We're Back!

Hi Everyone! We are back! By request I have posted as many pictures from Hawaii as I could as quickly as I could! I am happy to be able to share them! Robby and I had a wonderful time in Hawaii and we are more than thrilled to share the trip with you guys. So, I posted about 6 or so posts starting with what we did first. Robby helped me choose the pictures and write about each of them. So after you read this, scroll down and begin looking at the post entitled "Waikiki" and look at them in in reverse. That is just the way the blog does things when I date them like that, the newest dates are always first. Also, Im sorry we haven't been able to call a lot of people since we have been home. Robby's cell phone was stolen in Hawaii and there were a lot of calls made on it. We had to cancel our plan and get new phones and stuff, so we will be back in service by tomorrow hopefully. The sad part is that since Rob's phone was stolen he no longer had his SIM card... you know the brain that remebers everyone's phone numbers! He will still have the same cell phone number, but if I don't have your number he doesn't either!!! Well, all that to say I am sure he will be emailing people for numbers soon! Also, we are moving Thursday and will lose the internet for a little while.... just to let you guys know. I love ya~ Dea

Kilauea Volcano

This is the little place that Robby and I stayed in while we were on the Big Island. It is inside the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and is at the side of one of the biggest craters on Kilauea. Kilauea is the world's largest active volcano. This particular crater is where the natives believe that Pele, the goddess of the volcano, lives. They believe that she created the island for her people and that she has the power to erupt the volcano at any time. The island is full of stories of gods and goddesses, they are all very beautiful stories and very interesting. This is the entrace to the Thurston Lava tube. When a volcano erupts the lava on the top quickly cools, leaving tubes for the lava to flow through. Inside these tubes the lava only loses 20 degrees!! The tubes where huge! Robby and I hiked through this tube, is was the length of 2 football fields and had NO light source!!! It was crazy, we turned off our flashlights at the end and it was the darkest I have ever seen (or not seen....)! The picture below is Robby crouching at the end of the tunnel! Come to think of it, I'm not really sure how we knew it wouldn't collapse, we were the only people in there...hmmmm.... The black around Robby is nothing but hard lava! This is a Pu'u Loa petroglyph, the natives drew thousands of these in the lava after an eruption to please Pele. This is Robby and I about to take off on our 8 mile hike out to the active, flowing lava! Kilauea started to erupt in 2003 and is continuing to erupt down this side of the mountain. You can "hike at your own risk" out to the flowing lava. The way you do it, is to leave before dark and hike out across all of the hardened lava, then when it gets dark you are surrounded by the red lava and you can see it flowing into the ocean! Robby and I's shoes are ruined from the lava! But when we got to the end we ate a picnic dinner and watched the sunset. Guys, we saw real lava! It was breath-taking and wonderful! I was terrified, but would do it again in a heart beat. We tried to take pictures, but it was too dark for our camera! We could feel the heat beneath the hardened lava that we were walking on and you could see the lava flowing down the mountain and blowing up in the ocean creating huge blasts of steam and methane! We must have been walking over the lava tubes! This is a picutre of the hardened lava we were walking over. I can't explain to you how massive this eruption was. The little white specks in the picture are people walking ahead of us. This hard, black lava covered miles, and miles of land before it flowed into the sea. It destroys everything in its path. The people here have learned to accept it, they rebuild and rebuild on the same spots. It's just a way of life. The volcanoes don't erupt like they do in the movies. It is a slow process and most people here rush to see the hot lava flowing, rather than run away screaming!! This is Rob right before we walked acrosse the Kilauea Ike ("little Kilauea") crater. There were steam vents every where and you could feel the heat beneath you. This particular crater erupted in the 50's and is now just a think lake of hard lava, so it is safe to walk across.

