Hawaii Five-Lowe Part II

Have I mentioned that Hawaii is three hours different from our home?  That was wonderful when we arrived, because it meant that even though it was 4:00pm back home, Hawaii time it was just 1:00pm giving us half the day to still enjoy!  Well, that time change comes back to bite ya when morning arrives!  7:00am home time is only 4:00am Hawaii time!  Oh well!

That first night we were all woken out of sleep to a very loud sound.  It was so loud that it took The Big Guy Lowe and I a few minutes to realize that the noise was caused by a torrential downpour!  The boys were woken up and we went into their rooms to help them get back to sleep.  I'm still amazed when I think at how hard that rain was!  It happened one other time that night.  That time though, the boys slept through it.  By morning the rain was gone and the sunshine was out!

After a nice breakfast, we were out to explore the beach.  Because Grammy HB was still asleep she missed out on our morning stroll, but after the week that she had just experienced she definitely deserved it!  What started out as a stroll, ended up swimming and building sandcastles.  How glorious!

Just look at that water!

We headed back to the house so we could get all our beach gear and so we could have the Grammies join us.  Everyone got in the water!

The Big Guy Lowe, G and D all had their snorkeling gear on to see what was under the water!

For the first day, both D and J were more comfortable playing in the sand.  Up the hill we had beach chairs set up and our food and other things.

Unfortunately, Grammie Lowe was stung by a Portugese Man of War, which is a type of jellyfish that the windward side of the island gets quite often.  You can see the faint red line from the sting. 

Here's a picture of one of the jelly fish we found washed up at another beach.

While they can get very large, we only saw little baby guys that were about the size of a dime.  Both The Big Guy Lowe and I also got stung later in the week and realized that it wasn't too bad.  We were able to continue playing in the water without any problem--we just knew better what to look for!!  Interesting stuff though!

After our first day at the beach, I wasn't too sure if Kailua was a place that I would choose to come back to.  I couldn't help but compare it to the beaches in Maui, and as far as snorkeling, there was no comparisson.  The Big Guy Lowe and I realized that there wasn't anything realy to see at the beach when snorkeling, and with Grammie Lowe so concerned about her sting, we just weren't convinced by all the guide books that raved about Kailua.  Sometimes it takes a few days to realize how good things really are...boy did we ever!