Kauai

  10 years ago...

While on a cruise with our friends we made a promise that we would go to Hawaii together.  

So, here we are.  10 years later in Kauai with the Fairbanks!

{April 2015}

We started out our adventure by driving to the west side to a beautiful white sand beach.  The boys went "snorkeling" in tsunami waves.  We lost some gear and Ryan was injured.  We can laugh about it now.  We stopped for some fish tacos and tried milky apples for the first time.  This lady was nice to introduce it and share with us.

 

The boys shared a fresh coconut

and some coconut shrimp.

We stopped at the trading post which is where we did all our souvenir shopping.

We saw Spouting Horn.

Eating lunch at The Beach House.

We ate well and way too much the entire trip.  

Our first hike was a short and BEAUTIFUL hike to this awesome waterfall.

Ryan and I discovered Puka-Dog last time we were here so we had to try it again.

We hit this shaved ice shop 3 times.  

YUM!  

It melts in your mouth and has ice cream in the middle with a million delicious flavors to choose from.

Our favorite hike was the Napali Coast.  This North shore hike is spectacular.  We started hiking around 9:30 and finished around 3:30.  It was a pretty intense hike.  We all said we were glad we did it but would never do it again.

2 miles into the hike we came to this beach.  We each built our own cairn.   It was quite a site.

View from the cave

 

Another 2 miles up we found this amazing water fall.  The boys swam out to it.  

It was breathtaking.

At the end of our hike.

8 miles total.

Our legs were JELLO! 

 We stopped at Bubba's Burgers after and devoured our lunch.

 After soaking in the hot tub and a long shower we went out to a fancy dinner at Keoki's.

We rented tandem bikes and cruised the board walk.

We found this hidden path and rode down. 

I screamed the whole way.

We grabbed lunch at Paco's Tacos that is owned by local members of the church.

We went paddle boarding down Waimea river.

Kim fell in and screamed bloody murder.  

She was a good sport!

Ryan and Jon took a day and went golfing.  

This has always been on Ryan's bucket list.

 

While they went golfing we headed to the beach to relax.  

We read and then ate a fun lunch at Brenneckes with a view of the ocean.

Our last day together we rented boogie boards and hit the beach.  It was so crowded we were surfing over and under people.  We even surfed with some sea turtles.

 4 1/2 hours later we were the very last ones to leave. 

There were some injuries.....

It was probably our favorite activity!

Ryan and Jon were the last ones to get out.

We went out to pizza for dinner but headed back to Keokis 

and got this awesome macadamia ice cream dessert.

 This was the deck off our condo.

We stayed in Poipu beach at this great resort. 

Below is the adult only hot tub that we used almost daily.

We ate breakfast every morning on this deck and played cards out here every night.

 

We drove through this tree tunnel a ton driving back and forth on the island.  I loved it!

Saying goodbye to our awesome friends at the airport.

The girls made little notes and hid them in my suitcase with treats.

How sweet is that?!

After we left Jon and Kim at the airport, Ryan and I had the whole day to ourselves.

We hiked to the top of this famous cliff that is in a lot of movies.

  

We "toured" the resort next door.

We hiked a beautiful hidden hike. 

It was so great to get away with friends and are so grateful for my parents who watched the kids so this could happen.