A Hui Hou

(A Hui Hou means Until We Meet Again or something to that effect)

Well it's been just over a week now since we returned home from our fabulous Hawaiian getaway with our dear friends the Mayers. This week has gone by terribly quickly and I'm having that surreal "was I seriously on vacation in Hawaii last week???" feeling. Sometimes it's just hard to believe that it happened. Enumclaw is definitely a bit beyond just a hop skip and a jump away from Hawaii... in more ways than one.

Steven and I believe we may have discovered why everyone is so enchanted with those gorgeous Hawaiian islands. Our trip was fun and relaxing and comfortable and entertaining and unique and just everything that we wanted it to be.

I'm having a hard time deciding just how much detail to include in this post. Let's face it, I'm pretty sure that the post I put up after my 48 hours in Paris a couple of years ago took people at least 20 minutes to read, so this post, covering an entire week in Hawaii with the man of my dreams and two great friends, could just turn into a novel! I'll do my best :)

Here are two things I can say about Kauai: 1) It's beautiful. 2) there are chickens everywhere. And I mean everywhere. It definitely took some getting used to, in fact, I'm not sure that I ever really got used to it. There would be chickens walking around between people's towels on the beach and wandering all about the resort and roosters were crowing at 6 o'clock in the morning -- roosters! Waking people up at 6 in the morning. In Hawaii. Just doesn't seem right does it? That's because it isn't but it was funny and just sort of turned into this big joke: "Oh my gosh! I just saw a chicken!!" Like it's some cool, special, Hawaiian bird or something that we were so privileged to catch a glimpse of.

Day one (mostly a travel day) consisted of free mai tais on the plane, a crazy thunderstorm (must have been our "welcome" greeting), Costco pizza for lunch/dinner, a walk to the beach (sea turtles!!), and a few group games until I just could not keep my eyes open any longer -- I'd guess this was probably somewhere around 9pm... maybe earlier. This was one trip where I felt that the time change really worked in our favor. We fell asleep at a decent hour and woke up rather early so we really maximized the daylight hours.

The first morning Steven and I were both awake sometime between 4:45 and 5:15 so Steven suggested a walk down to the beach to see the sunrise. What a perfectly romantic thing to do to kick off our first full day in Hawaii! It was beautiful and warm and peaceful and I loved it. I had a little trouble deciding which of the 85 photos from that walk to show you but Steven and I both really like this one.

It was really nice to be down on the beach before anyone else catching those first few rays of sunshine. We took our time walking back up to the room for our first of many Costco provided meals. We had been told that it's way cheaper to buy food at Costco since everything in Hawaii is more expensive... so this was pretty much the menu for the week:

Breakfast: yogurt, eggs, dry toast (didn't buy any butter or anything), pineapple, and/or grapefruit.

Lunch: turkey and cheese sandwiches with BBQ sauce and chips and salsa.

Dinner: BBQ chicken, roasted potatoes or tortellini, salad with strawberries and broccoli.

Needless to say... Steven and I won't be having barbecued chicken for a while. We didn't buy any dessert (well, actually, I caved one night and bought a box of brownie mix) but we made up for it with fun alcoholic beverages including margaritas and sangria.


Hot! It's a good look for us, don't you think? There were definitely plenty of snorkeling opportunities. Steven and I didn't do nearly as much of it as Chad and Whit but we got our fill. There's a lot to see down there but occasionally there were enough waves that the visibility just wasn't all that good. One time it was so shallow that I had to swim really awkwardly to keep from scraping my knees on the rocks we were swimming over. I took one look at the sea urchins living on those sharp rocks and decided I was done with the snorkel experience for the day.

Sunday, our first full day on the island, was pretty eventful. We saw a Hawaiian Monk Seal sunning itself on our beach, an older gentleman died of a heart attack (at least that's our assumption) on the beach right in front of where we were sunning ourselves (if it's your time to go I guess you might as well be chilling out on the beach in Hawaii, right?), we snorkeled at Po'ipu Beach (where we were staying), visited the Spouting Horn (photos on facebook -- basically this big hole in the rocks that water sprays through when the waves come rushing in from underneath), snorkeled at a beach near the Prince Kuhio Resort, played a game of Euchre in the shade of the palm trees (Chad and I won), discovered I had burnt the backs of my legs pretty badly, and enjoyed some "couples time" after games and margaritas (late night walk on the beach, hot tub for us and hammock by the lagoon for C&W).

Monday began with texts and phone calls from a few different friends at the fire department. Their good news (that Steven starts work as a fire fighter on July 2nd!!) definitely kicked our vacation enthusiasm up a notch.

