Pictures!

Here are some pictures from the last couple of days. I had to wait until fewer people were using the internet to get them to load.

At the summit of Mauna Kea (white mountain) nearly 14,000 ft in elevation.

Even with the gloves and parkas, it was cold (probably around 30F)!

The view from above the clouds was incredible! This is one of the many telescopes.

We hiked down to the black sandy beaches. It was a great workout! Somebody had built this nice big log swing hanging from a tree branch.

On the coast of the black sandy beaches. It looked like fine, powdery graphite. 

More to come... right now we're tired (after all, it is 3:00 am).

We love and miss you all!

Matthew and Amanda

I just want to eat you up tomorrow and the next day.

We're currently watching 50 First Dates... since it was filmed in Hawaii and such.

Yesterday we took a tour up to the summit of Mauna Kea which is approximately 14,000 feet in elevation (although if measured from the base in the bottom of the ocean, it's actually about 50,000 ft tall).

Today we went up to the Upolu lookout and hiked down the black sandy beaches. It was a good exercise but well worth it to see God's beautiful creation. It's incredible to me how much variation there is here and we haven't even seen most of it yet. Our guide from last night said that the Big Island has 11 of the 13 climate zones that exist on earth. The only two missing are arctic and sahara dessert.

The internet is not cooperating right now, I think a lot of people get on in the evening, so I'll post some pictures in the morning.

Weather permitting, tomorrow we're going to head over to the rainforest area of the island. I think this is what I've been most excited about and I'm sure we'll get some incredible pictures!

Matthew and Amanda

Welcome

Welcome to our blog!

I was unable to post the following entry last night so here it is this morning.

Today was our first full day on our honeymoon in Hawaii so I figured this is as good a day as any to start our blog. Today is also our two week wedding anniversary (I think this one is dryer lint).

We arrived in Hawaii last night around 9pm local time which to our Dallas brains was 2am and after 12 hours of traveling, we were quite tired. We spent our first night here at the Royal Kona Resort. We had a great ocean view with white-capped waves crashing on the rocks just outside our window.

We spent most of today walking around Kona, visiting a little open air market, many small shops and a local restaurant. This afternoon we made the drive over to Waikoloa where the timeshare is which will be our home for the rest of the week. The road on the way over was lined with black lava rock occasionally littered with white rocks used as graffiti to spell out words or make pictures.

The Waikoloa area is a lot more natural and overall more clean looking than Kona. Our room wasn't ready when we first arrived so we strolled around the shopping areas and beachfront. This part of the island has more of a traditional beach with sand vs large lava rocks. We learned some history of the area and even how to tick off the Hawaiian "gods."

Here are some pictures from today.

The Royal Kona Hotel looks a lot like the Royal Caribbean Cruise ship... Our building was just on the other side of the "ship" right up along the water. If you look close in this picture, you can see the beaches in Kona are lava rock. I'm not sure how the Ironman swim goes in but I hope it isn't with bare feet.

Matt's first cup of Kona coffee for the week. This began the hunt for the little market where you can buy it by the pound. They also rent little coffee grinders for $1 for the week. 

We visited the first church of the islands. Just 15 years after the first missionaries arrived in Hawaii, the king gave them land on which to build. This building was erected in 1836.

We made it to the timeshare in the afternoon and were pleasently surprised by our view. We think we can handle this for a week.

Today we are going to continue exploring around the Bay Club until this afternoon when we're scheduled for our trek up the mountain. We will be riding in a 4x4 vehicle part of the way up for dinner, then the rest of the way to the summit to watch the sunset above the clouds and then back down to the first stop to the observatory where we'll be able to see much of the galaxy.

Thank you for stopping by. We miss you and we love you but we are safe and having a great time!

Matthew and Amanda