New Design

I hope that no one has been trying to read my blog as I was changing things around today.  If so, I apologize, I am sure you are going crazy!  I will probably keep playing with ti, but hopefully it looks better than before.  I mean, who doesn't love some chevron, especially involving the colors grey, teal, and yellow??? Perfect. 

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We were due to fly out Thursday evening, so we spent the morning exploring our favorite things one last time.  We went to Ke'e beach again, then to Hanalei for some last minute shopping.  Afterwards we went back to the condo to shower and pack.

Here Auntie Kodi...have some sand!

We all flew back to Oahu, then Kodi and Shawn headed back home.  Zach and I had one more night in Hawaii, so we headed back to Jill and Pat's.  We ate supper, enjoyed the family, and crashed pretty early.

Our last day was pretty relaxing, which is just what we wanted.  We got one last acai bowl to tide us over, and spent a lot of the day letting Lyle wear himself out playing in the backyard.  We ate with Jill and Pat at California Pizza Kitchen, then they took us to the airport.  Our plane left at about 8:30 p.m. and we flew overnight to L.A. then went on to Dallas.  Our flights worked out great, and Lyle slept almost the whole time, since it was his "night time" anyway.  It was wonderful, and made everything so much easier.

We found golf balls.  He was entertained for a couple of hours!

It felt like it took about a week to finally get adjusted back to Kansas time.  We had such an awesome trip, and such a good time with family!  So grateful for a great vacation!

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On their photo tour, Kodi and Shawn got the low down on great places to go on the island.  We drove back to Hoopii Waterfall (which we looked for, but couldn't find the other day).  It was an easy walk down to the falls, but there were quite a few people there already, so we didn't do any jumping or swimming.  We made a pit-stop at Starbucks, then headed to the south side of the island.  On our drive, Zach won tickets on the radio!  There was pretty much only one really local station that would come in, and they were asking Hawaii University trivia questions, so Zach pulled out his phone and called in.  He won two tickets to a fundraiser event, where he could meet the coach and players.  Unfortunately it was on Friday after we left, but it was still fun to win!

Kodi and Shawn had friends that were on the island, so we met up with them for lunch.  Before they were ready we went to the Hyatt resort to look around.  It was gorgeous.  I think I could stay there and never leave the resort!  

We ate lunch at Brennecke's, a really fun restaurant right across from the beach. Afterwords we went to see the Sprouting Horn Blow Hole.  We tried to go to the Botanical Gardens close by, but they were finished with tours for the day.

There was a nice shopping area near by, so we headed there, knowing there was a great shave ice place close :)  Lyle was waaay past his nap time by now, and was practically falling asleep while he ate bites of our shaved ice.  It was too funny.

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On Tuesday, Shawn and Kodi had arranged to go on a "Photo Tour."  We dropped them off, then headed down to the Kilohana Sugar Plantation.  We rode the train that toured the grounds, viewing lots of different fruits and crops.  It made a stop and we were able to feed the goats, chickens, and boars.  This was definitely Lyle's favorite part!  After the train ride we walked through the gift shops that were in the old mansion.

We at lunch at Tiki's Tacos-small portions, but it was good!  After lunch we looked for the chocolate plantation, but couldn't find it.  It was a little too far to go back home before we picked Kodi and Shawn up so we bummed around the area.

After we met back up we went to the Nani Moon Meadery for a little sampling.  We went home to shower and get around, then headed to the lookout to set up for sunset pictures.  The bugs and ants were terrible....but the sunset was beautiful!

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Monday we headed for the East side of the island.  Our condo owners had this great scrapbook type book, where they had written about all their favorite things to do on the island.  Other guests that stayed had also written what they had found.  Everyone had written about this restaurant called Common Ground, with great food and a really cool walk you could take afterwards.  When we tried to go, we found out that they were closed on Mondays.  So we headed onto Kapaa and ate brunch at the Kountry Kitchen (which was also recommended in the book and was great!). 

The day seemed to go in the same direction as the morning, not being able to find things, and being a little disappointed by what we did find.  We were able to stop at a lookout, with a beautiful waterfall in the background, but weren't able to find the entrance to the other waterfall we were looking for.  The ocean was really rough on this side of the island, so most beaches were not advised to swim at.  We did find one, that was protected by a rock wall, but the snorkeling was pretty disappointing. 

After swimming we drove up to another lookout to see Wailua Falls, where they filmed the old TV show Fantasy Island.  There were some locals there, who showed us the path to hike down to the bottom.  We started down the steep muddy path, and Zach was just holding Lyle.  They fell (luckily with only Zach ending up with a big bruise), so we decided to keep Lyle up at the top and just Zach and Shawn went down.  When they finally made it back up, they warned us it was hard, but thought we could make it, recommending we go barefoot, so Kodi and I headed down.  The waterfall at the bottom was definitely worth it!

Wailua Falls

For supper that night we went to Tahiti Nui, the little restaurant in "The Descendants."  It was fun, and there was live music while we ate. 

