Tuesday Feb 6 Update

Today was an AWESOME day! We got up at dark thirty and took off for our Volcano day. We stopped along the way at all the waterfalls and every possible thing and even a couple of extra things. Tom and Linda thought we would wear them down to nubs, but they were tough! Take a look at these pictures and see if you don’t think we’re having fun! The first one is Linda sitting on the wall outside the Kona Inn Restaurant, taking a picture of Tom who was out exploring the lava beach. The next one is Tom in the kitchen at the house visiting. (Ruthie, Don and I both think Tom reminds us so much of DADDY! Could he have picked up mannerisms from him??? It’s kind of blowing our minds. Can you see it?) The last picture is the captain of the fishing boat that Tom and Linda took to go deep-sea fishing. Sam took the same boat when he was here, but I failed to get the captain’s picture. I got him with Don with both of them making the Hawaiian “hang loose” sign. Meet Tim Cox, captain of Sea Wife II.

I gave up on my old camera today and bought a new one in Hilo. I used it to take pictures for the rest of the day, but we were so tired when we got home that we didn’t even unload the car and I left the camera box in the car with the cord that I’ll use to download the pictures. Tom is already in bed and he has the keys to the car. Tomorrow I should have some cool pictures with no smudges on them for the blog!

We had the most fun today. We laughed and laughed until we were all hurting from laughing. Don said we’d all been up too long. Whatever, it was sure fun!

When we got up to the top of the volcano the clouds moved in until we looked like we’d been in the rain. We were all dripping wet and feared we’d never be able to see a thing down at the site where the lava flow is. We got down there, and Don let us out to head out to the viewing area because we were running pretty close to sunset. We went over and got good shots of the arch and then went to watch the safety video while Don parked the car. He came back and we were in watching the safety video and he said, “Did you guys see it?” This huge flow was already coming down the mountain and it wasn’t even dark yet. We were thrilled! We walked out as far as we could and got great views. I guess we walked a mile and a half or two all together. By the time we made it back to Hilo to eat we were all starved and exhausted, but on such a high from all the fun we’d had all day. We’d walked a BUNCH, climbed a BUNCH, and seen a BUNCH of God’s handiwork. We missed seeing whales, but we never got much chance to even look and we spent lots of time in the car recalling great whale watching we did yesterday.

Tomorrow new pictures of today’s adventures will be on the blog. Don is staying home to mow the yard and do some chores tomorrow, God love him! Tom and Linda and I are going in to Kona to snorkel and shop. Those are Don’s least favorite things to do, so it’ll work. He’ll hold the fort for us and maybe even get a nap! God is taking such good care of us and we are grateful. We love you for caring about our adventures and our well being.