hiking up tantalus

It's true that we live in paradise!  And since moving to town, we've made a conscious effort to make the time to enjoy all that Hawaii has to offer!

Which means going hiking on our days off when at all possible.

We were babysitting my nephews for the afternoon so decided to get them out of our tiny house and into nature.  Mitch thought a hike up above Tantalus would be a good idea, so we loaded up all the kiddos, slathered them with bug spray, and hit the road!

The trail that Mitch wanted to hike was relatively easy going, but narrow in certain spots with lots of tree roots sticking up.  A couple of the little ones were slipping and sliding around and Jojo was none too happy about that.  Mitch carried my littlest nephew in the backpack carrier and we took turns holding hands with Kaden and his 3 year old cousin, Knox.  It was slow going in some spots but the older kids liked to run ahead at times, eliciting a "stop!" from Mitch and I now and again.

All in all, it was a nice hike!  But as we were going (and going and going) the trail seemed longer than Mitch remembered so we turned around and decided to head back.

On our way back down the Tantalus, we stopped by the lookout...and took a snack break.

The view from up here was spectacular!  Plus, there was a nice open field below that the kids ran up and down (and up and down) while we simply enjoyed the beauty of our island.

Me and Kaden...he was getting pretty tired and needed to be carried.

Do I baby him too much?  Yes.

Do I care?  No.

The cousins, eating popcorn on the hill overlooking all of Honolulu.  

Lucky we live Hawaii!