Day 1 of our Kona trip

its about time i tell you about our trip to Kona. The temple has been closed here in Laie for about 8 months now so we haven't been to the temple since we got married. so time was way over due and the opportunity arose to fly to big island for a temple trip. tickets were 25 bucks each way! you can't get any better than that!! So we flew into Kona early friday morning and went straight to the temple. We did baptisms and confirmations which was pretty sweet because we were able to do the work for Juano's Grandma.
After that we went snorkeling. we asked a guy how the snorkeling was in that area and he said it was excellent. What he didn't tell us was that its a rough and rocky entrance and exit from the water. We chose the boat dock route of entry and just after a few minutes Juano cut his foot. I was pretty determined to check out the reef there and being the stubborn person that i am i practically forced him to keep swimming. we swam around for a while chased a turtle and got a few good underwater pictures. then it was time to get out. the waves were crashing pretty hard against the rocks and there were a lot of sea urchin in the rocks. for those of you who don't know- sea urchin are poisonous and have quite a sting. one of our friends pointed out a 'good spot' for him to climb up out of the crashing waves. inevitably juano was pushed and pulled by the waves which caused him to grab on tight right in a sea urchins nest. so now not only did he have a chunk out of his toe but also about 20 sea urchin spines in his palm.
while juano did minor surgery on himself- plucking out the spines, i paced around trying to figure out what to do with myself and felt completely responsible....
the torture didn't end there....
we found a beach park after searching for 45 minutes and showered and got ready to go back to the temple. we went to a session and after we got out we had to figure out where we were going to sleep. hotels in Kona are ridiculous so we ruled that out. we had already check online to see if there were any camp grounds. nada. we had heard that the beach parks were dangerous. we told the temple president after our session that we didn't have a place to stay...that didn't click.
so... our only option was the chapel next to the temple. we slept on the grass.....until the sprinklers came on at 2 in the morning. then we moved to the sidewalk. at least we had an air mattress. the Chisms had only a single sleeping bag. it was a night to remember.