Claire and Lincoln Came!

Back in February when Claire turned 30, her birthday present from her husband was that I got to be there for her 30th, and she got to be with me for mine. At the time though, he didn't know that I'd be in Hawaii for my 30th :) It apparently didn't matter though, because August 19th, a mere 3 weeks after we got here, Claire and Lincoln came to visit! 

I started the morning off with a run. I will never get over the views while out for a run. Seriously. Look at this!

Claire and Lincoln flew into Hilo after the boys were done with school on Wednesday. We went to Rainbow Falls and just hung out.

Thursday morning we did a quick morning of school then headed to the Kapoho Tide Pools. Sean hadn't started school yet so he was able to come with us! These tide pools are amazing. They are filled with thousands of different kinds of tropical fish. The water is clear and warm, and there is a huge coral cavern to explore. It is a snorkeler's dream.

We stayed here for hours and had so much fun. On our drive home we stopped at a dozen different places to get pictures of the scenery. There is a Papaya grove behind us that you can't really see.

We hit up our first official Hawaiian shave ice once we got back into town. I had no idea what I was in for. It was so delicious and so. much. shave ice. Ha. And we didn't think about the red food dye thing until after it was ordered and served. We let them have it this one time and although I noticed a difference, they did better than I thought they would! I'm sure it helps that we stayed active and outside over the next three days!

This is the "small". It had a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the middle, and it's "snow capped," meaning it's drizzled in sweetened condensed milk. Ha. It was delicious.

The 19th also happened to be our 10 year wedding anniversary. Ten years people! That's awesome. Anyway, since Claire was in town, we we totally took advantage. She watched our kids for us so we could go on an anniversary date! I wish I would have gotten a picture of Sean and me together, but instead I just have a picture of my food. Sesame encrusted pan seared ahi tuna over veggies. It. was. divine. We went to Pineapple's again. It was where we went for our anniversary last year when we were in Hilo checking out the campus. I still think about that delicious food every so often so naturally we had to go back!

Friday we headed to Kona. Sean was awesome and watched all 5 kids for an hours so that Claire and I could do initiatories. This makes 4 temples that we've been in together. (Portland, Phoenix, Twin Falls, Kona). Pretty cool that we get to do this together.

We made sure to get pictures of all of the kids touching the temple.

After the temple we headed to South Point. It was so windy! South Point is the southern most point of the United States. It is a popular cliff jumping spot. Sean tried it out and loved it! Of course :)

After South Point we headed to Green Sands. Green Sands is one of only a handful of green sand beaches in the world. It is really remote and takes some off-roading to get there. It is a 3 mile drive from the road, over dunes, rocks, hills, gullies, etc. We threw our Sequoia into 4WD and were on our way. It took us almost an hour to navigate the terrain and get there. But the sights along the way were breathtaking!

The view once we got there. Whoa.

There were these natural stone steps/slide to get down to the beach. Not for the faint of heart. Claire had fun walking down there with Turner in the sling :)

After Green Sands, we stopped at Punalu'u. There were turtles resting on the sand!

On our drive home from Punalu'u we stopped at the Volcano. We got to see the glowing steam out of the caldera. We intended to make Volcano a day trip but when we drove past and could see the glow from the road, we couldn't resist stopping and checking it out!

We spent Saturday in Hilo. We started at the Farmer's Market. We had fun wandering around but it was ridiculously hot and the kids got bored fast. Claire bought me my first spam musubi. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. :) When in Hawaii... 

 We spent time at Richardson's Beach, which is another black sand beach here in Hilo. The boys had so much fun digging in the sand! The water was a little rougher here than at the tide pools, but Claire and I still managed to get in the water and snorkel. Thanks, again, to Sean for watching the kids on the beach :) He spoiled us!

Saturday night, Claire took me out for Sushi. It was amazing. Definitely a worthy 30th birthday dinner!

Sunday was church. Funny story...I was asked to speak in church on Sunday, August 23rd. Then the Sunday before that, I was told I was instead speaking on Sunday, August 30th.  Well, I showed up to church on Sunday the 23rd and Claire said "Uh, Kim. I have some bad news." She pointed to the bulletin and sure enough, my name was in there as the concluding speaker. Awesome.

The topic was "Seeking our Ancestors" and if there was any topic that was going to be sprung on me, this is the one. It was the topic of the month, and I felt that all previous talks had really hashed out temple work, indexing, and doing our own family history, so I really wanted to focus on leaving behind a family history. So, with tons of help from Claire and Sean keeping an eye on the boys, I threw some thoughts down on paper about journaling/blogging, teaching our kids about their namesakes, obtaining and reading deceased ancestors' patriarchal blessings, etc. I talked about how I get my blog printed into books each year that the kids love to read through. They have many memories that they would have forgotten if they weren't written down.

Fortunately, the sister missionary that spoke before me was told to speak for 15 minutes. She did, and with the help of a special musical number, I only ended up speaking for about seven minutes. It was pretty perfect, and I was pretty glad that I didn't need to spend time in my week prepping for a talk! :)

To celebrate my birthday in yet another way, Claire made the most divine chocolate cake I have ever ever tasted. It was so perfect! And the mint chocolate chip ice cream was the right flavor to complement it. So yummy!

We did get our hands on a coconut that Claire was able to drink!

Claire and Linc had to leave on Monday. But not before we dropped Sean off for his first official day of Pharmacy School! He wouldn't stop for us to get a "first day of school" picture so Claire snapped this one. Ha. I love it!

I truly didn't think that my 30th birthday would be anything great. I mean, sure, I live in Hawaii. But, without any friends or family, and no one to watch the kids, I really didn't imagine anything spectacular. But the fact that Claire and Lincoln were both there truly meant so much to me. It was so fun to get to explore parts of island for the first time with them. I'm grateful that Sean watched the kids so much so that Claire and I could have some time to snorkel and go out for a girls night. I'm glad that Sean and I were able to go on an amazing date too!

Thanks to Claire, Linc and Claire's husband(!) for coming out and making my entrance into the next decade a memorable one!