Hawaii....

 We are beach snobs.  After living in Okinawa for three years, we know a good beach when we see one and so it was hard to be impressed by many of the beaches we went to on the Big Island.  We weren't disappointed, just not as easily impressed.

We went to Hapuna Beach which is "The Beach" to go to.  It was fun but not worth the hype.  Landon and Parker had the best time boogie boarding and I could hear them laughing over the crashing of the waves.  Marcus and Ethan walked around looking for girls but only ran into some friends from WA.

A hot day at the beach followed by a long wait in line for shave ice.  Totally worth it!

We took Marcus and Ethan with us to go snorkeling at night to see manta rays.  It was really cool, a little bit scary jumping into black water knowing there were manta rays swimming below, and very annoying being on a boat with a bunch of people who were so drunk they couldn't swim twenty feet out to the floating dock.  It was incredible seeing boats, people, and scuba divers, all in a little lagoon watching and waiting for manta rays to come and eat all the creel that were illuminated by the lights.  We were out in the water, holding onto a floating dock with water noodles under our ankles to keep us horizontal as we waited for manta rays to come.  Since drunk people are loud and can't follow directions, we had to wait a long time but eventually a HUGE manta ray came right underneath us, rolling around and around with his mouth open wide.  It was incredible!

If you look closely you can see another group floating with their water noodles