Kauai-Day One & Two

Allen and I were able to take an awesome trip together to Kauai, Hawaii. This was our first big trip without the kids. We were so blessed to have my Mom and Dad and my Sister and Brother in law that watched the kids for us. We had planned this trip for a year and we were so excited! We went with our good friends Devin and Ariane (it was a surprise for her Birthday, nice job Devin!), we all had such a great time.

Thanks to some GREAT neighbors that upgraded our tickets with their frequent flier miles, Allen and I were able to fly first class the whole way there and back!! Yes, it is the way to go! We laughed at ourselves because we were so excited for the 7 hour flight, and we were not disappointed. White linen napkins and tablecloths, glass dishes, drinks, drinks, and more drinks, warm nuts in a glass bowl, free meals (good ones!), warm towels, big seats, movies, nice stewardesses, and my personal favorite-warm cookies with milk!

The afternoon we arrived we hit up Costco for some yummy food for the Condo, got settled, tried to adjust to the 4 hour time difference, and went to dinner.

The second day we woke up early, thanks to the 4 hour time difference :), and headed out to see some sights! This is "Spouting Horn".

I thought it was so funny that there are chickens running around everywhere. They are protected, so you're not supposed to bother them (even though Devin really wanted to :)), not really the tropical birds I thought I would see in Hawaii!

We went snorkeling on a fun little beach, ..........

had lunch, went on a helicopter ride (more to come on that later!), and hiked to this beautiful water fall. It wasn't necessarily a legal hike down, but it was awesome!

Allen and Devin hiking further into the falls.

It was a very fun and adventurous hike.

Helicopter Ride

We had heard that the only way to see the whole island was a helicopter ride. We decided to just spend the money and do it. It is worth EVERY penny!

Devin and Ariane

Our cool pilot Captin Kurt, well his arm.

There is a glare in a lot of the pictures from the glass, but still pretty. This is the "Tunnel of Trees" road.

Lots of water falls.

Waimea Canyon

The Napali Coast

In the heart of the Island is the wettest place on earth. Receiving over 400 inches of rain every year!

Kauai-Day Three

We woke up to rain and decided to take the drive up Waimea Canyon.

Then we drove 3 miles on a BUMPY dirt road to get to a "hidden beach" called Queens Pond. It started raining again as we started the drive, but we decided we were going to make it to the end. Thank goodness it was a rental car!

We made it to the end of the road where you have to walk down to the beach. It was really raining hard, but we had come all this way and we were in Hawaii and we were going to see it. So we ran out into the rain and saw the most beautiful beach I have ever seen! We played in the ocean and walked along the beach, all in the pouring rain.

This is our only picture because we couldn't take our cameras out in the rain! This was taken as we were deciding to run out. It ended up being so much fun to play on the beach in the rain!

We loved the beach so much we decided to make the trip back on a sunny day later in the week.

After we got back to the condo we decided to go check out the pool at the super nice Hyatt next door. You are only technically allowed to swim in the pool if you are actually staying at the super nice Hyatt. But seriously, how would they ever know we were not staying there........well, we only lasted about 15 minutes before "Mr. Security" came over with his flashlight asking us if we were in fact staying at the super nice Hyatt! Apparently they give out brown and white striped towels to people staying there and you use them at the pool. No brown and white striped towel is apparently a BIG red flag! Allen told him a phony name and room number and while he stepped away to look us up we quickly gathered our things and made our get away!! Oh, memories! We laughed about that one all week!

Kauai-Day Four and Five

We rented boogie boards and headed to another beach. The waves weren't very good, but it was very pretty.

Day five we headed North and Allen and Devin took a Surfing class from the "super cool" (complete beach bum), Justin!

They had a lot of fun and picked it up really quickly. Ariane and I enjoyed laying on the beach and reading!

The classic surfing picture!

"Super cool" Justin!

Then we hiked to a big cave. It was dark and the water inside was very cold, but we decided to go for a swim. We tried taking pictures inside, but it was just dark. It was really fun!

Then we went to another beach, snorkeled, and relaxed.

On our drive back we caught this beautiful sunset.