Rainy Florida

 The rain started falling soon after we arrived in Gainesville on Wednesday, and basically it has not stopped since!  We have still been having a good time, though -- the kids got in some swimming when it wasn't thundering, we celebrated Daniel's birthday, and the kids have had fun playing games (including a cool rocket simulator on Uncle Isaac's computer).  Daniel and Nora also made some delicious caramel chocolates. 

Donkey Balls

 Our next stop after the Place of Refuge was the Donkey Balls chocolate shop. As you might imagine, everything in the store was a play on words, including the cashier asking if we wanted our balls in a sack. :)  The boys found it hilarious (as did the adults). The chocolates were also really good, and they weren't stingy with the free samples!  (It paid off for them, though, as we left with quite a bit of chocolate, and a few bags of Kona coffee as well.)

We went to lunch at a place called Rebel Kitchen just down the street, which turned out to be delicious. They even made their own ketchup and mustard. :)

Place of Refuge

 After leaving the resort, we had to drive across the island to the rental house. We had originally planned to go snorkeling, but the trip was rescheduled due to a high surf warning. That was slightly disappointing, but turned out to be fine because it gave us more time to leisurely explore.

Our first stop was a national park called the Place of Refuge (Puuhonua o Honaunau).  Lawbreakers or defeated warriors could come there for safety; no blood was allowed to be shed at the place of refuge.

It remined us a little of St. Augustine with some of the stone walls, but of course much smaller and with the wooden carvings (that look like tikis but are called something else).

The historical part was cool, but the natural beauty was even better -- there were tidepools created by the lava, and it was fun to walk on them. Matthew went exploring out to the edge, but he did come back when I told him to -- I could see the tide was quickly coming in!

Resort Living

 The resort we stayed at was great!  It was right by the water, although it wasn't really a swimmable beach.  But they had multiple swimming pools.  Mike and Matthew really liked the lagoon pool, which was connected to the ocean -- it was a fun place for snorkeling because it had fish and sea turtles!  The turtles were remarkably unconcerned with the humans; they'd just swim right on by. 

There was also a great slide that the kids and adults alike enjoyed!  And there were waterfalls that Matthew particularly liked swimming under. 

They had a few organized activities. We took a hula lesson which was a lot of fun; the teacher gave us some info on the history of hula and Hawaiian culture, and then had us give it a try ourselves. It's a bit harder than it looks to put all the parts together!  The dance was to the song Your Hawaiian Way (click for youtube link).  Adrian, James, and Mike also did a ukelele class. 

Daniel was excited about the volleyball tournament, but it turned out that no one else signed up, so the "tournament" was Daniel and Nora.  So, Daniel can accurately declare himelf the tournament champ!

We ended up eating a lot of our lunches at the same outdoor resort restaurant.  Matthew liked the calamari fries, and he and Daniel enjoyed the Green Gecko drinks (Sprite with I think kiwi flavoring and maybe something else).