I have to say vacations are ALWAYS good. This vacation however was very different in many ways. First, it was the first official vacation that just Fro and I have gone on since our Honeymoon. We have always gone with friends or family, or just a quick trip, but nothing for a full week with just the two of us and that was really fun.
I learned several things while on vacation and will share them......
1. My hair is
NATURALLY curly so in HAWAII a straightener is
POINTLESS!! I don't know why I tried, it always ended up poofy and curly by the second I walked out the door.
2.My kids don't miss us while we are gone!! I would call Ali to talk to her and on more than one occassion she said, "Mom can I call you back later!" she was having to much fun.
3. I get very SEA SICK!! I knew I get motion sickness, but not at the level I experienced Scuba diving!!(that story later!)
4. I am "NOT FUN TO TRAVEL WITH!" actually that is just when I am at the airport and worried if our bags are to big Not to check, and If our lotion will be confiscated, and if our seats are not togeather, and if ............. Fro had to help me just calm down!!
When you are in charge of planning all the details from the rental car, to the condo, to the adventures there is a little bit of pressure to make sure it was fun, and I am so glad that almost everything turned out PERFECT!!!
This is the Waimea Waterfall in kauai, and I wanted to note that all the pictures I have of this trip are a PURE miracle, because I dropped the camera in it!!! Yes, I got a new camera for mothers day, which was "going to be the last camera fro buys me" and what do i do--drop it in the greatest waterfall possible!!!
My history of Cameras goes back several years. I don't know what caused this great curse, but in all honesty it is. I have dropped, flung, dipped, 4 of my cameras in bodies of water, and 1 in sand over the past few years. It has become a "joke" that i ruin cameras. So for mothers day Fro bought me a new one because my current one has part of the lens I have to manually open. I was so excited until day 2 of our vacation we were taking pictures and I noticed a little trail we could follow down to the falls. I was wearing a bathing suit and flip flops. NO POCKETS!! the trail was a little slick because it just rained and very steep. So I slid it into the side of my boardshorts/swimsuit. As I was sliding down the side of this very steep and slippery hill-boom--out falls my brand new camera!! Down it falls, falls, falls. There was plenty of dirt and trees it could have fallen into, but no- being my camera it lands right into the Water!! luckily I was screaming at Fro who was further down to grab it, and before it went over, he grabbed it. Soaking wet and all!! So I had to hold it to the AC in the car for over an hour, but luckily we still had a camera for this vacation.- the zoom broke, but at least it still captured Kauai!!!
We stayed at an awesome resort in Kapaa called the Waipouli Beach Resort. We loved it from the second we got there. This was the view from our Lanai!!(that means balcony!) There were waterfalls throughout the pools, waterslides, and the pool wound through the whole complex, it was heavenly. The beach was just a short walk through the complex, and beautiful!!
Our first day there we of course were up early,(they are 4 hours behind Utah) so we headed out to watch the sun come up!! It was a great way to kick off our relaxing vacation.
this is a shot of the Wailua Falls, where the camera went in!!It is 173 feet and men have jumped the falls trying to prove their manhood! Most of them turned fatal, because of the rocks at the bottom- It was crazy to stand on the ledge and imagine jumping off that!!
On our second day after the waterfall(and dropping the camera) we went body surfing in Poipu at a beach called Brenneckes beach. It was a great body boarding site, but a little rocky for us. so then it was off to scuba diving. I was really excited for scuba diving. We are certified, but haven't gone since we went in '01. We were really rusty, but very excited.
Our guide Andrew ran us through the basics and we felt pretty good. As we headed out on the ocean we were all excited with anticipation. The group coming in before us had just seen sharks, and turtles, and eel, and all kinds of fish, so we were excited to see what we would run into. As the water got consistantly choppier, the boat was just rocking and rocking. They stopped the boat at one point and the guide dove in to check out the sight. As we sat there waiting for the go ahead, we just rocked and rocked. I was trying to not focus on the complete nausea that was setting in. They had us fully zip up our wet suits and the guy seeing I am so small (My height is deceiving) gave me a really small wet suit that fit very snuggly when zipped up. So as I am rocking and swaying and feeling very confined I wanted to Puke. I kept telling myself only a few more minutes. Well they couldn't get any fins to fit my feet. I do have small feet, but they didn't realize i was talking kid size, so they were taking their pretty time trying to fit them on my feet. I finally spoke up and told them I was getting so nauseous and they told me to get in the water.Feeling somewhat relieved in the water I realized I couldn't keep the fins on and they had to get me out and back on the boat. Finally they pushed some swim booties on my feet and shoved them into some fins to keep them on. by this point I am pretty sure my face was pure white because they decided to put me back in the water again. I layed splashing on my back trying to feel a little better when the guide decides he is going to have me put my gear on in the water!! Have you ever had to do that?? I am laying on my back floating trying to put a huge vest with my tank on and not puke on the guy. He was telling me to snap things, and velcro and I couldn't even figure out what he was talking about i just wanted to stop rocking. He looked at my face and said," You know you can puke in your regulator (mouthpiece) if you need to." I looked at him and just Puked everywhere. Luckily we were in the water but it wasn't pretty. He asked me if I was feeling better and i actually did.
