Today was our first day on the Big Island of Hawaii!  We stayed about 30 minutes north of Kona, on the west side of the island.  This is the dry side and has several beaches listed in the top 5 of the world!  We actually rented a house in a residential neighborhood for cheaper than it would have been to stay in a hotel.  Best thing we could have done!  It was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house - and it was nice!  We will definitely stay here again!

The beaches here are gorgeous!  The coral really looks as colorful as something out of Finding Nemo, and those coral gardens go on and on and on forever.

 Today we went to Mauna Kea Beach.  This beach is located at a resort, and they only hand out 20 passes to the public a day, so we went early to make sure we got one.  It wasn't crowded at all.  We set up our umbrella and beach chairs and hit the water...

After snorkeling with our kids for awhile, they went back up to the beach to boogie board and play in the sand.  Mark and I went out alone for more snorkeling, and ran into a group of five sea turtles!  After swimming with them for awhile, we knew our kids just HAD to experience this.  We went back to the beach and had them swim out to where we saw them.  They were still there!  It was so fun!!

After cleaning up back at the house, we headed to ... Costco!  Yep, they have Costco in Kona, and we stocked up - especially on our new favorite drink...POG!   That is Pineapple, Orange, Guava juice - so yummy.  And we've never seen it on the mainland.  We drank so many cans of that stuff everyday.  We brought a cooler of food and POG every day we went to the beach!