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Sunday we picked the North shore to explore for the day.  We lathered up in sunscreen, packed some sandwiches and headed to the beach.  We went to the very end of the road, to Ke'e beach.  Off this beach is a famous hike to the Na Pali coast and waterfall.  The full hike is 11 miles, and from reports we heard it is an amazing but strenuous hike.  While it sounded beautiful, we decided not to kill ourselves trying to take Lyle in the backpack and just enjoyed the beach instead.  There was great snorkeling at this beach-it was our favorite.  There was a reef out a little ways, so it also made the water calm enough to swim and splash around in. 

There was a wet cave up the road just a bit we walked to see, then we set out to see what else we could find.  Our guide book gave us a description of each of the beaches, but parking was almost impossible at most of them.  We settled for a little more sand time at the Hanalei beach, and walked down to the pier. 

After showering back at the condo, we headed back into Hanalei and had dinner at Kalypso.  Lyle made great friends with the family sitting in the table behind us.  He is so good at that!  :)  We got shave ice after dinner, then headed to the St. Regis hotel, as we had read you can see some amazing sunsets from their resort.  We stopped a little too long taking pictures of the fountain, and missed most of the color of the sunset that night.

He stole Auntie Kodi's scarf to snuggle with

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Saturday morning Lyle and I were up bright and early and enjoyed our coffee (well my coffee, Lyle had his milk) out on the back porch.  The crazy thing about Kauai is there are chickens EVERYWHERE!  Who would have thought chickens would take over Hawaii.  We read in our travel books that there was a shipment of mongooses (a natural predator) that were supposed to be introduced to the island, but they got pushed back into the ocean after one of them bit a deck hand.  So now chickens are in every ones yards, all over town, and on the beaches.  Lyle loved to watch them out the windows, and chase them when he got the chance.  We tried all week to get him to learn what they say, but he still thinks they say "ruff ruff!"

Lyle and I went for a walk around the neighborhood until everyone else woke up.  We decided to devote a day to explore each of the different areas of the island, so once everyone was ready we headed to the west coast.  There is only one road that goes around the island, but it doesn't connect completely.  There is about a six mile gap.  So even though across the map we were about 10 miles from our final destination, we had to go alllll the way back around the island to get there, taking probably a good two hours.

Our goal/destination was to go to Waimea Canyon (the grand canyon of Hawaii, but much much greener :) ).  If you ever go, you have to drive all the way to the end of the road.  It was awesome!  By the end you are above the clouds, and if they clear away for long enough, the views are incredible.

Lyle was O-U-T!

We took turns at this lookout since Lyle was sleeping.  This was what I saw when I went to look.  

This is what everyone else got to see.  I even tried to go look twice, and the clouds came back each time!  LOL

We headed back down to find some food, looking for the brewery, but discovering it was closed.  In desperation we stopped at L&L Barbecue.  (Probably my fault we were desperate to eat...sorry guys!)  Barbecue apparently doesn't mean the same thing in Kansas as it does in Hawaii because we found
Chinese food inside.  Worst meal of the trip, but we survived. lol. 

Our next stop was at the Kauai Coffee Plantation.  This was one of my favorite stops.  We went on a walking tour of the plantation, did some coffee sampling, and found some awesome souvenirs. We walked a bit through "Old Koloa Town", finding some awesome art galleries, but most of the other stores were closed, so we headed toward home. 

The "MonkeyPod Tree" in Koloa.  Planted in 1925.

We picked up pizza and a movie and relaxed at home for the rest of the night.   

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Friday morning came and we were ready for our next week of adventures.  We drove to Honolulu, dropped our rental car off, and got all checked in for our flight to Kauai.  If all flights could only be that short.  It seemed like we took off, got to cruising altitude, then descended.  Once we landed, we took the shuttle to pick up our rental car.  What we booked was not available, so we were upgraded to a four door JEEP.  We had thought about renting a JEEP from the beginning, but most places were so much more expensive, so we were pretty excited about the upgrade.  We put in the address for our condo into the GPS, noticing we only had about 20 miles to travel, but that it was going to take us at least an hour to get there.  Oh goodness.  

Our condo was in Princeville, on the north side of the island.  We found it, and started to get unpacked.  Zach says that the Snicker commercials where they turn into someone crazy when they are hungry are pretty much an exact description of me when I am hungry.  So I interrupted every one's unpacking and made them all load back in the car to find me something to eat.  We found this little restaurant and had nachos on the patio.  We explored the little town of Hanalei, then found the grocery store, to get a few things for the house.  

We all relaxed for a while, and went to explore our surroundings.  Our place was close to the bluffs where you could look over the sea.  From one area we could see sea turtles!  We headed back in to Hanalei for dinner and ate at Bouchons Hanalei grill and sushi bar.  Once again everyone but me had sushi, but I decided to be adventurous and ordered fish.  And it was good!  Hahah.  I typically don't like seafood, especially things that taste very "fishy."  So Kodi helped me pick something that I would probably like.  