We headed out to Salt Pond Beach where I was very careful to keep the backs of my legs turned away from the sun. It was a relaxing way to spend the morning... at least until we played a game of 500 and Chad and I got our butts kicked. I don't think we actually finished that game. We were losing so terribly we just kind of let it end when the wind began to blow all of our cards away. Then it was time for another dash out to Costco (we needed a few extras and wanted to pick up a bottle of Bailey's to celebrate Steven's new job) and then dinner on the patio.

How sweet! Seriously though, isn't that dinner just beautiful? It was yummy too. After dinner we took our Bailey's (in some very tall glasses) down to the hot tub but our sun burns hurt so bad that we didn't last long and ended up relocating to the swimming pool. Incredibly fun. Lots of silliness.

Ready to go! Tuesday morning we were off to spend the day up on the North Shore. The silly thing about Kauai is that even though it's a rather small island, the speed limit is 25 mph pretty much everywhere so it takes ages to get from one end to the other. Making the 25 or 30 mile trip up to Princeville really did require an entire day. We went to the very end of the road and ended at Ke'e Beach.

There were chickens everywhere and the beach wasn't very good but the snorkeling was choice. The area we were in was calm so the visibility was great. There are so many different kinds of fish! It's weird to put the mask on and see all of those crazy little animals that are just swimming around with you. They really don't make much of an effort to move away from you. Whitney even saw a little blue octopus! After at least an hour of snorkeling it was back in the car and off to Ha'ena Beach.

Steven and I chose not to snorkel here (the water was a bit too rough and we were feeling a little tired anyway) but Steven did find time to make his first attempt at getting a coconut out of the trees. It wasn't exactly successful (the next one was though).

This beach was beautiful but not because of the ocean view. This was one of the times where I felt like I should be facing the island instead of the ocean. It was very "Jurassic Park" and just amazing to look at. Every few minutes there was a helicopter tour going by -- I bet that would be absolutely incredible. We'll have to try it sometime. Steven and I also spent probably twenty minutes sitting on the sand watching a little crab dig a hole for himself. He would crawl back down into his hole, scuttle out with one of his claws full of sand and fling it out of the opening. It was oddly entertaining. Whitney and I also ventured into the Maniniholo Dry Cave. Very cool.

Next stop: Hanalei Bay to find a taco truck! Pat's Taqueria was listed as one of Hawaii's best kept secrets so of course we had to go looking for it. We all had burritos and they were super yummy. Totally hit the spot.

(across from Anini Beach)

The Coconut Hunt Take 2! This was absolutely hilarious to watch. I have a whole series of photos that catches a huge array of facial expressions (some of Chad's are rather painful) and Whitney trying to catch the coconut and everyone trying to drink out of the coconut that fell and cracked open and it was just ridiculously good fun.

We made one last stop before heading back to our hotel: The Kilauea Lighthouse. What a great view! Whitney has some fab photos from this spot on facebook. I was a bit jealous of how nicely hers turned out :)

Games, Tangled (the DVD), dinner, hot tub, a few rounds of 500 and off to bed! Oh yeah, I think this was the night the boys severely burned our chicken. I mean, I doused mine in BBQ sauce and could still taste the charred blackness of it. We learned that lesson real quick and decided not to let the boys take board games down to the grilling area again. Boys just aren't the best multi-taskers.

Wednesday -- another morning spent in the car. We drove along the Waimea Canyon and stopped at various lookouts for some awesome views.

(Have I mentioned yet that my camera doesn't seem to be able to remember things being quite as beautiful as I remember them? It's still a cool picture anyhow.) We think we may have missed out on the most awesome view though. When we got to the top (4,000 feet above the ocean) everything was pretty cloudy. Occasionally the clouds would blow away a bit and we could see some of the mountains but not much. At the Kalalau lookout on our way back down we got a quick peek out over the Honopu Valley -- we had no idea we were on the Napali Coast! (more Napali Coast photos later -- incredible. You need to see it in real life to experience the grandeur of it.)

The afternoon was spent at Shipwreck Beach. I think this was my favorite beach experience. We spent a couple of hours just playing in the waves. I don't know why but I just thought this was the funnest! We were all out there trying to stay upright as the waves tried to pull us out and then violently push us back in. We managed to stay on our feet for the most part. I fell over a couple of times and my suit was so full of sand... it was gross. I cannot tell you how much I appreciated my shower after this beach. I felt so clean and pretty! Probably because all that sand and salt had done a nice exfoliation job on my skin :)

Chicken dinner, Rummikub, Betrayal at House on the Hill (I won on the very last roll of them game!!), Rush Hour 2 and then to bed.

