Kauai - The Garden Island

Daniel and I were lucky enough to get to go on a wonderful vacation to Hawaii. We went with Jon and Mandy and Jeremy and Lindsey and had a blast!! We all left our kids at home (the first time for all of us) and spent some time in beautiful Kauai.

Kauai is known as the garden island and it definitely lives up to its name. It rains for a little while almost everyday so everything is nice and green.

We started off worrying about Jon and Mandy. We thought they were supposed to be on our flight to LA and we were convinced they had missed the flight when in reality they were on a plane that left one hour later. No worries, though, we all met up in LA and took a very LONG flight over the ocean. (What a flight!!)

When we arrived at the hotel, we were greeted with beautiful leis...I was already in heaven!!

The next morning we watched a gorgeous sunrise from our lanai (that is the Hawaiian word for patio...haha). Our internal clocks were a little off since Hawaii was 5 hours behind our normal Central Time, but we were always up in time to watch the sun make an appearance. What a great way to start the day!!

Our own private patio...This is what we looked at when we looked toward the hotel from our patio.

The first day was quite rainy and rained almost all day. It usually rains everyday, but only for 45 minutes or so, and it is not the heavy rains that we are used to. We decided to take advantage of the time and drive up to Waimea Canyon and then spend some time shopping for souvenirs...fun, fun!

The next day I spent the whole day at the pool. The Hyatt actually has three pools, two regular pools and a saltwater lagoon. The girls loved spending time with our books while the guys went back and forth between the ocean and whatever pool we had staked out. Daniel and Jon got to go scuba diving that morning and LOVED it! We heard a lot of stories about the octopus that they had on their heads....too bad we do not have pictures of that!

This is a picture of one of the regular pools.......and this is a picture of the saltwater lagoon. They had a 'beach' with chairs and the water was around 10 feet deep in the middle.

You could also take kayaks out into the lagoon. Lindsey and I kept knocking the boys out of their kayak. Go girls!We all got dressed up for dinner and went to Tidepools, a restaurant at the Hyatt. Our table was right out in the pond at the hotel so we got to watch the koi during dinner. I loved all the fresh fish and fruit.

Tidepool's version of a candlelight dinner. The next day we went on our rafting expedition of the Napali coast. (This is a borrowed picture...we did not take it and I will soon tell you why...the rest of the pictures are ours). The Napali coast is a portion of the Kauai coast line that is only accessible by boat or helicopter. This gorgeous part of Earth has been used as the backdrop for many movies including Jurassic Park, King Kong (with Jessica Lange), and was also the fictional island in South Pacific.

We had booked a rafting expedition to view the coastline first hand. I don't think any of us really knew what we were getting in to. Lindsey and Jeremy decided to take the catamaran cruise while we did the rafting version. When we got to the boat, we were all surprised to find that there were not any seats to sit in. We had to balance on the side of the raft sitting sidesaddle and holding on to the ropes on the side. I know that Mandy and I at least were holding on for dear life! It was really a neat way to see the coast but we were bounced around like crazy as we went over all of the ocean swells. Our captain, Matt, would stop to show us the scenes, and we were able to take pictures then, but we did not get too many pictures while we were in the middle of the ocean...I was too busy holding on!

This is a picture of our "boat" that held 15 people.

We did get to stop and play with some spinner dolphins. Apparently, these dolphins love to socialize!Our first glimpse of the Napali Coast. (look at the ocean!)There are several waterfalls that begin from freshwater springs on the island that then flow into the ocean.We made a beach landing and were able to see some ruins from an ancient Hawaiian village. We were also able to see 4 large sea turtles. I was surprised at how big they were!

We also spent some time snorkeling off of the beach.

Fortunately, we all survived! We did have to stop and wait for a little while at the order of the US military. The Pacific Missile Range is located along one of the Kauai beaches and we were ordered to stop and wait for a test launch. Even though we were just sitting in the boat for about 20 minutes, it was really neat to see the missile go off.

I had a really good time and a lot of fun, but, I think next time we will join Jeremy and Lindsey on their bigger boat!!

The next day, the boys rented some boogie boards and spent some time in the ocean by the hotel while the girls hung out by the pools. They were able to really enjoy the sunshine and caught some pretty good waves. I even tried it a few times!

That night we went to the luau at the hotel. We were fairly disappointed because they moved it inside due to the possibility of rain. I think we all thought they were crazy at first because the sun was shining, but we were very glad to be indoors when the skies opened up and the rain came down. The luau was still quite impressive, full of hula dancing and fire twirling.

I guess I will have to go back so I can go to an outdoor luau!! :)

The last day we were there, we drove up to the North Shore area before heading to the airport.

It was an amazing trip, and, although I missed my baby girl, we had a blast! It was very nice to spend time with my husband and friends. We certainly enjoyed our time there.

Kenna had a lot of fun with her grandparents in Muleshoe and I have plenty of pictures from her adventures with Mimzi and Pa that I will share soon.

Aloha!!