Kauai 2019 (Part 2)

The next day most of us headed to Waimea Canyon.  (Grandma and Grandpa stayed back with Emmy and Xander)  It was a long but beautiful drive.

Dax of course drove with the other boys, but we made him be in this picture with us (see the waterfall in the background by Arden's head?

We wanted to see some waterfalls, so we went on a hike!  There was much excitement from some kids, and much whining from others!

We eventually made it...and were kind of underwhelmed.  It was kind of a piddly little thing.  But still a pretty hike!

Arden is the only one of my kids who wasn't too grouchy about hiking to smile for a picture.  Oh well, she is pretty enough for all of us.

 It started raining off an on during the hike, and kind of kept it up for the rest of our tour:

When we got to the end of the road, we couldn't really see the ocean from the peak, but oh well.  When we got back, Preston needed some quiet time and headed to the beach and played with the turtles:

 And the sea lions:

The next day we went back to our little beach for a while, here is me hanging out with my turtle buddies

 It was a beautiful sunny day, and there was lots of fun had.  Sandcastles are were made, frisbee and football were played:

Arden wanted to do some fun pictures for her Instagram or something.  They did not work out as good as she was picturing, but I tried my best.

 This picture is pretty though!

Arden decided to cut out the middle man and just do her flippies herself.  Here is one of the only ones that were not blurry.

Later, we went and saw a waterfall....and I can't remember the name of it.  We were thinking of trying to hike down there to the base, but there were a bunch of fences up discouraging us.

We went to a nearby beach, Lydgate Beach.  There were warnings up about currents, but Dan went in and made sure it was safe and when he didn't die everyone else ran out to join him.

Before long we had to go home and get ready for our Luau!  We went over to a nearby hotel where they have a big one.  Arden was brave enough to get a (temporary) Polynesian tattoo:

They started us out with some appetizers:
 

They were really good!  There was pineapple, and chicken, and even some poi poi.  For dinner there was of course pork, along with a lot of other delicious stuff and purple rolls.

After dinner the kids ran down to the beach, but soon it was time for the show!

We are right by the band, and had a pretty good view of the dancers. 

Everyone's favorite, is of course the fire dancers!

Emmy wanted to get a picture with some of the dancers.  They were amazing!

It was a fun day!

The next day we went to...the beach!  Arden wanted to do some more Instagram pictures.  Me and Cora helped.

We ate lunch at a classy place called "Da Crack."  It was actually really good, and had really high ratings on TripAdvisor.  Yummy burritos.

We drove up the coast and did some souvenir shopping.  Then we stopped at a beach up on the West Coast.  It was so beautiful, and the sunset was AMAZING!

After the sunset, we went home and hung out like usual.  The next day I had to go for a long run, so I got up really early.  (Less than a month until Boston!) I got to watch the sun rise on my run, and I will say, it did not suck. 

 More pictures from the run.  Such pretty water over these deserted cliffs.

While I was running, Preston took the girls to do surfing lessons (Dax had surprisingly decided to hang out with the boy cousins, and left for Hanalei Bay early).  After my run I quickly showered and ran over to watch.  Cora had picked it right up! 

 Arden did great too (She is on the right in the white shirt).

 Here are all the surfers:

After surfing lessons, we drove all the way around the island to get to Hanalei Bay.  It was a long drive, but the beach was beautiful.

BUT WINDY!  We stopped on the way home and did more souvenir shopping, which isn't very photographic.  The next day was our lastest day!  So sad!  We can't leave without showing you a picture of a bunch of chickens, because they are EVERYWHERE!

And I forgot to mention the rest of our shave ice adventures.  We tried another place in Poipu, but we heard from the surf instructor that this was the best on the island.  He was right.  INCREDIBLE. 

Our last activity was a boat trip up the Waimea River to Fern Grotto.  The boat was fun, and they even did some hula dancing.   They pointed out where they filmed a scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark (the one where Indy is running from the cannibals at the beginning, and there is a guy with the float plane fishing).

Fern Grotto was so beautiful! 

After that fun farewell, we went and said goodbye to the ocean and then headed to the airport.  Our flight left at night, and we arrived in Seattle like at 5 a.m. so that was fun.  We got home around 5 a.m., and we went home and slept like babies!  So sad it is over, I wish I could go back now.

Kauai 2019 (Part 1)!