But the most exciting part of the day, was when Lyle started walking by himself!  The week before he had taken a few steps, but this night he went full out!  Kodi bribed him with crackers for a video, and for the rest of the week he just cruised around.  It was so much fun to watch him go, and I was so so glad that we were with him to witness it!  

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Thursday was our four year anniversary.  It was so awesome that the timing of this trip fell on our anniversary and we could be somewhere special!  Heather, Aleigh, and Casey had to fly back home, so the rest of us packed up the house, and moved over to Jill and Pat's.  Once that enormous task was complete we headed over to Moke's for breakfast.  It was probably good I didn't learn about this until the last day, because I might have made someone drive me there everyday!  I had lilikoi (passionfruit) pancakes and they were to die for.

My breakfast

Zach's breakfast

After breakfast Zach and I went and got massages.  I think I looked like I was in a trance when I got done.  It was probably the best massage I have ever had.  I might say that everytime I get one, but in this case it is true!  Since that was my "pick" of activities we went to see Hangover 3 as Zach's "pick" that afternoon.  We walked down to the beach about five, and were able to watch the sea turtles coming in to eat!  A huge thank you to Kim and Greg for taking Lyle for the day!  I think he had a blast playing fetch with Jill and Pat's dog!

Playing in Jill's yard

 Kodi and Shawn had gone off on their own for the day, so everyone else went to supper together.  We had a fish tank right beside our table and Lyle was fascinated.  We worked on repacking our bags when we got back to the house, and got ready to leave for Kauai in the morning.  What an amazing first week in Hawaii on Oahu!     

Jill and Kim

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Wednesday we finally went to the beach.  I guess we had "been to the beach", but not swim and play in the ocean "been to the beach" yet.  It only took us six days of being in Hawaii to get there! :)  Lyle loved playing in the sand.  He liked the water as long as it wasn't splashing in his face.  He got a little better each time we took him out.  We stopped for sandwiches at the Kalapawai market, then met up with the rest of the family who were shopping.  Are you picking up on this theme that we did lots of shopping?? It was awesome.  Haha.  We enjoyed acai bowls, then headed home to shower and get ready to go to the luau that evening.

As we drove towards the Polynesian Cultural Center it started pouring.  Not the usual it will rain for 10 minutes then clear up Hawaii rains, but like it's going to pour for the rest of the night rains.  We opted to not explore the Center in the rain, and kept driving to the North Shore to waste a little time.  It started to clear up a little, and we got out to explore and take pictures at Shark's cove.  We met Kim and Greg for the dinner and show.  I was the newbie here, but I loved it!  We ate from the buffet while they had a mixture of music and hula dancing.  Since we were celebrating our anniversary that week, we got called up front with a few other couples also celebrating, and danced while they played a song for us.  After dinner we went to the show and it was awesome!  All kinds of stories, music, and dancing.  Lyle sat really well, mostly just watching the show, and finally fell alseep at the end, missing the fire dancers, and the most exciting part!  I was really glad that we decided not to cancel the entire night because of the rain, it ended up being one of my favorite things!

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Tuesday consisted of a shopping trip to Ala Moana mall (one of the largest outdoor malls anywhere).  Before we left for the mall we took a quick walk down to the beach to let Lyle put his toes in the ocean!

  They had a little bit of everything, and I had fun looking around.  Zach, Greg, and Lyle were with me, and they were probably tired of going in all the stores I did, but they could have been with another group that spent a couple hours in one store!  :)  We had a dinner reservation near by, but were finished at the mall, so we headed out towards Waikiki beach to explore.  There were several more shops down there (and a ridiculous amount of people).  It was fun to visit that more touristy side of the island, but I was glad we weren't staying there!  We shopped, then let Lyle play in the sand on the beach while we waited.  Even though he was lacking in naps, he was a happy boy playing in that sand!  

We went to Tiki's for supper.  It was so much fun and had amazing food!  And our drinks came in Tiki glasses - which makes everything more fun! 

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Monday the whole family went on a hike.  It was so much fun to do together!  It was called the Pillbox, and was a pretty steep hike to old WWII bunkers.  The views, once again, were amazing.  Zach had Lyle in his hiking backpack.  I was pretty impressed that he got to the top.  There were lots of steep parts, and places where you needed to hold onto rocks to climb over them.  I'm pretty sure if I had him on my back, we would have rolled down the mountain.

After exerting all our energy in the morning, we settled for going to a movie in the afternoon.  We saw Star Trek, making my husband a happy man!  After our movie we took our attempt at family pictures in our matching shirts.  Props to Shawn for putting up with instructions from fifty different people at once.  Okay, not really fifty, but there were a lot of us!  We tried to do our pictures, and full group pictures first, since Lyle was once again, past his prime, and ready for bed!

We ate some amazing homemade Navajo tacos for dinner, and finished the evening with a game of "Say Anything."  If you haven't played this game, you should.  It was so much fun!  We bought it once we got home, so come over and play with us! :)