namakani camping trip



we recently bought a huge tent and have been eager to take it out on it's maiden voyage. coen has been asking us to go "real" camping for a long time,  so we escaped the heat and went up to volcano for a family camping weekend. we had such a great time! the weather was cool and refreshing the first day/night and then a huge thunderstorm rolled in on our second night. it poured and poured and our tent was dripping wet inside. wes and i hardly slept that night, but the kids snoozed right through it. we surprised coen with a new bike, and that was super fun. our good friends joined us the first night, and while i have no pictures of that we really enjoyed them!

 

i snuck a peak in coen's writing journal at school and loved finding this reflection from our weekend. can't wait to go again!



black sand, ice cream and a volcano

after the big birthday outing we took an entire day off to relax. we stayed home all day and i think that maybe beckett got dressed after his nap...maybe. i don't really remember. it was good to have a down day, but we got right back at it the next day. we left the house around 11am and didn't get home till after 8pm. whew! here is a recap of the day.

we headed south over the volcano to the ka'u district. ka'u is quickly earning a reputation for it's coffee, in fact it is said to be the up and coming coffee and has been winning all sorts of awards. there is a tiny coffee estate that leaves out a pot of fresh brew and operates totally on the honor system. they also have mac nut trees and you can just pick mac nuts up and crack them right there. this is coen's most favorite job. he cracked mac nuts the entire time we were here. beckett's favorite job was running away from his mama...imagine that. 

after fueling up on ka'u coffee and mac nuts we headed on our way to punalu'u black sand beach. it was windy, but that was actually good because the black sand is hot hot hot. i have blogged about this beach a trillion times. it really is one of our favorite spots on the island. we weren't sure how long the boys would last, so we had no expectations. we ended up settling in and spending over three hours playing in the sand, sun, and blue blue pacific. oh and we said hello to a couple sea turtles too! 

of course an ice cream break was most needed after all that sun, so we headed out to the punalu'u bake shop. after some vanilla mac nut ice cream we tossed the boys into the car and headed back towards the volcano. lucky for us, both of them napped on the drive back. 

wes flew home from denver and headed straight up to the volcano to meet us. we spent the rest of the afternoon showing our guests the active volcano that wes works on, hiking through a lava tube and enjoying some delicious thai food. everyone was totally exhausted when we got home that night, but well worth it! 

a glowing adventure

last night we took our very grumpy {almost} three year old up to the volcano to meet up with some friends of ours from vancouver. the pasa's are staying in kona for a couple weeks, but made the trip our way to check out the glow. we walked through the lava tube, ate at our fav thai restaurant and wes gave them the behind the scene tour of the observatory. the glow was extraordinary last night. i think the best i have seen in the {almost} one year that we have lived here. 

thanks for taking the time to visit with us pasa's! oh, and for lending your big kids to entertain grumpy pants. 

100 years!

today was the 100th anniversary celebration of the hawaii volcano observatory. 100 years is a long time. the observatory held an open house and the public was invited to come out and explore some cool hands on volcano stuff. yes, it was pretty cool. but also i may have been a little bitter that wes had to work on a saturday. weekends are precious people! 

we heart the ledfords!

right when coen and i returned from the mainland, wes' cousin and her family were on vacation in kona. we were so blessed to have them come over to our side of the island for a night and enjoyed every minute of their company. 

we headed up to the volcano at night to walk through the lava tube and see the glow. it is always breath taking no matter how many times i have seen it. after the viewing we ate at out favorite thai restaurant and i want to go back and eat there again, right now. 

jack brought coen a set of very cool fisher price tools and we love them so much, thanks jack! 

jack really insists that no one takes his picture, ever. so i made it a point to get some good pictures of him. i did the best i could while we were at rainbow falls. the boys had so much fun together, and we can't wait to see everyone again...hopefully soon!