Well... tonight (Monday) is our final night in Hawaii. We have had an amazing week (thank you mom and dad!). One of the most amazing parts of our trip happened this afternoon. I'll get to that in a minute.

Dan and I have pretty much stayed put in the area we are staying in. There are amazing beaches and snorkeling just 10 minutes from the house... so we haven't really felt a need to visit many places outside of this neighborhood. Yesterday we relaxed at home for the morning...

Playing in the pool with daddy...

Lexie and Grammy doing early morning crafts (it's really hard with one arm).

...and then we took Carter down to the beach again and took turns snorkeling at an area called Two Step. Dan actually saw an eel swim below him while he was out. Carter strongly dislikes the feel of sand on his feet... so we spent most of the time in the beach shade again. For dinner we went back to the National Park next to Two Step. We grilled with my mom and dad right on the beach.

We're still dealing with the key and car obsession.

He would play in the sand if he wasn't sitting directly on it.

Carter's face after an hour in the sand.

Mom and Dad with the setting sun.

This morning the 3 of us enjoyed an amazing papaya breakfast at a coffee shop overlooking the bay where we are staying. We spent the rest of the morning at home and then headed back to our favorite National Park beach for lunch with my mom and dad.

Carter just can't get enough of the tide pools.
One of the tide pools right on the ocean.

After lunch we took Carter home for a nap with Grammy and Papa and then headed back for a little hike in the park before we took our last snorkeling trip.

The beginning of the trail leading up to the gated lava tube.

The huge path of lava on this hill was used for lava rock sledding a long time ago.
I'll look up the correct name for it at some point.

Ok... now to one of the most amazing things we have ever experienced. We walked back to our snorkeling spot and met up with Nate and Erica. We only have 3 sets of gear so first I took a turn with Dan and Nate and then switched out with Erica so she could have a turn after a while. I heard people talking about dolphins while I sat on our towel but didn't really notice anything for about 15 minutes. I finally looked up and saw dolphins jumping up in the bay where Dan, Erica and Nate were. I yelled to them and they headed over to where the dolphins were. There was a pod of about 20 Spinner Dolphins in about 100 feet of water. It doesn't get much better than that. Dan, Erica and Nate swam with them for about 20 minutes and then came back to get me so I could have a turn. It was unbelievably amazing. The dolphins were swimming under us and then would come up for air just feet from us. Paula (Dan's mom)... you probably should just skip this part and go straight to the pictures. Dan would dive down about 30 to 40 feet where the dolphins were diving. Three different times one of them swirled his body just inches from his face. One also almost landed on his head after a jump. I finally went back in to give Erica another turn. Dan was out with them for TWO HOURS!! After a while we thought he may have just joined their pod and moved to a different bay. Anyway... here are some of the pictures and a little clip of video I was able to take...