Spend 13 hours flying from Omaha to Kona's airport, and look what greets us at the airport! We left Omaha at 6:15 am Omaha time, flew for 3 1/2 hours to LA, waited 2 hours for a 6 hour flight to Maui, another hour layover for a 20 minute flight to Kona on the Big Island. This guy was at the airport to greet his sister, but was a good sport and posed with Kelli for a picture. He said that Hawaii was more fun with a boyfriend than a husband. At this point, Mike is starting to wonder whether this trip to Hawaii was such a good idea. Fortunately, things got better once they left the airport.
Here is our hale at the Kona Village resort. Hale is pronounced "hah-leh" and is Hawaiian for house or building. We chose the Kona Village because it was a chance to get away from it all, and that it was. It was kind of like Gilligan's Island with running water, electricity, and a great caterer! We originally thought "you only go on a honeymoon once", but now we can hardly wait to go back!!!
Here's the view from the lanai of our hale. On a clear day, you can see Maui in the distance! A lanai is a porch or patio, and is pronounced "lah-NIGH".
Here Mike is kayaking out on the Pacific Ocean. We usually stayed in the bay, but others would kayak long distances in search of whales. The water is incredibly clear - we could generally see the bottom of the ocean, which was sometimes 50 or 60 feet deep!
In the winter, a favorite pasttime in Hawaii is whale watching. Here's the best picture of a whale that we got. Since the whale was usually faster than the camera trigger, we ended up with lots of picture of water!
Kelli loved the hot tubs! When she got a little too warm, she snuck under the waterfall to "cool off"! The best part of the hot tub was watching a sunrise while enjoying an ice cold can of Guava Nectar! You see, Hawaii is 4 hours behind Nebraska, so sleeping in until 10am Nebraska time means waking up at 6am Hawaii time. We became seriously addicted to Guava Juice in Hawaii. Our last day, we tried to stock up on Hawaiian Sun Guava Nectar; good thing too, since we haven't been able to find it back here at home!