Big Island, Big Fun!

We were lucky enough to be invited to go to Hawaii again this year with our friends Greg and Lauren, and their two kids. We went with them 3 years ago, before we were pregnant with the two little ones, and had a ton of fun and this year was just a good!

The flight to the Big Island was pretty non-eventful. I'm a little embarrassed to say that it's because Paw Patrol pretty much occupied both kids for the entire 5 hr journey. It's terrible because at Nora's age, we hadn't even let Evie watch TV let alone 5 hours of it!! But, hey, we all survived.

Once we landed, we were in a for a treat! The timeshare his parents are a part of is very luxurious and great for families - lots of space for us to spread out, walking distance to the beach and the grocery store, plus a private pool for the kids to splash around in.

Our days pretty much consisted of a mix of pool play, either at the house or at the community pool, or going to the beach. Thankfully, Nora was much more comfortable with the beach this time around and seemed to enjoy herself. It was nice to be able to plop her in the water and not have her hanging on me like a monkey, like in Maui! Unfortunately, Graham was not so great with the beach or the water - he jumped in to the water once and hated it and didn't go near it for the rest of the trip.

This was our awesome private pool.
We dubbed this section the kiddie pool.

Jump in! The water's great! 

Lots of afternoon of just lazying on some floaties.

Sand bottom kids pool at the clubhouse.
We were always the only ones using it!

Gorgeous "adult" pool at the Clubhouse. Again, it was pretty much empty every time we used it.

We also took daily walks around the gated community to ogle the big houses, and then walked to the nearby shopping mall to get groceries, Hawaii "juice" (smoothies") and browse for knick knacks. It was plenty hot outside but it was nice to do some exercising.

Good call on renting a double stroller for the walk.

Playing in the fountains at the mall. I have pics from 3 years ago of the girls doing this!

We did venture off the property a few times, mainly to try out a few different beaches. The bad thing about the Big Island is that it really is BIG - it takes forever to get anywhere. The good thing is that it never really seemed crowded. In fact, it felt pretty empty to us! We tried out 3 different beaches - the beach at the Fairmont Orchid, which was walking distance from our place, the Kids Cove at Hualalai and Beach 69. Each had it's pros and cons, but my favorite was Beach 69 because of the awesome snorkeling we were able to do there. Scott says the snorkeling was only okay, but I haven't been in YEARS (I think the last time was a sad attempt in college?) and had a grand ole time and loved all the fishes we saw. Plus, the girls loved floating around in the waves.

Cracking up in the car.

Beauty at the "Kids Cove" beach at the Hualalai Resort.

This was at about 5pm. We were the only ones there!

Our lovely and relaxing date snorkeling at "Beach 69".

Sandcastle at the Fairmont Beach.

Back at Beach 69 with the kids. That's them with Lauren in the distance!

Playing with daddy in the shade. 

We were also able to do a double-date night where we walked over to the Fairmont to watch the sun set and then  enjoyed dinner overlooking the water. I had an ice-cold "Mauna Lani Mule" and a fantastic seafood curry that included local fish and abalone! It was really yummy.

Date night!

One week wasn't enough! We enjoyed our trip so much and loved making more beachy memories with the Kriegler clan. These kids are the cutest!

If you want to see all of our photos, click here! If you click on the "i", you can see my commentary, too! https://goo.gl/photos/qHBqPNWWBHuaPodn6

And, just for kicks and giggles, here's our photos from when we went 3 years ago!
https://goo.gl/photos/pBcZ8Pyrge4jmnK27