Kona No Ka Oi

Our weekend in Kona was splendid. On Friday June 5th, we caught a very early flight and after landing drove straight to the Kona LDS Temple where Zeth was sealed to our family for time & all eternity. Our dear LDSFS adoption specialist, Sally Lee, flew over just to share part in our special day with us. Our dear friends the Andersons had planned to be there too but a flight delay caused them to miss the sealing. They arrived in time to celebrate with us at lunch and then go swim at our hotel afterwards. Oh well. It was a simple & beautiful ceremony and we’re all so relieved to finally be able to call Zeth our own eternally. This little guy just fits in our family so well. Another match made in heaven. Of course I naturally have my heart overloaded with gratitude for our amazing birth mothers once again and wish for their continued happiness & success.

I made a huge oversight on our hotel reservations and didn’t realize it until we arrived. After doing all sorts of internet fare searching, calling direct and breaking down our reservation package to get the best rates, I thought I had booked us at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. It didn’t occur to me that there may be more than one resort in Waikoloa and only discovered this upon driving up in front of the Marriott Waikoloa Resort and finally looking at our printed itinerary and realized that we were not in Kansas, Toto. Travelocity wouldn’t do anything to help fix my error. I was devastated. I had in my mind this oversized ostentatious water park property where we planned to see dolphins, ride boats & trains to get around and get lost in the maze of towers and pools. Instead it was a very simple, elegant, practical property that was completely different than the anticipated scene. The receptionist checking me in was very understanding and accommodating. She upgraded our room to a 5th floor full ocean view, waived the $20 resort fee, threw in free drinks at the pool bar, gave us early check in and a hospitality suite to use after checking out. The view from our balcony was stunning.
As a lifelong swimmer, pools are very important to me and after the initial shock; I have to say I was pleasantly surprised how much better the Marriott pools were especially for our young kids in terms of size, depth, temperature and accessibility. We had a blast in the sandy pool where Zeth was quite comfortable and could practically swim by himself with his buoyant Hercules body suit on. Zana cruised around happily with her water wings on and had a blast on the waterslide. She reassured me several times during our stay that we could see dolphins some other time. Ram had yucky stomach flu most of the weekend so he kept it real low-key and close to the facilities. I took the kids out kayaking in beautiful Anaeho’omalu Bay and got that out of our systems for a while. We spent pretty much the entire weekend at our hotel and never did venture up to see the dolphins or Hawaiian petroglyphs or any of the other places we had planned to go. It was just divinely relaxing family time at the resort. We were all very happy with one of my best mistakes ever. We’ll be booking the Waikoloa Marriott intentionally next time.