Hawaii: Yellow Stripey Fish

I've sprinkled in random groupings of underwater photos.

My husband took 300 pictures underwater, and 15 aboveground. Yeah. Love schools of anything, but here the corals really stole the show. Coral as big as minivans and not damaged in the least, like most places we snorkel.

But ultimately, his camera is like a million times better than mine, so most of these were taken by him. And stolen by me for use on my blog. Mwahahahah!

Hawaii: Kickin' It in the Islands

We mostly just chilled the first day. Was so pleased my father-in-law was just about as kicked-back relaxed and in his element as I've ever seen. He even mentioned a couple times that he was happy as a clam, "if your mother would just chill out a bit and quit worrying if people are bored."

Bored. In Hawaii. With this company. This deck.

And this view.

And THIS view. Meow.

Games and competitors at the ready, should you desire.

And even a daybed just inside the slider, if you wanted an oceanview nap.

And fat little geckos distracting you from the lack of cell service (tho we did have wifi)?

Bored. Yeah, not me. 

Hawaii: Let's Snorkel!

One of tens of trips over the lava to see the fishes in their lava pool nurseries.

These are a pile of pix from the entire trip of folks aboveground pre-snorkeling.

I wanted to head into town and buy these three each a 3 mm dive skin.

So proud of of my mother-in-law for doing everything in Hawaii. EVERYTHING! I love her adventurous spirit. 

Little creatures existing on the lava.

I need to do some work on this one, but if you click to enlarge, in the middle of all the gray is a lovely young woman in a lilac scarf, who was worshipping sun or deity, we don't know, for most of an entire day.

My wise brother-in-law knows, unlike me, to not give the thumbs up under water, which is the sign to your dive buddy that you need to surface. Thankfully I am married to my dive buddy, and he knows i'm a doofus. Then there was that one time when I dove with Tim, and we were thumbs up all over the place. It was a mess.

I adore my new(ish) (child-sized) mask, easy draining snorkel, and little pink snorkel fins. Different from my large dive fins. I wish this new rashguard came in pink, but it didn't, and it was perfect, so there i am, dressed like a valentine.

Yay for some of my favorite Ss: Sombreros, sun, sea, and snorkeling! 

Hawaii: Ollie Cooks!

We were all pretty tired from our journey, but the peace, views, and sea air had most of us up early. OK, jet lag didn't hurt GOING to Hawaii. This was the sun-up view during quiet magazine time.

In Hawaii, QMT features a ukelelist (one of my favorites).

Slowly we all wandered out to the deck.

Some of us wandered down to the sea.

Ollie was first up on the cooking docket, with breakfast for 8! Yeeee!

Complete with wads of bacon. YES!

The open floor plan allowed for lots of wandering about and assistance from others.

Oh, hey! look! There's snorkeling here? AWESOME!

I'm super ready.

I wasn't the only one.

Hawaii: Our Digs

Here. Yeah. That. Dang! The lodging worked out perfectly, in my opinion. The kupuna (elders) had the top floor suite with the fabulous view, the Redmondites were in two separate suites on the main floor, and we had the guest house out back. We all had our own facilities. Just lovely.

Complete with lovely hula girls!

And...the view.

From the deck.

Yeah, that.

A small water feature in the back yard

The house gato, Mika.

Despite us replacing her cat food stocks, she was a little distant, frankly.

These fellows sometimes not distant enough.

One crawled up my leg! ACK!

But mostly pleasant enough.

Such a spectacular view. 

Hawaii: Provisions, Surveys, and World Class Snorkeling

A group effort to haul in and unload the groceries.

Which we were able to manage pretty well. Thank heavens for Sally, who knows how to buy/feed more than 2 people, or we would have been stuck eating the strawberry guavas my husband found while walking.

Pineapple chairs!!

This painting loomed over the dining table, and made me want to go snorkeling always.

This was a fisherman's access next to our house that was fun to walk in.

Ollie and Carolyn on the 5 minute walk to an AMAZING WORLD CLASS SNORKELING PRESERVE!!!

Where we had to walk over about a quarter of a mile of ropey lava.

But it was ridiculously teeming with creatures!