My dad decided he wanted to REALLY celebrate my mom's 70th birthday, and he very generously offered to pay for everyone's airfare and hotel for a trip to Hawaii!  Hooray for Grandpa!  Dan's family came from Missouri, and all the family from Utah came, even BJ!  

Our flights out were pretty uneventful (no photos), and when we landed in Kauai, it was raining.  HARD.  This made me worry because I wasn't here for the rain.  We were starving, and stopped by Panda Express (so Hawaiian, right?) and got a bunch of stuff and headed to the condo.

We stayed near Poipu Beach, and here is the parking lot of the condo (this is later because we got there in the dark).  We wandered around a little, but eventually found our room.

Here is the walkway that led to our room (turn right and go up the stairs).

Here is the main downstairs room.  Our family shared a condo with the Missouri Hauns and with the Bolingers.  The little boys all shared a room, and the girls shared the loft on a day bed.  The married people all had their own rooms, but Preston and I got stuck upstairs with the kids.  Oh well.  :)  We love sharing a bathroom with 6 stinky sandy kids. 

The condo complex we stayed at had a couple of pools, which we made use of.  One had a hot tub that was sooo warm, when the heater came on you had to move your feet out of the way of the newly heated water or suffer the consequences.

We just had to walk down a little path to get to the beach.  We walked over the night we arrived, but it was dark so I didn't take a picture. There was a sea lion sleeping on this beach, but he was gone by morning.  

This little beach had rocks and stuff, so we walked down the beach a little to Poipu Beach.  But first, Arden wanted to do her impression of the little mermaid.  SOMEDAY I'LL BEEEEE...PART OF YOUR WOOOOORRRLLLD!  

When we got over to Poipu beach, there were TURTLES!   I love turtles.  They were just hanging out and people were walking all around them.  If you got too close the lifeguards would tell you to move it along.  I'm sure the turtles appreciated that no kids were trying to ride on them.

The kids loved playing in the shallow water.  There was a little bit of coral, and we swam over to look at it through our snorkels, but it wasn't too great so we didn't do it too often.  

 After we got enough sun, we decided we better get started on sampling the various shave ice places.  This place was pretty close by, and it was pretty good! 

 We shared a few, and they were quickly gone. 

After we were done playing at the beach, we decided to take a drive up the road to the "Spouting Horn," which is where the waves come up through a little hole and looks like a geyser.  It was cool.

There was a park nearby, and we had a few games of capture the flag and blob tag.  It was fun, but those big boys are FAST.

The kids all stayed home with some pizza, and the grownups went over to a nearby restaurant and enjoyed dinner sans kids!  (Grandma and Grandpa stayed with the really little ones, don't worry). 

The next day we had a big adventure scheduled.   We had a ride on a catamaran to the Napali coast!  We were super excited, and the day was sunny, but a little windy.  Here we are, pulling away from the dock:

There were trampolines up in the front we could sit on, and benches in the back.  We were free to run around the boat while we went.  Here are Dan, Lori and Kohl standing by one of the trampolines:

 After a little while, some dolphins started swimming right in front of the boat!

It was so fun! 

There were so many!  It was so amazing.

The waves got pretty big after a while, and it was pretty fun for the kids to sit on the trampoline and bounce up and down.  They had some speakers on the boat playing music, and they played "We Know the Way" song from Moana, and it was so fun to be out on our catamaran in the ocean surfing over the waves.

The waves were not so fun for everyone...soon Drake started feeling sick before very long.  He threw up on Preston's foot and felt better for a while :)

The Napali Coast was so cool!

 It looked very Jurassic Parky.

It was so beautiful!

Kohl loved it:

 We turned back and started back to the dock.  Unfortunately, as soon as we got around the corner of the island, the wind hit us and we realized those fun waves we had been surfing on the way down were now going against us, which was much less fun.   Before long, Emmy, Xander, and Arden had joined Drake in the "feeling sick" group in the back of the boat.  Here is poor Arden, eating a Saltine and feeling not so great.

We stopped after a while to see some whales!  It is really hard to take pictures of them because, you know, they are under the water.  But trust me there is a mom and a calf.

After a while, they were supposed to let us stop and snorkel, but due to the wind they changed plans and just let us off for a swim, a little ways away from any rocks.  The boys wanted to snorkel anyway:

Cora started feeling sick also, and snuggled into my lap.  The waves were splashing us out in the front, so we went inside.  It was nice for a while, but then I started to feel sick too.  Luckily, we got back before it got too much worse.  It was so fun!!!

 Stay tuned for Part 2.