It was scuba time. He told me to go meet him down at the 15 foot ball. The nervous ness started setting in. No one else was in the water and I had to go first under. He told me just to hold the rope and go down. Feeling nauseous again I started pulling myself under. I am trying and trying to descend and nothing. My guide grabs me and says,"You have to deflate your vest as you go so you will sink." I am feeling crappy, and stupid at this point. So i try again. This time I am descending and trying to regulate my nervous and nauseous breathing. I am slowly getting closer and closer to the ball. I keep plugging my nose to help clear my ears, and I feel like I am somewhat okay. I am hanging out at the ball as everyone else is slowly descending and my guide signals to me that I am ok. I signal Ok and look at Fro, instantly going to puke I signal I am going up.
I swim up to the top and just start puking and puking. I am holding onto this rope for dear life thinking that at any moment my guide will come up and check on me. After what felt like forever, I realize that he isn't coming up and i am getting tossed in and out of the water-puking!! I realize that I have to let the guys on the boat know I am out here in the water. I try to start swimming and all my gear is dragging my under, and my fins are so big I am barely moving. Finally this little guy on the boat sees me and tells the Boat captain I am in the water. He asks me what happened and I tell him I am so nauseous and I start puking some more. I am colliding into the boat and the waves are smashing the puke back into my face, over and over. I didn't realize that this entire time my vest was deflated and the captain thought I was crazy .He started yelling, "Inflate your vest!" I wasn't even thinking clearly to realize it wasn't inflated and that was why I was totally sinking. After I stopped puking for a little bit he told me to hold onto this rope. I didn't know why, and of course he explained, that if he let me on the boat I would get sicker, so it would be better to stay in the water. I asked how long they would be gone, and he told me about 30-40 minutes. I wanted to die right then. I kept puking and puking and when there was nothing left to puke, I was puking sea water. the captain felt so bad for me and asked if I wanted some sprite. So there I was bobbing around in the ocean with my can of sprite trying to drink it and not puke. finally after FOREVER- Fro surfaced because he ran out of air. I told him I had been puking the whole time and I was so sick. He stepped onto the boat and as it rocked and rocked he headed for the side of the boat and puked also. I wasn't feeling better by the time the headed out for the second dive, so this was a complete dissapointment to me. After getting off the boat, I didn't know if I would ever even want to go back in the ocean. It was a magical day at sea!!
I of course had to get a photo of my cute toes!!
The amazing thing about the beaches here are one day you could have crazy waves, the next it is still as can be. The trick is to follow the locals because they know when and where to go!! We finished to day off by heading to Tunnels beach it is a great snorkeling sight because it has a huge reef down the middle with tons of fish. So even though I didn't get to go Scuba diving I still got to see some amazing fish!
The next day we had a zip line down in Poipu scheduled so we decided to go down that way and try snorkeling again. Fro isn't a huge fan of snorkeling since he could Scuba so I went in by myself. As I swam around Poipu beach and looked at all the fish, out of no where there was suddenly over 100 fish encircling me. It was amazing, it was a little scary because they were a little aggressive and everywhere. I popped my head up to see this kid (which i met the day before body boarding) dropping some stuff into the water right by me. I asked him what he was doing and he said he had some fish food he was giving them. It was amazing because they were coming out all over. I then said, "Man if you could just find me some turtle food, I really want to see a turtle." He then told me that a couple minutes before they were swimming with a whole bunch over in Brenneke beach where we were the other day. I immediately jumped out of the water and ran to get Fro. We kept telling Ali that we would see turtles for her, and so far were not having any luck. So I ran over and told Fro and we (Mainly I) was sprinting over to the other beach. It was so exciting as I got there to see these Dark spots floating in the water. We were able to go right up to them. At one point Fro grabbed onto their huge shell and the turtle was pulling him through the water. It was so Awesome!! They were easily as big as Ali and they would come up stretch their necks out into the air and then float along and then drop back to the bottom again. Fro and I just followed them around forever. They would float in the waves and it was so fun watching them, it was for sure a huge highlight for the both of us!!
