Kauai - Our Vacation - October 2008

We are so lucky to have my parents within 3 hours driving distance from our home. Brian and I like to take a vacation each year, without the kids, and my mom is nice enough to volunteer to watch our kids while we are gone. This year we went to Kauai (for the 2nd time). We love Kauai and had enough frequent flier miles to get us there for free!! My mom watched the kids for the 6 days we were gone. Thank you mom for being so generous with your time and so loving to our kids!!

KAUAI

We love Kauai, especially the North Shore. On the North Shore there aren't crowds of people and there are so many gorgeous beaches. Several times we found beaches where we were the only ones around!! Very cool! The North Shore gets more rain which means lots of lush jungle and beautiful rainbows.

The road below takes you all the way to the Kalalua trail. It dead ends and is the furthest you can drive north on the island. It's a beautiful drive that takes you across many small bridges, through the quaint town of Hanalei and Haena. It's also the road that takes you to Tunnels or Ke'e beach for great snorkeling. This is what greeted us on our first morning, driving to the Kalalau trail:


Hiking Kalalua Trail. It takes about 2 hours to get to the beach and then you can hike for miles and miles....but our goal was just the beach.

This is a view of Ke'e beach, the beach right next to the trailhead. We ended up snorkeling at Ke'e after our hike and saw a lot of beautiful fish.

This is a view of the mountains around Hanalei Bay. We spent some time at Hanalei Bay every day, either surfing, swimming or jogging along the shore.

Kauai - Views from our Condo

We stayed in this condo complex last time we were in Kauai (which was about 3 years ago and we went with Ann & Jesse). We stayed in a different unit, but still owned by the same owner. The condo was on the 3rd (top) floor with amazing views. It's located in Princeville, on the North Shore of Kauai.

View from the patio, living room and two bedrooms:

Our patio. We spent every night here watching the sunset and enjoying our quiet "kid free" time together.
Summer loves birds so I had to take this picture:

My handsome husband enjoying the beautiful sunset.

Kauai - Our Favorite Spot

Brian and I have decided this is our most favorite spot on the island and one of our favorites in the world. This is right below our condo and there are two steep paths leading down to the water. There isn't a sandy beach, it's all volcano rock. There's alot of places to explore, lots of little waterfalls and, when the water is high enough, you can jump in and snorkel/swim with turtles.

This is the view from our favorite spot:

Brian relaxing on our volcano seat.
Trying to get a shot of the two of us w/the timer. Wasn't quite fast enough...

Me and my best friend and love of my life.

Kauai - Surfing in Hanalei Bay

Brian loves to surf. He rented a board for a few days and we spent alot of enjoyable time driving to the different beaches in the area to find some good surfing waves. He finally did find some further out, by the Princeville Hotel but he had to paddle out really far to get to them so I don't have any pictures. Below are pictures of Brian surfing baby waves in Hanalei Bay

I have these a little out of sequence but close enough.

We checked out a place a few miles East, called Rock Quarry beach. The place that rented the board mentioned it might have good waves (due to the east swell that day). I started reading in our guidebook about the beach (I'm always up for discovering a new beach) and as I was reading it mentioned that "sharks, which like murky water, have been sighted here during periods of heavy stream flow.....so stay away from the river mouth." Uh...okay...how about stay out of the water???!! Fortunately the waves were blown out so we didn't stay long....whew!

Kauai - snorkeling

I love to snorkel in Kauai, even the thought sharks doesn't deter me. This trip we snorkelled at Ke'e Beach, Tunnels Beach and Hideaways Beach. You can park right at Ke'e Beach so it's easy to get to but is my least favorite of the 3. There's not a lot of parking at Tunnels but we are early birds so never had a problem. Hideaways Beach was in princeville so extremely close to our condo. This is me at Tunnels Beach.

An area we thought might have some good snorkeling, but not as good as other areas so we moved on.

This is Hidewaways beach. It is a 10 minute hike down a steep path and worth every second. The views are amazing. The water is so clear you can see the fish before you even have your snorkel gear on. It was pure heaven here!

Another picture of the walk down to Hideaways beach.

Kauai - waterfall

It's impossible not to visit at least one of the waterfalls on Kauai. We had a great time hiking through this area to check out the falls. The mesquitos seem to love feasting on me so we didn't stay long.

Nice Views (of Brian and the waterfall).
This was the smaller fall but we couldn't hike to the larger one due to the mesquitos.

Nice little walk along the river.

Kauai - South Shore

On our last day we headed to the South Shore because we had to catch a late flight and thought it would be a good idea to be close to the airport. The South Shore of Hawaii is alot dryer than the north shore...and has it's own beauty although we still prefer the North Shore.



We went to Poipu Beach and Shipwreck Beach. Poipu is really calm and Shipwreck is known for good bodysurfing (so too rough for me but Brian had a blast)!

We LOVE Kauai....the rainbows, clear water, and even the roosters! Can't wait to return!

More Misc. Pictures - September 2008

Costco Run! Playing together nicely....

Both are content with the toys their playing with so peace and quiet is in the house....for now.

Miscellaneous Pictures - September 2008

Summer and Ben opening presents from Aunt Carol. Also, a picture of Summer with her new buddies she received for her birthday. For some reason she LOVES birds....and Elmo.

Yummy sucker! There goes Summer running after Ben...

....probably because he is on her tricycle.

Summer's Family Bday Party - Sept. 2008

We celebrated Summer's birthday twice, so that Brian could join us. The week before her birthday we had a party for her at the park with friends, in the afternoon. On her actual birthday, September 6th, we had our little family party.

Summer loved her little cake and had fun with the birthday hats.

Time to open presents.....serious business!

Baking - September 2008

Ben loves to help me bake. Today we are baking Summer's birthday cake for a little family birthday celebration.

I saved plenty of mix at the end so Ben could lick to his hearts content. Basically he likes to help me bake because he loves to eat the batter.

Mischief

I decided to take a quick shower while Summer was busy playing with her dollhouse. I swear, I was in the shower 5 minute max. When I got out I heard a strange noise, like something dropping into a jar. The picture above is what I found. Summer got into my baking drawer and dumped out my cornmeal, all of my peppercorn, all of my chocolate chips (the costco size bag) and some odds and ends. The scary thing is that I also found an empty bottle of almond extract. I hardly ever use almond extract so it should have been close to full. Not sure where the contents went.....

Saturday Morning - September 2008

I love this picture of Summer! She's just enjoying her morning, watching cartoons, playing with her baby doll and reading books. Her dimples are so cute!

Summer's Birthday - Part 2 - September 2008

More pictures from Summer's Birthday Party:

Here's part of the crew she hangs out with.
One satisfied birthday girl. She definitely got her fill of chocolate cake!

Ben loves playing on the monkey bars.

Yeah! What a great birthday!

Happy 2nd Birthday Summer!!! - September 2008

I can't believe Summer is already two years old...where does the time go? We celebrated her birthday at the park near our house.

Summer is known for forraging off the table ....whatever anyone leaves unattended is fair game for her. Who knows who/how many juice boxes she has polished off! I predict a full diaper by the end of this party.

Summer and I are disucssing the various options for candle placement on the cake.

Butterfly cake made by Summer's Mom.....


Blowing out the candles is serious business!