The Thomas Family comes to Paradise

Tricia, James and their kids arrived Friday, August 24th. The next morning, they came to the temple so that Dorothy could do baptisms. It was awesome to have them there.  Later in the week, Tricia and James came back to attend a session.

With such a beautiful family and  an awesome setting, we had to take lots of photos. Poor Violet had broken her arm just a couple of days before they came - she still had the temporary cast on.  Fortunately she had a waterproof cover and was still able to swim and do most of the activities.

I love this picture of Preston!

After we finished our Saturday shift and temple cleaning, we met them to enjoy an early dinner together at the Fish Hopper. The kids all ordered shrimp and ate every single one! They are seafood lovers already!

The next day, we attended church together. After church we ate dinner in our condo and then went for a walk around The Place of Refuge.

The kids spotted this big turtle!

Mother daughter moment!

It was great to be with their family and enjoy being in such a pretty setting.

We loved having a chance to spend time with these cute kids!!

Dorothy is growing up to be such a lovely young lady!

Next we stopped at the Painted Church. It was raining so we ducked inside. After our visit to the church and walk around the grounds, we returned to the condo for some dessert.

Monday morning we got an early start and headed for the Hilo side of the island.

Our first stop was the Boiling Pots and then we went on down the road to see Rainbow Falls. 

On our way to Rainbow Falls we passed this street sign! It would make for an interesting address for those living on this road!

Hurricane Lane had caused torrential rains, flooding and some landslides on this side of the island and we had never seen the falls with so much water power!  It was a beautiful sight!

Our next stop was - you guessed it - Ken's House of Pancakes for breakfast!

Awaiting our food! 

Dividing the huge Happy Sumo breakfast - we all were very full when we finished!

We had hoped to go to the Zoo, but the heavy rains made that impossible.  We then drove north to see Akaka Falls which was also huge after the recent rains from the hurricane.

It was raining but we walked the loop around the falls through the gorgeous jungle there. We of course all got wet!!

A wet but happy Thomas family!

Ruby started kindergarten this year and is growing up so quickly.

Even these little falls were bigger than usual.

We continued our travel north and then west to the Hamakua Nut Factory - they wanted to sample all the flavors of the nuts there!

It was a fun day together!

On Wednesday after our temple shift, we went together to Keoki's for fish and chips - it was delicious as always!

The three pretty Thomas daughters!

They had come from snorkeling and swimming and were all a bit sunburned and some still had wet hair.

Saturday, September 1st was Tricia's birthday so of course we had to celebrate!  We all went out for dinner at the Waikolo Beach Marriott's "All you can eat crab legs and prime rib buffet".  

All of the kids love crab and they were excited that they could have as much of it as they wanted.

 Preston was declared "The Crab Master" - he was really good at getting the crab out in one yummy piece. He got his money's worth of crab!

We all ate a lot of crab as well as many other  delicious things on that buffet!

 You can see the remains of all the crab we ate!

 The dessert buffet had some cute little parfaits that Violet loved!

Then just when we had eaten all we could, the waiter brought out a huge slice of mud pie for our "birthday girl" and we all sang Happy Birthday to her!

After dinner we looked around the Marriott Resort and took some pictures.

It was a beautiful Hawaiian evening and a good way to celebrate Tricia's birthday.

The next morning we all went to church together.  Our meetinghouse overlooks Kealekekua Bay and it was a beautiful day!  Tricia, James and the kids were disappointed that they didn't get to see the active volcano.  Fissure # 8 (the really active flowing fissure) had  slowed down after 3 months of pouring out hot lava  and poisonous volcano gasses and was only flowing into the ocean from an underground lava tube.  However, that meant that the thick, nasty VOG had also stopped and the sky was blue and the air was fresh and clear again.  It looked like Hawaii should look!
We were happy that the Thomas family came to visit and we had an opportunity to spend time with them!!

ALOHA!!