Roller Coaster Week.....

This was a week full of highs and lows. It started actually last week when some old friends from Tucson (Terry and David with their sons Henry and Linus) came to the Big Island on vacation. They were staying at one of the condos at the Waikoloa Hilton. Last week we went one day to visit them in Waikoloa and go to the beach there, it was fun.
There they went snorkeling (Henry got stung by an urchin their first day here, that pretty much set the pace for the rest of their trip).
They also did the dolphins experience at the Hilton where the kids got to be dolphin trainers and the helicopter ride over Kilauea and by Akaka falls.
Saturday they headed this way. Syd was sick that day (more on the troublesome week) so Charlotte and Hana went to the botanical gardens and the zoo with them.
Well the botanical gardens and the zoo were all great. Sunday morning we were all shaken by the two earthquakes that rattled the big island (good thing they left their condo in Waikoloa) . They were very excited about the earthquake and thought it was a very cool treat to get to experience a "Hawaiian Earthquake"; little did we know at the time that it had not been a regular earthquake. Charlotte even took them to the Mauna Loa Mac Nut factory! That day during the morning we found out that their flight that was supposed to leave that same evening from Kona had been cancelled and the next flight they could put them on was not until Tuesday!. The organization that had planned their trip arranged for them to stay at a Hotel in Hilo until Tuesday. Then of course on Monday we had the mother of all storms hit Hilo as they were here having dinner with us and the lights went out!
The good thing was that they had enough time to go and spend the day on Monday at Volcanoes National Park.
Then as you all know, Tuesday morning after the storm is when Dee went missing for a couple of days......
Tuesday morning they left early towards Kona to allow plenty of time to get there just in case some other natural disaster hit the island......
As we mentioned, this was a week where we hit every note in the emotions scale, and hope not to have to do so ever again!
So for future friends who are planning on coming here to visit we have the following warning: As exciting as earthquakes and monster storms may sound, do not expect to get any of them during your visit....