Aloha

As a gift to ourselves for graduation and to celebrate our 1st Anniversary, we took a trip to Hawaii!  We had the time of our lives!

Ryan's best friend Kaimi is from the Big Island and he graciously let us stay with him for the week and he also showed us around the island and fed us delicious food!

When we first arrived, Kaimi took us to this awesome waterfall that was special to Hawaii mythology where a Goddess and an evil dragon battled.  The waterfall was gorgeous and I've never seen one this big before.  We then went and climbed some neat trees that were surrounding the waterfall...

The next day we got to go visit Auntie Sharon and Uncle Jon {Kaimi's parents}.  Auntie showed me around her beautiful garden and I started to get SO excited to make my own one day {soon}.  She has a green thumb and her yard is a mini paradise filled with hydrangea, fern with monkey tails, ginger, calla lilies, antherium, orchids and about every veggie you could imagine! She also made us some delish traditional chinese beef and broccoli.  We then went to go see a huge Volcano opening where Uncle works.  The colors were brilliant and it was just flat out cool being on an active volcano.  We love the Moraes family!!

Monday was our 1st Anniversary so we drove to the Kona side and spent the day on the rather secluded Mau'umae Beach where Kaimi and Kiira were married.  It was on the cloudy side but we still had a blast sitting on the beach, playing in the waves and just enjoying each other's company.  That night we were going to get sushi at this place with good reviews in Hilo...however when we got there we discovered that it was closed, as were almost all other food joints {come to find all shops on the beach front are closed on Mondays}.  Luckily, we did find a fab place that served us some yummy Spanish Tapas.  Happy incredible 1 Year of Awesomeness to Us!!!  

The next few days we spent snorkeling at different beaches throughout the island.  Snorkeling is one of our favorite hobbies to do together, and we will probably always try to take vacations centered around snorkeling and scuba diving (once we get certified).  Here are some of our fav pictures of the sublime underwater utopias we encountered:

Richardson's Beach:::

Hapuna Beach:::

We found a cave and of course went in to explore it!

Punalu'u Beach:::

We also visited Macadamia Nut heaven known as Mauna Loa.  I probably shouldn't admit this but I did eat an entire box of chocolate covered nuts by myself...and no, I didn't bother checking the amount of fat or calories it was so that I could not feel guilty.  We got to watch the workers hand dip and package the candies.  It totally reminded us of the 'Job Switching' I Love Lucy episode!  We got to sample all the different flavors and our favorites were the chocolate toffee and wasabi nuts but the ice cream was the best part hands down.

We did a few other fun things while we were there with Kaimi and his friends.  Some noteworthy outings were clearing forest out of Kaimi's brother's land in King's Landing, getting shave ice, learning how to make traditional leis, catching geckos, and learning how to throw rocks with a Hawaiian sling shot.  I also requested to have an authentic Hawaiian meal so Kaimi and his friend Rob made us a yummy dish!  We even ventured to try Poi. {it was actually ok as long as you mixed small amounts in with other stuff}

Mahalo Kaimi for letting us stay with you for our Hawaiian adventure!!!!