The eruption destroyed miles of rain forrest and the edge of the rain forrest just abruptly stops right here. A steam vent on the floor of the Kilauea Ike crater This is an offering for Pele. The people left these all over the edge of the active crater, to please Pele in hopes that she would spare their land and homes from the flowing lava. They were everywhere and we were not to touch them. The park did its best to uphold the ways of the natives and to keep the volcano sacred. This is a picture from the top of the mountain of the lava flowing into the ocean. It shows black during the day, but at night parts of it glow red! This is a lehua blossom, legend says that there was a great man named Oahu that Pele was in love with, but he loved another woman named Lehua. When Pele told him of her love he respectfully turned her down and told her of his love for Lehua. Pele became enraged and turned him into a tree. The other gods were angry with Pele and tried to reverse the spell, but were unable to do so. The only way they could sooth Lehua's broken heart and reunite the lovers was to turn her into this beautiful blossom and place her on the tree. These plants only grow on the volcano and it is disrespectful to pick the flowers from the tree. The natives say that if a flower is picked from the tree, the sky will open up and rain Lehua's tears. Just a little story I liked.

The Big Island

These two pictures above are of Robby and I's favorite water falls. They are called Pee Pee Falls (hee hee hee)! We had to climb through rocks and rivers to get to them, but it was worth it! Rainbow Falls Swimming hole The trees here are so easy and fun to climb! The black sand beaches were very cool.

We spent our last 4 days on the Big Island of Hawaii exploring Hilo, Kona, and the volcanoes! This island is quite different than Oahu, but just as beautiful. The beaches here aren't exactly the type you would lay out on or go swimming on, but their sand is either black from where hot lava has hit the FREEZING water and shattered into tiny particles or the sand is green from lava mixing with green rock and then shattering when it hits the ocean! Robby and I rented a car for all of the days we were on the Big Island because it is not as easy to get around here. There is no bus system and nothing is within walking distance. The first day we were here, which was Thursday, we drove our car all over Hilo and visited all of the waterfalls you see in the pictures above. We spent the second day on the island exploring Kona, drinking lots of fresh Kona coffee, and playing on the black sand beaches! The last few days we had on the big Island we explored the volcanoes. I will tell you more about that in the next post though! Mohalo.

Hanauma Bay

Hanauma Bay was one of my favorite things we did! We went snorkeling in this Bay and saw some of the most interesting and beautiful sea creatures I have ever seen! The picture above is blurry, but I just wanted you guys to get an idea of what it was like! We are ready to snorkle! The trip out to the bay was crazy! This Chinese guy showed up at our hotel in a white van at 8:30 in the morning on our third day in Oahu to take us to Hanauma Bay. He swung by some other hotels honking his horn and driving like a maniac and picked up some other people. By the time we got on the highway there were like 12 people packed in this one van! Well, of course the guys gets pulled over by a cop for driving like an idiot and not wearing his seatbelt! The cop gives the guy a ticket, but doesn't do a thing about all the kids in the car who were NOT in car seats! I was terrified! Then the dude falls asleep or something and smashed the car into the back of a PARKED bus at Hanauma Bay!!!! Kids were screaming and people were yelling!!! Robby and I and another couple in the van were furious and demanded that another person take us home. The guy said ok, but left, so we snorkled, kind of just expecting to take a taxi home. But when it was time for us to leave a LIMO was there to take us and the other couple back to the hotel and the chinese guy was there just to apologize in his broken english. I didn't even know what to say. It was so weird...so, so, weird!

Luau

This is the band at the Luau, there were hula dancers and fire dancers and Robby and I even got on stage and learned how to hula!!!!This is the pig that they roasted in the ground at the luau for us to eat!!! You can see the girls dancing in the background. This is the head dress the natives helped me make, I had to wear the flowers on the left side of my head to show that I was married! The sunset was beautiful at the luau. Robby and I went to Paradise Cove on the second night to this Luau. It was so much fun, we got native tatoos, made head dresses, danced, ate native stuff, and saw many fun dances with fire and flowers!

North Beaches in Oahu

Nu'uanu Pali Look out, Mark Twain said this was the most beautiful view in the world! North Beach Moliki' Island On our third day in Oahu, Robby and I rented a white Jeep wrangler and drove all over the Island. Oahu is beautiful. The entire North side of the island is covered with beautiful beaches with huge waves and lush rain forest and mountains! We just stopped at things that sounded or looked interesting and then we spent most of the late afternoon on Sunset beach. Rob and I saw this punk smash the window of a chinese couples car and steel her bag out of the front seat! I quickly memorized the kids liscense plate number and we helped the couple call the cops. I felt so bad for them, they hardly spoke english except for to tell me that their passports were in the bag that was stolen!!! I hope the cops caught the sorry guy. It was crazy!

