The Fletcher Ohana: Big Island: Day 1

We are taking our first vacation as a family of four!

We are on the island of Hawai'i (aka the Big Island) for the next week :-)

Currently, we are staying in a two bedroom cottage at the Kilauea Military Camp located in the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

We arrived last night after dark, which made for the perfect viewing of the glowing lava at the Halema'uma'u Crater, just two miles from our cottage!

The kitchen and fireplace in our cottage

Luckily, our room has a king size bed because somehow both boys ended up in our bed this morning :-)

This morning we went on a guided tour of Hilo and some of the surrounding areas, and since we were the only people on the tour, it was very laid back (which was perfect with two little boys).

Lucas was a trooper during the van ride

Our first stop was 'Akaka Falls State Park where we took a paved trail through lush rainforest to see two waterfalls

For some reason, Noah kept saying we needed binoculars to go through the jungle (I'm guessing he got it from a cartoon...)

Kahuna Falls

'Akaka Falls (442-foot falls)

*in case you can't tell, this is a picture of a picture...but I am really going to try and post each day of our trip (in an effort to not end up posting these several months from now) and I don't have our computer to upload this photo yet :-)

Our next stop was Rainbow Falls, a powerful waterfall located a short distance above downtown Hilo on the Wailuku River

Our Noah monkey tried to swing the entire way down these stairs

Our next stop was at Big Island Candy (where they actually make cookies...very delicious cookies and dark chocolate covered brownies!!!)

Then it was on to Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory!

Unfortunately, we didn't get to actually see them making any of their macadamia nut treats since it was the weekend, but we still got to sample several of their flavors!!!

We were also able to stop at the Hilo Farmer's Market where we purchased some tasty rambutan fruit!