Leaving Kauai

Our flight leaving Lihue Airport on Kaua'i departed at 8:40am. We had breakfast at the airport to save time. Plus we didn't have much food left at the condo. I must admit I had tears in my eyes as we left our beautiful condo rental.

CK finished up her journal and O colored, while we were waiting for our flight.

























We had a three hour layover in Honolulu. We had a nice lunch and looked at some pictures on the computer from the past week.

Here is our plane. It's going to be a long flight home.

The girls are wonderful travelers. They can't wait to go on another trip. I told them we have many people we could go and visit by plane.

O was so cute, on every plane, the first thing she did when she sat in her seat was look at the safety/emergency guide. She would sit and look at all the pictures. Then she would proceed to tell me what position we take if we land in water. Every leg there and back. It was so cute. She was a great travel buddy. C said the same about CK.

We are back home now. Now the not so fun part of vacation starts....unpacking, laundry, and back to normal life.

We did everything we planned on -- from surfing, snorkeling, shopping, hiking, swimming, playing, going to a lu'au to just relaxing. We don't have any regrets about missing anything. We were able to do a little bit of everything.

We will plan another Kauai trip. C promised us that. Aloha for now our beautiful island paradise. We'll return soon. Mahalo for the fabulous memories.

Our Last Day in Paradise

Our last day in Kauai was also my birthday.

We woke up to rain. This was the day we planned on snorkeling. I already told you how it all turned out in my last post. Now for some snorkeling pics. Not too many, sorry. It's hard to take pictures when in the water. We did buy a cheap waterproof film camera and will post those pics once we get the film developed.

The best place for kids and beginner snorkeling is Lydgate Beach Park in Wailua. It was perfect. This day was VERY WINDY, but we still saw lots of fish. We all loved it. I learned this was C's first time snorkeling too.

CK wanted to try out O's Lookie Board. She did snorkel and did great! I just don't have any pictures of that. Hopefully with the film water camera.

O on her Lookie Board. She had so much fun! Next trip she'll be snorkeling with her sister.

For my birthday dinner we went to a wonderful restaurant in Hanalei....Bar Acuda.

Bar Acuda is a tapas restaurant. (ta-pas [täpǝs] (n.) origin-Spanish. A variety of small savory dishes typically shared communally amongst friends.)

It was fabulous! Here are just a few of the dishes we had.

Honeycomb from the North Shore with Humbolt fog blue cheese, Mizuna greens and Fuji apple.

Banderillas - grilled flank steak skewers with honey and chipotlé chili oil

Grilled Mahi-Mahi with salsa verde

We also had:
Whole roasted tomato bruschetta with leeks, balsamic and grilled bread
Roast chicken breast salad with croutons, bacon lardons, and soft egg
House smoked trout salad with grapefruit, avocado, fresh horseradish and arugula
Roasted pork shoulder with potatoes

The view from our table.

Another view of Hanalei in the evening. (C took this image. Very nice.)

Singing Happy Birthday to Mommy back at the condo. Thank you for my wonderful birthday cake, Tiramisu Cake.

I had told C that the trip was my birthday gift. I didn't want him to buy anything else. This fabulous vacation with my family was all I needed (plus I bought myself enough things on the trip). The girls didn't understand this. O was very upset when they sat me down to sing Happy Birthday and she hadn't made me a card. I quickly got her a piece of paper and a pen. She made me a nice little card. I love it. Such a sweetheart.

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the beach on the other side.

I promised to tell you about the chickens and roosters on Kauai. Here is the story.

Chickens and roosters were brought to Kauai as domestic pets and also for cock fighting. In 1992, hurricane Iniki came through the islands. It was not supposed to hit Kaua'i, but at the last minute turned. The people on Kaua'i did not have time to pack up everything before the hurricane hit the island. The chickens and roosters then roamed free and multiplied. They have no natural predators on the island.

The chickens are the only ones who will eat the centipedes, so the locals love them. The chickens and roosters are everywhere. In yards, on the side of the road, at the beach, on the golf course....everywhere. We saw many hens with their chicks. The rooster was always close behind.

The roosters also don't seem to know they should only crow at daybreak. You will hear them all day long. It didn't bother us at all. We didn't hear them until we opened a window, so they never woke us.

These two images I just had to post. A little about each of the girls on our wonderful vacation.

CK is my little model. She always has the perfect pose. She is so photogenic.

She wanted to go snorkeling so badly. She practiced in the condo pool and was doing so well. When we woke up this morning to rain, she was so upset. As the locals say, wait 30 minutes and the weather will change. It did and we went. We are so proud of our CK. She did so great snorkeling today. She saw lots of fish and crabs and can't wait until our next trip to snorkel again.

