Christmas Came Early!

And by early...I mean in September : )

By now, we have been able to share with all our family and friends that our little Hill family is growing! (and so is my belly) We are so thrilled to be expecting our first baby in June!

The last time I posted on the blog was to share all the pictures from our amazing trip to Hawaii.  Shortly after that last post is when we discovered that we brought home a little more than we thought from the Big Island!

The beginning of October I felt "funny" (I'll spare any details about that)---after seeing how expensive pregnancy tests were, I went to the dollar store and raced home.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing! Not long after taking it, I could see a little pink line start to get darker and darker!  I am off on Fridays but the mister is not---I could NOT wait until he got home after 5! So, I called him--and he was in the car with someone! whoops!  Not the most romantic way of telling your husband he's going to be a daddy--but I didn't care!

The next day, we went and bought a different brand and took 2 more tests---you know just to be sure! And, of course, they all said the same thing! A little bean was growing!

At that point I felt pretty good! That didn't last long though! From weeks 7-11 I felt nothing short of miserable! It doesn't help that I stand most of the day at work.  Luckily, I work with great people that would work around the chair I pulled up to my computer most days!

Now, I feel great! My energy is back, I don't feel sick all day, and we have been able to hear a sweet little heartbeat three times now!

My hope is to continue to update the latest and greatest with Baby Hill! 15 weeks down, 25 to go!

We are heading home on Christmas day for a few days! Merry Christmas y'all!!

Rainbow Falls, Akaka Falls, and Hilo

Sorry for a bit of a delay on this one....back to the Hawaii trip!

On Wednesday of our trip we headed to Hilo. It is about a 2 hour drive to get there, so we knew we would be spending the entire day there.

We had heard about Rainbow Falls from other people and had been told to get there really early (as the sun is coming up) to be able to see the rainbows through the falls.  So we did it---we got up at 4:30 in the morning to try and be at the falls as early as possible.  Come to find out, the clouds have to be just right for the rainbows to really show.  It was a cloudier day, so we didn't see any rainbows there, but it was still beautiful!

From there, the plan was to head over to Akaka Falls.  This was one of the top things listed to do on the Big Island.  As we were driving there, we saw a sign for the Scenic Route.  We were in no rush, so figured why not! It is only about 5 miles of driving off the main highway, but what we found was amazing!  There was a place to park at a scenic point that was also a trail head for a small hike down to the water. 

We then made it to Akaka Falls and did a small hike around that area.  The falls were bigger than I had envisioned, but because of the lack of rain lately, there wasn't as much water as usual.  We were able to see rainbows through the falls at this stop though!

As we were making our way back to the hotel area, we made one last stop at Waipio Overlook.  From what I had read, you could hike down to the bottom to a black sand beach.  What they didn't tell you was that it was STRAIGHT down---not fun!  We did about half a mile of this and decided this was not worth it!

It was a long day in Hilo and a lot of driving, but we really enjoyed our day! 

A Day at Kona

  There wasn't much that Justin and I paid a lot of money to do, but one thing we agreed would be worth the money was a guided kayaking and stand up paddle tour.  We had both tried stand up paddling before and were able to get up pretty easy, so figured it would be awesome to do this in Hawaii.
  With the help of Lonely Planet, I found a company called Kona Boys.  They did all kinds of tours and lessons from kayaking, to stand up paddling, snorkeling and bike rentals.  They had a package called "Day at the Beach" where you kayaked out, snorkeled for a while, and then had access to the stand up paddles after lunch.

   We did this on Monday (day 2) because we figured our bodies would still be getting up pretty early without help from an alarm clock.  Turns out we were the only people signed up that day, so we had our tour guide all to ourselves.  He had a lot of great stories about the island and great suggestions of things to do while we were there.
   Where we put our kayaks in the water was actually right by the starting line for the IRONMAN Triathlon that was taking place a couple of weeks after we left.  Talk about intense! About 2000 people enter the race each year for a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and then finish off with running a full marathon.  Kill me!  We would see people running and biking all over the place...some looked ironman...others not so much.  It kind of turned into a game during our drives---"Is he ironman?", "Oh, he's definitely not ironman!".  Our guide was telling us that they shut the finish line down at midnight and there are people crawling across the line just minutes before determined to finish!

 Ok enough about insane exercising...since Justin and I had experience kayaking, our guide took us out to an area that had better snorkeling.  Although this is not one of my favorite activities, I put on my mask and got out there.  This snorkeling was by far the best we had done though! Our guide was able to free dive and swim through lava tubes that were deep under water.  We tried to go down just 6-8 feet at one point to get a closer look and we both felt like our ears would explode.  Apparently, you have to train your body to be able to go down deep because of all the pressure from the water.

 As we were kayaking back, he mentioned that most people get really sea sick kayaking around the island...we didn't have a problem--I guess growing up near the beach helped.  After lunch, we tried out the stand up paddling.  Back at home, I had no problem getting up on the board, but this was hard!  We were able to get up and paddle out, but with the waves, boat wake, and trying to avoid rocks, it was really challenging.

After we were done at Kona Boys, we decided to spend the rest of the day walking around Kona.  The area was awesome and the people are so laid back.  There is a brewery--Kona Brewery--right down the street, so we stopped in there for some samples of the local brew! You can actually get a lot of their beers in North Carolina!

All in all our day at Kona was definitely a highlight of our trip! I would highly recommend Kona Boys to anyone making the trip to the Big Island!

Southern Most Point

So for those of you that have been to Key West, you may have visited the "southernmost point" and made a stop here:

The thing to pay attention to is the "continental USA" right there on the bottom.  So when we saw signs pointing us to the "southernmost point", we thought we had already been there!  Turns out, there are two southernmost points---the continental US and domestic US. The bottom point of the Big Island has the southernmost point of the 50 states since it is the most southern island of all the Hawaiian islands.

As we drove up, you could see where the island just stops and drops off drastically!  There was a long latter that went down to the water for people to climb up after making the leap into the water.  We did not jump...we wouldn't even get close the edge!

This was a nice little surprise to end out day hiking to the Green Sand Beach!

The Green Sand Beach

Like I said before, I did a TON of research before our trip.  I purchased a Lonely Planet book (highly recommend) and found some bloggers that had some great advice.  One of the places that wasn't mentioned in the book, but I had started reading more and more about was the Green Sand Beach.  It was something we went back and forth on about visiting and I am so glad that we did!

I had been told that because we were coming from the east coast, our bodies would be waking up about 5am the first couple of days, so we decided to put this day trip as one of our first things.  So we packed up the first morning and headed out!  The highways in Hawaii are mainly 2 lane, so getting places took much longer than we were used to. (hello--everyone on 85 drives 90 MPH)

About half way there, we saw a scenic point where you can park.  Since we had arrived the day before in the late afternoon, this was our first taste of ocean!

I had printed off directions to get to the parking area by the trail head, but it was still hard to know if you were going the right way.  You turn off the highway onto an even smaller road and realize it's like driving through the country!  This was not what I was expecting, and was very neat to see a different side of something that only seems tropical!

We finally arrived and started our hike down to the beach.  Of all the hiking we did on the Big Island, Justin and I both agree, this was the best! (even though it was crazy hot and windy).

 Because Hawaii is made up of volcanoes, an eruption many years ago left a cinder cone with three sides remaining and the fourth side open to the ocean.  The olivine crystals that were created from the eruption gives the beach its green color.  The beach is located on the southern tip of the island and to gain access, you have to hike about 2 miles there and back.  

From here, we headed to the southern most point!