Aloha

Greetings from the Big Island!

In anticipation of their mission, Brian's parents planned several vacations to use up all their timeshares for the next two years and luckily we benefited by going to Hawaii with them for a week. We had so much fun.

I was nervous about the plane ride, especially because Hannah was just getting over an ear infection, but she did pretty well. She just walked up and down the aisles with her blanket and baby doll saying hi to all the other passengers. We saw many of those same passengers on the island and so through out the week they would come up and say hi to her. Being the very social child that she is, Hannah loved the attention.

We did a lot of great stuff on this trip. Of course, we spent a lot of time at the beach. This was Hannah's first trip to the ocean and beach. She was afraid of the ocean, more specifically the waves coming in, but she loved playing in the sand.

Doug, Brian, and I went scuba diving while Cindy played babysitter. (Cindy doesn't do diving). We did two dives. The first dive took us through a lava tube. It was cool to look up and see the light coming through the tubes. We saw lots of cool fish and we saw a huge eel. On the way to our first dive, we saw some dolphins so we dove in that area for our second dive. We didn't see any dolphins underwater but saw several eagle rays.

We of course went to a Luau while we were there and enjoyed kalua pig, poi, haupia and lots of other tasty island treats. Here are a couple of the locals pulling the cooked pig out of the imu.

We visited Halemaumau crater at the summit of Kilauea volcano. Kilauea is currently the most active volcano in the world and it erupted about a month before we went to Hawaii. It only erupted gas and steam and a large plume was still gushing when we were there. The islanders call it "vog", volcanic smog. It was pretty neat to see the massive crater, the gas vents and we walked through a big lava tube.

All week we had been hearing about the "vog" and health reports saying that the air wasn't good quality and those with health risks should stay inside. We didn't pay much attention but when we went to the crater you could smell the gas and even feel it when we breathed. When we started to head back, Hannah began to have a hard time breathing, and she could barely talk, so we decided to take her into the emergancy room. They gave her a breathing treatment and a steriod to decrease the inflamation & swelling in her esophagus. She was actually pretty good through the whole thing and they gave her a teddy bear which she now loves and calls "Kona Bear."