We found O's curls! They were in Hawaii! All week she has had curls and waves around her face and at the ends . It has been so cute. I hate to go home. She'll loose them.

O is the one who makes us laugh. Our little sleeper who got tired every afternoon.

The first two days of rain here on Kauai O kept asking me, "Mommy, you said it was going to be sunny here! Where is the sun?" The sun did come out for us and it was wonderful. O so happy.

Since O doesn't swim she was nervous about snorkeling. I rented a lookie board (this link is to purchase the board. I rented it for $6.50/day) for her. Once she saw what the lookie board was she felt much better. She had so much fun today on her looking board. She was able to see lots of fish and crabs.

I will be posting some snorkel pics, but had to share these stories right now.

A Beautiful Day at the Beach

Monday was our day at the beach. We went to Hanalei Bay. C took a surfing lesson while the girls and I sat and enjoyed the sun and gorgeous views.

More beautiful birds....even on the beach.

Hanalei Bay

Our little beach girls playing in the water. Their favorite place to be.

Jumping waves

Watching daddy surf. "Go Daddy!"

His instructor was so impressed. He said he could have a new career.

His cheerleaders coming to greet him as he comes in.

Done for the day. He had a fantastic time and is now looking into doing it at home. I have a feeling we'll be bringing a board on the plane with us on our next trip to Hawaii.

The water looked too nice, I had to take a dip.

Easter Sunday in Kauai

As we were planning our trip to Kauai the girls were very worried the Easter Bunny would not find them. I reassured them he would....and he did! He brought them a beautiful Hawaiian lei each and a flower clip for their hair. He also brought a mini My Little Pony toy.

Another Easter tradition we have is an Easter egg hunt. Since we didn't have time to color eggs and I didn't have the plastic ones I hid the foam eggs the girls had made and they looked for those. They loved it.

Easter dinner was boneless leg of lamb, couscous and green beans - delicious! C did a fabulous job. Thanks honey!

We went to Easter Sunday mass at 9am at St. William Catholic Church in Hanalei. It was a wonderful community. The church was full and about 90% were visitors.

After dinner we went for a walk through Princeville. Here is a picture of the entrance into our condo community. Thank you so much L and M for letting us stay in your wonderful villa!
It's beautiful!

We walked through what we believe to be the Princeville neighborhood. I imagine these houses are locals or private vacation homes. They are absolutely beautiful. Each one different.

Sunset in Princeville! Easter doesn't get better than this!

Wailua, Hanalei, and Queens Bath

Saturday we did a little shopping on the East shore of the island. On our way back we stopped and had lunch in Wailua on the beach. It was finally a sunny day and was not raining. We made the most of it, not knowing what the weather would be on Sunday.

The water was muddy here, but still makes for a beautiful postcard image.

Making footprints in the sand.

Daddy trying to crack open a coconut we found on the beach. No luck.

We then drove to the North shore to Hanalei, did more shopping and had a sweet treat.

More birds and flowers.

Ching Young Shopping Center in Hanalei. I think this is my favorite little town on the island.
The scene was much different on Friday. No sun....pouring rain. What a difference a day makes.

Enjoying their shave ice. YUM

The river that irrigates the taro fields in Hanalei.

Hanalei Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

Our love of adventure and hiking brought us to Queens Bath in Princeville. The hike was challenging due to the mud (very slippery), but well worth the trip. We even saw about five sea turtles and a few crabs. This made the entire trip. Watching the sea turtles was such a treat!

Our little billy goats just hopped around the volcanic rock.

I put the images in a collage....too many to choose just a few.

Lu'au

We just could not go to Hawaii without attending a Lu'au.

Before dinner we walked around the beautiful grounds. There are so many flowers and birds on the island. Everything is so lush and green. We loved just walking around.

I don't know what kind of tree this was, but it was so different.

Like I said, chickens and roosters! They are everywhere. I did learn their story today. I'll share it in another post.

Around the grounds where the Lu'au was there was many peacocks. Lucky for us they were mating, or trying anyway. The "men" weren't having much luck.

The girls on a little bridge on the grounds.

The grounds where the Lu'au was. This is just a small part.

Digging out the pig.

Waiting for dinner.

and the show...

There was more to the show, but the girls were getting SO tired. O was just about asleep (it was about 8:30pm and she had been up since 5am!) and we thought we better leave. We are glad we did there was about 300 people attending the Lu'au. That would have taken so long to get out of there. It all worked out.

We had a great time. The girls want to learn how to hula now.