Our last beach day was spent at Mauna Kea. It was another great find in our handy book and the beach was awesome! There were trees to keep shaded under, soft sand for burying the kids and waves that made for some decent boogie boarding, without being too strong. As with a few of the other beaches we went to this one had limited parking, only 30 vehicles, but the resorts in the area all had access. As a result, it wasn't too busy! Before we came to Hawaii, we had read that you needed to find a place to stay with a great pool as the beaches weren't super. I totally disagree, although our pool was great, we were able to find some fabulous beaches and without having to hike to them (some of the best beaches do require hiking but that won't happen until the kids can haul their own gear). We were all pleasantly surprised by the uniqueness of all of the beaches we found.
One of our mornings, we woke up to the most bizarre noise coming from outside, wild turkeys gobbling! These things were huge and incredibly loud. The girls and Max went for a walk to check them out closer. I think maybe our girls were traded in and we got some turkeys back instead...
I have no idea where they come up with ideas for dancing! I love that they made a song all about loving turkeys...
There were another couple of kids that were staying at the came condo complex as us, Bella (5) and Harrison (7) from Fargo, ND. It took Sophia a few days to warm up to them but you could see that they all just wanted some friends to play with. For the first couple of days, they would swim by or try to talk to the girls but of course Sophia would play shy. Our last day at the pool together, they finally got into it and played well together (I loved just watching them. Sophia is typically a shy girl but she became good friends with these super nice and adorable kids). Here they are playing their favorite game, pool jumping...
Sadie took some time to get used to the water. At first we could hardly even get in her the water as she would cling to all of us. I was glad to see that once the older kids got jumping, Sadie thought she could do it too and she loved it! They were doing apple, pencil and airplane jumps, many of which turned into belly flops but they were still having such a great time!
Lastly, a little video about our condo. At the end of the video, when Max asks Sophia to open the upstairs lanai door, take note of where the handle is actually located...One night after Sophia went to bed, I had retired to the peaceful lanai to read my book. Brian thought he would sneak up and scare me. Well, he scared me, but not in the way I was expecting. Instead of checking to see if the screen door was closed or not (we had been having some issues with the girls running into screen doors as I kept shutting them trying to keep the critters out), Dad decided to walk completely through the door! When I heard the clatter, Dad was standing in the middle of the lanai, in the middle of the screen door which was draped over the other lounge chair, practically swimming to try and get his balance! Once I was able to ask if he was ok, which he was, we both started laughing. Max and Mom, had come running upstairs to check out what was going on as Mom thought I had fallen over the balcony:) Now, the screen door didn't just fall off the track, it was completely punch out of the track, the screen was ripped and torn and the frame was broken! Dad phoned the rental agency the next day and even the lady on the phone had a good chuckle when he explained what happened:) As for the door handle, I love to sleep with the doors open and since we didn't want any critters inside, Max took the screen off the living room door and put it in our room. The only catch was that the doors slid in opposite ways so Max had to flip the new screen upside down to get it in the track! Ah, did we ever have a good laugh over that. I must say though, the girls were quite a bit more cautious when it came to screen doors after that!
I would gladly go back to this place. It's location to everything was perfectly within walking distance and it was so cozy. I have added the link to view the properties here again, our unit was M3 and Lindsay's was L22.
Overall, the Big Island was a huge success! I wasn't expecting it to be so fancy and peaceful. I thought it would be more rugged, requiring hikes to get everywhere, kind of like we were in the middle of nowhere. I was so wrong and cannot wait to go back here as I think it will now be close to the top of my favorite Hawaii destinations!
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