Hawaii Day 2

***I apologize now for what will most likely seem like an extreme amount of pictures of probably seemingly the same thing over and over.  I just take a ton of pictures and have a hard time choosing between them because they all show different things in my eyes.  However, I understand that to someone else it may be quite redundant.***

***I also apologize for the long posts.  I decided it would just be easier to do each day as its own post...no matter how many pictures that included :)***

 Andy, Abby and Matt went for a sunrise walk on the beach our first morning...

The first thing the kids wanted to do as a family was go to the beach.  We drove around the northeast side of the island and found Hukilau Beach.  It was perfect for a few minutes of quiet beach time before we headed out for our scheduled activities of the day. 

Ben signing his sign for "water"...

Josh enjoyed hanging out with a mother hen and her chicks in the parking lot...

Then we drove further south to Kualoa Ranch...

First we were scheduled to do a UTV ride as a family.

We all got fitted with helmets...

...and then we stowed Ben's stroller and were off!

(You may notice throughout our Hawaii pictures that Matt is either trying to not be seen by the camera, not looking at the camera, not smiling at the camera or giving a fake smile to the camera :)  I remember going through a similar phase in my teenage years so, as frustrating as it was as a mother trying to take pictures, I understood and could not scold him too much :)

We all really enjoyed this experience!

I was so happy that it was obvious that Ben loved it right along with the rest of us :)

The scenery, in what they call "Jurassic Valley", was absolutely stunning!

Several movies have been filmed in this area so there were lots of props hanging out :)

A rare, semi real smile from Matt...

Our tour stopped mid way through at some props for a Jurassic film...can't remember which one...

In the first one Abby is closing her eyes and I have my eyes closed in the second :)...like I said, redundant.

I mean, come on!  Look at that!

One of our tour guides offered to take some pics for us...

On the way back it had started to rain so Andy was getting pelted in the face and Ben was just getting a kick out of it all!

These are some of my favorite pics of this :)

After the tour we stopped for a picnic lunch that we had packed.

The other picture is showing one of two bug bites that Ben got on the trip.  They both swelled up so big.

It looks like this one wasn't at its peak yet.

Matt's one desire in Hawaii was to go zip lining.

Abby and I were the only other ones game so I signed us up.

Andy and Josh stayed back with Ben and apparently had a second lunch :)

As we were getting all signed in for the zip line tour I got the dreaded message on my phone that my camera was full or some other such nonsense!  I couldn't believe it!  Before we had left for Hawaii I had cleaned out hundreds of pics from my phone so I would be sure to have room.  I furiously tried to clear my phone of whatever was taking up so much room and sent one of the kids to go find Andy to help.  He deleted as many pictures as he could while I checked us in and sent us on our way.  On our 15 or so minute ride up to the starting point I deleted over 300 more pictures.

Of all the places I wanted pictures, it was zip lining through the trees on the amazingly beautiful coast of Hawaii!

I took these two...

...and then I got the same infuriating message!

I couldn't believe it!  What was going on?!?!

Well, I didn't have time to try and figure it out any more so I resigned myself to it and was grateful to realize that at least Matt had on our GoPro and we could get some shots from that afterward.

So, the rest of these are a little fish eye lens looking and not the best quality but I am grateful we got them.

(You may be sorry because, again, a lot and repetitive :)  They remind me of a very fun and lovely experience though so I am including them.

Our three tour guides were fun and friendly...

One of them has an uncle that coaches football at USU and his cousins go to school with Abby.

It's hard to tell, but that's me coming into the platform...

I had Matt give the GoPro to me at one point so I could get pictures of him as well.

I didn't love that we had to wear masks but, what can you do?

Matt...

Abby...

About 2/3rds in it started to pour!

We got so dumped on and it was glorious!

Abby trying to wring her hair out...

Matt took over the GoPro again when we got back...

The other boys had waited patiently for us.  We drove back up to the north and stopped at the grocery story, bought some boogie boards and food and then drove up by the temple for a minute...

Then it was back to Hukilau Beach with the boogie boards.  It was kind of cold and we debated for a while if we should even go in but the kids really wanted to.  Sadly, it was the only time on the whole trip we ended up using the boards.

Ben was in the water for just a short time before he had a very sudden seizure.  I was so glad I was holding on to him pretty firmly so he didn't go under because his legs just buckled.  There was no warning to this one...he hadn't been in the zone or jerking at all like he often does before it came on.

Andy helped me get him to shore and we snuggled for a bit while the other kids enjoyed a few more minutes in the water.

Josh found his chicks again :)

We stopped at Seven Brothers for dinner on the way back to the condo.

It was quite a long wait and Andy and I got rained on a little bit after we ordered and the kids sat in the car with Ben.  It was worth the wait though because those fries were scrumptious!  Seriously, such good food!

Back at the condo, after we ate, I strongly encouraged the kids to get on some homework since there wouldn't be many other nights we would have time for that...

As I was getting Ben ready for bed I noticed a tiny gecko on the wall next to our bed!

It was so small and hard to get a picture of before it scurried away.  It kind of looks like a spider in the picture but I promise it wasn't.

The second picture is of one that Abby found on the outside of our condo the next day...

That night, before I could go to sleep, I had to figure out what was up with my camera so I could take pictures the next day!  First, I transferred all the pics I had taken so far from the trip onto my laptop so I could delete them from my phone.  This took quite a while.  And then, somehow I stumbled onto something on my phone settings...it was set so that everything I put in the trash would stay there for 30 days!  All those pics I had "deleted" before the trip, and all those pics I had "deleted" on my way up to the zip line were still there...hidden in the trash!  I couldn't believe it!  If only I had figured that out earlier...it was such an easy fix!  Oh well, I'm glad I at least found out what was happening so I could resume my photographic habits.

We were all pretty worn out after our long day of fun activities and amazing scenery so we slept quite well! (until, of course, jet lag woke us up at about 5 a.m. the next morning)