.B.  Way to go!

Katie went in to full life-guard mode and nearly pulled him the rest of the way back through the water. Luckily Aaron was there to capture our struggles of pulling Dirk to shore.

The foolish boy's foot.

You can see that some of the prongs broke off inside his foot, so Aaron

 had to perform a little mini surgery to get them all out.

While Dirk was stuck in a chair with his urchin-foot, some of us went down the beach to check out a rope swing.  Look closely and you will notice that we are dropping into about 8 inches of water. We still had to try it.

my kids' parents

Before we left the beach, I was taking some sweet pics of Katie in the water and more and more Petersens floated into the shot...

Tasha

Kai

Me

Then we got cleaned up and went to a sunset luau at the Mauna Kea Resort

Romantic siblings

The food was pretty good, but the show was so-so. 

Best part of the show was when Kai got called up to the stage to dance with the Tahitian dancers.

Romantic Sibling Getaway-Cook's Monument

Caution: If you don't love pictures of me and my family, turn back now.  I probably have 800 pictures from this trip and am trying to cut it down to about 100. 

We kicked off our second day by hopping in the car for another 2 hour drive across the island, and picking up kayaks for our little adventure.  Since we needed 4 kayaks, we were going to have to make two trips down to the launch point a few miles away.  The guy at the shop wanted to save us the trip, so he managed to rig all four on our trusty little van. Awesome.  We were really excited about cutting down our time in the van. 

  

 We drove down to this beautiful bay that I don't have a great picture of for some reason.  It was the bay that Captain Cook was killed in by the Hawaiians.  They ended up making a monument there for him which happened to be right in front of (supposedly) the best snorkeling in the state of Hawaii.  My brother Kai has a secret obsession with Captain Cook so we got a major history lesson all about Captain Cook on the way there. I can tell you whatever you need to know, if  you like.

We got 3 tandem kayaks and a single for Aaron.  You don't want to be caught in a kayak with this guy when his sea-sickness sets in.  He hopped in and made a bee line for the opposite shore.  This was the last I saw of him for a while.  

Racing Katie and Kai

Me & Dirk

We made it to the monument shore where the awesome snorkeling was and it was sooo overcast.  It was still nice but the water was so clear and it would have been an amazing color with a little sunlight on it.

We specifically got permits a few weeks in advance, to be able to beach our kayaks there, and wouldn't you know it? We left them in the car! We risked it anyway.

It really was pretty there but the pics came out so dark 

 Me pretending to be the Little Mermaid.

We saw about a million kids of fish, plus sea turtles and eels.  There was so much going on under there it was like a party once you put your head under.

 Kai & Katie

 Fish party

The bay we kayaked across is known for the pods of Spinner Dolphins that cross it back and forth.  They told us to sit and wait about 15 min and the dolphins would come.  They weren't kidding.  Dolphins started popping up all around us and spinning in the air.  They were impossible to catch on camera because you never knew where they would jump out at, but I got this one shot of a dolphin in mid-spin.

After a really nice day in the water, the boys had to figure out the whole kayak situation, and it was really fun to watch. 

How many Petersens does it take to load the van? 

After some shopping and dinner, we began the 2 hrs. back home.  

Here's a few shots of what it was like to be crammed in the van with 6 other adults... 

Anyone want a ride? Too bad you wouldn't fit.

Romantic Sibling Getaway- Hapuna Beach

Our first day in Hawaii was the laziest by far.  We got in the van, drove 2 hours across the island, and unloaded at this gem of a beach. We basically slept and ate all day in order to recover from the previous day's travelling. It was beautiful though.

Sleeping- me, Dirk, Maurice

4th meal of the day- pre dinner smoothies

Major romance on this sibling vacation.