Hawaii!!

So, remember how last year we got that awesome deal on tickets to Italy and convinced my parents to come watch our dependents for 8 nights?  Well, lightning struck twice!  We were able to score $30 fares to the Big Island of Hawaii using miles during a flash sale AND convinced my parents to come watch everyone again!  It helped that we made this time a shorter trip.  In fact, we were literally on the ground in Hawaii for only 72 hours, but what a fabulous amount of fun was squeezed into those 3 days!

First off, we were shocked (SHOCKED I tell you) to be upgraded to first class for our flight from Los Angeles to Hawaii!

We landed around 8pm and by the time we got to our hotel, it was time to just crash.  However, that allowed us to wake bright and early, take in our surroundings, 

Mongoose!

Do you see the crab almost right in the middle?

Nenes in the pool

and have a full buffet breakfast

These guys took full advantage of any 

unsupervised plates

before heading down the island a little bit 

I was really sad we didn't see any

for our snorkel cruise out to the Captain Cook Monument.

Flying fish!
(you might need to watch it a couple of times, they're quick!)

After our cruise, we drove to the Kona Brewing Company for a tour of their facility and the best happy hour prices on the island!

Huffing hops

We got to do some sampling with the tour too

The restaurant was critter friendly too.

It doesn't get anymore Hawaii in October than this

Our drive back to the hotel gave us the most amazing sunset views.

Or so we thought until we got back to our room and saw the view from our lanai.

Not a bad first day!

I'M GOING TO ATTEMPT TO PUT EVERYTHING IN ONE POST, SO THIS WILL BE ADDED TO!  CHECK BACK IF THIS IS STILL HERE! :)