Thursday was all about relaxing. Steven and I stayed in bed until 8:30 and then had a nice slow morning. Breakfast, showers, walk on the beach, Bananagrams, Blokus Duo, Quarto... it was so nice to just hang out with my husband :) We did lunch with Chad and Whitney and then sort of split off again for the afternoon. Steven and I chilled out on the beach and at the pool -- I was really loving all of the sounds: birds chirping, the wind rustling through the palm trees, kids laughing, waves splashing... so peaceful and happy. Then we got cleaned up (again, man, we took like 4 showers a day on this trip) and went out on a date!

This is another one of my favorite moments from the trip. Steven and I walked across the street to Keoki's Paradise for Happy Hour. We shared nachos and a mai tai and talked about all of our favorite parts of our vacation and it was just fabulous.

Back to the hotel, games, Hitch, dinner, sunset walk with my husband, and then a trip to Lappert's ice cream store!! The ice cream in the ad looked amazing and I could tell they had some really nice stuff there but Steven and I were so full from happy hour and dinner that all we could manage was a small scoop of coconut/passion fruit sorbet between the two of us. Still yummy though.

(margaritas and Cargo Noir before bed)

Friday (hang in there! This is the last day!!) Steven and I were up pretty early so we went down to the hot tub at 7am. With a start like that, we couldn't help but have a relaxing morning. We played Phase 10 and laid around the pool until lunch time. We were all getting a little impatient because we had booked a dinner cruise for Friday afternoon/evening and it seemed as if the whole day was just spent waiting to go on the cruise.

The cruise was amazing!!! We traveled 70 miles round trip -- up to the Napali Coast and back. And I took over 300 photos in the process. My poor camera probably won't ever take clear photos again after all of the salt water spray I subjected it to. I'm really needing one of those new-fangled water-proof, dust-proof cameras that Costco is selling right now. My camera has been a trooper but it might be time to upgrade to something that takes clearer photos in the near future.

Look at these crazy mountains though! Aren't they incredible! I just can't get over it. It looks like we photo-shopped ourselves into these photos because the backdrops just seem unreal. We saw sea turtles and flying fish (hard to see these guys, they're quick) and sea caves and people camping on the beach and crazy jagged mountains and a t-rex and hanging valleys and perfectly clear blue water and... Okay, just kidding about the dino but it was so Jurassic Park (for real since they filmed it there) and it was amazing. We didn't come across any dolphins but that's okay. I'm pretty sure none of us were disappointed with this cruise. We saw some amazing views that we couldn't possibly have seen on any of our drives.

The only suggestion I would have for anyone planning to take this cruise is maybe don't take full advantage of the alcohol and food that are included... or at least take some Dramamine beforehand. I don't usually have any sea-sickness issues but we had had a few mai tais and I tried to drink a glass of wine (most of it splashed ALL OVER me -- have you ever had white wine in your eye? It feels really weird. Kind of stingy) and then Steven said that he was feeling sick, and then he was sick. And just like that, I thought "Oh my goodness! Do I feel seasick? I think I might be sick too!" Oh man! I was so annoyed because it was totally a brain thing but once I got it in my head I couldn't get it out. So then we thought we were feeling okay so when they brought dinner out I had some of the rice and veggies and a few bites of the roll and a little while later Steven got sick again! And I spent the rest of the ride in a seat at the back facing forward into the fresh air with my eyes closed. Someone put a cold wet towel across my neck at some point in time and handed Steven a little bucket but I was determined not to use it. I was finally able to stand up again when the boat stopped to turn around and watch the sunset. I was definitely very happy to be back on solid ground but would also definitely do that cruise again in the future. Except with dramamine onhand, and maybe no food/drink consumption (unlimited alcohol and food should not be combined with big bouncy waves), and definitely with more bobbie-pins/ponytail holders -- my hair was everywhere! I look pretty unkempt in some of the photos.

We were very tired that night and pretty much just fell into bed.

Saturday morning we were packed and out the door by 8:15am. We made a quick stop at Subway to grab lunch for the plane ride (and a chocolate milk -- who needs Starbucks when you have chocolate milk?) and that was that. We played cards most of the plane ride home, which made the time go by SO much faster, and we were greeted by some wonderful Seattle sunshine. The sunset that night was even prettier than the ones I saw in Hawaii. Honest. It's always so good to come home :)

Phew! Mahalo for sticking it out. I know this post was super long but you have to realize, you're basically reading the public version of my journal and I'm a detail person, so there you go. Basically, Steven and I can't wait to get back to Hawaii and in the meantime it looks like I have a few photos to scrapbook!

Aloha!