Black Rock Beach and Haleakala

We woke up to more blue sky! Hooray!! Rusty, Halle and I walked down to Fruit Ninja for Açaí. Big meh. 

Then we woke up the boys to get started on our last beach day. We went to Black Rock beach and Rusty had his best snorkel yet—he saw 2 turtles, a white tipped reef shark and 5 Leopard Rays! 

Josh and I swam out to Black Rock and climbed up its craggy rocks for a little cliff jumping. It was a ton of fun. Just high enough for a little thrill, but not too scary. Rusty got some epic pics. 

We hopped up the coast to Napili Bay to eat at Gazebos. So so good. We had banana macadamia nut pancakes with a pile of homemade whipped cream and coconut syrup. We also got the famous breakfast fried rice and we barely made a dent in it! 

Now everyone was in a food coma and we all napped and chilled on the beach. Josh decided to get in one last snorkel, as this will be his last time in the ocean until after his mission. And he’s so glad he did! He saw some humuhumu’s and felt like that was the perfect ending. As he was walking he he had one flipper and his mask off. He turned around to look behind to see if there were any big waves coming. And there was a turtle not 3 feet from his knees! So he called to Rusty and they followed that cute little guy around for a bit. Now it really was the perfect ending. 

We raced back to the condo (we kept it for the whole day so we would have a place to shower after the beach—best move ever) and packed up quick. We decided that since our dive got cancelled, we should go up Haleakalā!  We drove up the volcano into yet another ecosystem. And the repeaters dropped by 30 degrees. We loved the ocean views from above, but things really started to get cool when we popped out above the clouds. It was like nothing we’d ever seen before. We parked and went to get our first glimpse of the crater. It’s so big! So desolate! Blake called it a “mid” Grand Canyon. The rest of us thought it was incredible.  So, so glad we did this. Josh said it was a top highlight for him on the trip. We watched the sun set over our ocean of clouds, then jumped in the car, grabbed some takeout from Zippy’s (we had to end the trip just how we began) and raced to the airport with just enough time to scarf our dinner and jump on the plane.

Even with Shingles and some crappy weather, I’d say we managed to make some pretty fun memories. I kept getting teary at random times throughout the trip—especially when I saw the three kids all having so much fun with each other. It’s going to be sad to miss that for the next few years. I feel so grateful for the fun conversations we had, the silly (and mostly dirty) jokes they tell, and all the love we share. There isn’t a luckier mama in the whole wide world. Each one of my kids is brilliant, bold, and beautiful in their own unique way.