Kauai Part 1

Just as a warning...the next several posts will be more for record keeping sake....lots of pictures and maybe some stories...

Andy and I had the amazing opportunity to go to Kauai for a few days.

It was a strange feeling to go away for pleasure with no kids in tow but we ended up getting used to it :)  We left Monday morning after we got the them all off to school.

One of the first things we had to get used to was open air buildings and birds everywhere.

This was at the Honolulu airport...

We arrived in Kauai in the evening and had just enough time to get our rental car, check into our hotel(open air and birds flying around in the lobby), buy a few groceries and find somewhere to eat.  We ended up at the Olympic Cafe (open air :) and thoroughly enjoyed it.  After picking up a few souvenirs at the ABC store across the street, we went back to the hotel and slept soundly.

View from our Hotel Room

The next morning, we were awakened by Andy's phone.  (His parents were watching the kids for us.) Ben had had seizures through the night and apparently the Diastat hadn't worked and they were wondering what to do.  We talked them through a few things until they felt confident with what to do next.  We couldn't fall back asleep so I got up and got ready while Andy went down to the beach to watch the sunrise.

He also took a few shots of the resort that we hadn't really seen the night before.

Our first scheduled activity of the trip was a helicopter ride.  I had heard it was the best way to see Kauai.  I was super excited for this and couldn't wait to see "the weeping wall" in the center of the island which is only accessible by air or foot (for the brave and adventurous)  I also heard the best way to do it was with the doors off :)

There were four of us on the flight besides the pilot.

The other couple, amazingly enough, were newlyweds from Utah.

I was in the front between Andy and the pilot and the other two were behind us.

It was a crazy feeling coming off the ground and for the first 10 minutes or so I enjoyed myself and tried to ignore the tiny feeling in my tummy that was telling me I was going to be sick.

I had given Andy a go-pro as an early birthday present before the trip so he could catch all the amazing stuff we were going to see.  As he's doing his job of getting lovely pictures, and I'm trying to talk myself out of being sick, I smell something unpleasant and realize that someone behind us has thrown up.  Because of my own issues, I didn't notice when it happened but Andy said it hit him in the back of the head and splattered on the windshield.  It wasn't long after that that I couldn't keep it together any longer.  Andy noticed and asked the pilot through the headsets if there was a bag available and he whipped one out just in time.  The rest of the time (the bulk of the flight) I spent losing my breakfast and squeezing my eyes shut.  Every 30 seconds or so I would take a quick peek to see what I was missing...

This is The Weeping Wall...because it hadn't rained super recently, it was a bit dry.  

It is considered one of the wettest spots on earth...just not that day :)...which makes it a bit easier to handle that I missed it.

I was so looking forward to landing and feeling well again.

So the smile in this picture is genuine.  My stomach was smiling too :)

We went through Jack Harter and they were great to work with.  They gave us free t-shirts at the end because we had been thrown up on.  I protested saying I hadn't been hit but they insisted.  We thought the other couple were the ones that deserved the free shirts.

This ended up being the highlight of the trip for Andy so I'm super glad we did it and spent the money although it didn't turn out to be as amazing as I had hoped for me.

We made it back to our hotel and went poolside to order lunch.

As we waited for our food I walked down to the beach and enjoyed a moment...

The second thing we were quickly becoming accustomed to was the sheer amount of chickens on the island!  They were absolutely everywhere...at the airport, on the beach, in the mountains, the rainforest...and even by the pools.

One of the major contributors to the wild chicken population is the hurricane in 1992 that destroyed coups and freed the domestic animals which added to the already large amount of fowl living on the island.

I caught this one mid...something...he was all fluffed up.

After lunch we headed out for our second adventure...ziplining!

I'd never done this before so it was a bit nerve wracking but they started us off easy on a low, short one and worked us up to what they call "King Kong".

There were 9 lines in all plus a suspension bridge.

By the end I was jumping off without hesitation.

Beautiful views throughout the course...

We were with a fun group of people from all over the country.

We also had really awesome guides that made it all the more enjoyable.

You could go tandem on King Kong so Andy and I recorded and snapped pics of each other as we zipped along.  (I won by the way :)

So exciting and such a thrill!  I would totally do it again!

We were very happy with Princeville Ranch Adventures and would definitely recommend them!

After ward, we were ready for dinner but also wanted to catch the sunset over the beach so we drove down to Hanalei and grabbed some food from Chicken in a Barrel and kept driving East to find a beach.  We stopped along the road somewhere and started hiking up until we realized we wouldn't get a good view so then we hiked down and found a lovely, empty beach.  Although the sun was already down, it was still gorgeous and we enjoyed some solitude.

Evidence of chickens on the beach...

We made it back up to the car before it got too dark and finished our food so we could go back to Hanalei and get a Shave (not shaved) Ice at Jo Jo's!

They do shave ices right in Hawaii...ice cream on the bottom and coconut cream on top!

We were sprinkled on for several minutes while we sat and enjoyed the atmosphere.  A very pleasant ending to a lovely first day in Kauai!