Waikiki

Our first day in Hawaii was short, we didn't get there until much later than we thought because our plane from San Fran was delayed by THREE hours! We basically got there, checked in, ate dinner, and went to bed!

This is Waikiki Beach, our hotel in Oahu, Honolulu was within walking distance to this famous beach and all of the shopping surrounding it. We spent All day our second day on the beach. The water was beautiful and there were a million surfers! It was great fun! This is Robby and I in our Hotel room getting ready for a day at the beach! The hotel was pretty cool, it was a Spa and always smelled like lavender and Thyme! Aromatherapy!! Along the road, by the shopping center in Waikiki and Diamondhead there were all these palm trees. The workers would climb up the trees without tools (other than a rope) and cut the branches and coconuts out with machetes! It was very cool to watch. This is a picture Robby took of us standing on a bridge in Waikiki looking at these fish! They were swimming against the current and there were thousands of them! This is us in the lobby of our hotel, we went out to eat dinner at a nice resturant on our third night, I am wearing my seashell lei that I was given at the luau the night before. (pictures of the luau to come!) I liked this painting.

Bye

We leave from San Francisco tomorrow at 9am! Just wanted to say bye. I will write again as soon as I can. I love you guys, Dea

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAPPA!!!!

Happy Birthday Dad! I love you so much!!! ~ Andrea

Happy Late Mother's Day!

To all mother's everywhere, Happy Mother's Day. I hope yesterday was as great of a day as you deserve!

Sailing

This is the underpart of the boat. It had two bedrooms and was 35 feet long! It was an impressive sailboat! Zach is teaching Robby how to sail.

This is beth and Zach!I know he is hard to recognize under all that beard, but this is Robby and Glen is in the background!!!!It was a beautiful day on the water, not too hot, not too cold! This is where most of the rich people live! The houses are actually hanging out over the water! Well, we had a GREAT day on the water today with Beth and Zach and their friend Glen. Glen is an architect in San Francisco, so he and Robby had a lot in common. Glen is married too, but his wife is visiting family in Korea right now so she wasn't there. We went sailing in the Bay all day. We left around 10, stopped and ate lunch, and got back about 4:30 this afternoon. I have to admit I got a little sea sick, but it was so much fun. I work with Beth in the ICU at work; she is one of the pregnant girls I have mentioned before. I really like her, she and Zach are from New York and Glen is from California. It was a great day. Well, I've got to go, Rob and I are going for a short run. My legs are really tight from yesterday! Love ya! Andrea

See Jane Run Half Marathon!

Today was a great day!!! I ran in a hlaf Marathon this morning on Alameda Island and I won!! Well, not the whole thing, I got 12th place overall out of about 600, I got 4th place if you divide the age groups up by 10's (like ages 20-30), but the way they divided up the age groups I won first place in my age group (ages 19-25)!! I lucked out with that because I won a new Timbuk2 purse and a new bair of Brooks running shoes!!!!!!!!!!!!! The best part of the whole thing was seeing Robby's face as I crossed the finish line! It was this mixed smile of pure shock and delight and I wouldn't have cared who beat me after seeing that face!! I finished the race in an hour and 30 minutes wich is 12 minutes faster than the time I ran and won in Auburn's Half Marathon! I guess running all these hills here has made me a lot faster, plus I am no longer swimming through humidity!!! It was so much fun! Anyways, the terrible pictures of me above are from the race. After the race Robby and I went shopping to buy him some gifts with the money my mom and dad and nana and pooh sent Robby for graduation. He got a leather breif case/satchel and a new wallett. We also bought ourselves some crocs for our sailing trip today. We are going sailing with some friends of mine from work! We are pumped about it!!!! I will take lots of pictures and post them later. I have to go make our lunches now. I love you guys. have a great mother's day tomorrow! Andrea