We were pretty excited after the turtle experience, but nothing could have prepared us for our amazing Zipline Experience. There were 4 other zip line companies in Kauai, and I had a hard time choosing. I knew I wanted to be in the jungle so it narrowed this down to the OUtfitters tour in Kauai- it was so much fun. You get to do 8 zips and then a private water hole at the very end that you can zip into and drop 20 feet above! so much fun!!
The ziplines were all different. One was shorter to get the hang of it,, the other you had to repell zip- so we were repelling down this waterfall- which the guy tricked me and flipped my cord and made me think I was stuck and told me I had to start climbing up- He and fro were having a great laugh at me!! It was in the most beautiful setting and everything was covered in lush green trees and I loved every minute of it.
There were suspension bridges we had to cross and the biggest zipline was a 1800 ft zip across this canyon and it was a side by side zip so Fro and I were able to race and it was so much fun.
After we did all the ziplines we were led down this little trail to this secluded swimming pond that had a waterfall running into it. At first Fro and I weren't to excited to do the swimming part, but after we jumped off the 18 ft. planks and swang off the tree zip we ended up loving this part almost the best. At the very end Fro and I were trying to have a competition to see who could swing ourselves the furthest. there is a Block that stops the zipline from swinging you out to far and we were going to see who could swing past that the furthest. Fro went out and went pretty far and then it was my turn. Everyone in our group was sitting there watching us. We had been talking about trying a back flip off of it, but the guy told us usually they ended up pretty badly- so no one had tried it. Well as I got up for my turn I was holding tight planning to just project my body out as far as I could. I waited a little to long, as I slammed into the block which caused me to do a gainer backflip, side twist flop!! Well that is what they told me it ended up being!!! I just remember nailing the block and flipping and smacking. I came up with a big headache, half my body numb, and everyone cheering and laughing. I guess it was awesome!!
Fro jumping off the 18 ft. ledge- He was the first to just drop it,and it was so fun!
Here we are after the fun zipline, and my awesome backflip twist!! I think it will go down as a legend flip- at least to our guides!!
The next day we decided to have another beach day and headed North again. I really wanted to go to this Lava pool called the QUEENS BATH. It is in a pretty ritzy part of Kauai called Princeville. You find it in a little neighborhood. There was the most amazing path down to it and it was so fun to see all the trees, and waterfalls that lead down to the lava pools.
this was the path we followed. It wasn't very long, but was really beautiful, and you wouldn't ever know it was there if it wasn't in our tour book- it was cool.
Once we got to where the water was we weren't sure what to do. The area we thought was the lava pools had water rushing in and looked a little unsafe. We then realized you had to keep going around all these black lava rocks to the actuall pool. There were a lot of people there when we first got there, but once we got there everyone left and so of course Fro made himself right at home!!!- No swimsuit!!!that is his little white butt!!
One of the most amazing things about the Island is it is so diverse and has so many different elements. It was really cool swimming in the lava pool, and Fro was so glad he could say he was naked in the Queens bath!! or swam naked with the Queen. or took a bath naked with the Queen- He is so nuts!! luckily he did get his shorts back on before the other tourists rounded the corner of rocks!!
Our last day in Kauai was on sunday. We had all day because our flight didn't leave until 8:40. We decided we wanted to go see what most people come to Kauai to see which is the Napali Coast and the Waimea Canyon. Both Amazing.
The Napali coast and Waimea canyon are on the far West side of the Island. The only real way to see the Napali coast is by helicopter,but we definately will add that to our must do next time we come her list!! As we approached the canyon I noticed in our tour book that it read "Check your gas guage before entering the canyon"! I laughed at that and told fro. He looked and said, "Yeah we are good we have a quarter of a tank left." so onward we went. As the canyon wound up and up and seemed pretty long, I started to worry about our actual gas. The light popped on shortly after entering the canyon. So instead of enjoying the beautiful canyon, I was focused on our ability to coast back down. The canyon said it was only 18 miles long, but it sure seemed a lot longer!! We reached the top and overlooked the most beautiful coastline of green trees possible. It was beautiful!!!
On the inner side or opposite of the Napali coast was the Waimae canyon. It is called the GRAND CANYON of Hawaii. It was also so amazing. The funniest thing was as we were standing there looking at how amazing it was Fro "jokingly" said out loud ,"it doesn't even look like the Grand Canyon!!" TWO ladies next to us turned and were all defensive saying how at a different location it is better and on and on and Fro had to tell her he was just jokeing. It was so funny because they didn't get it!! After we finished seeing the canyons we headed back with the gas light BLAZING at me. I tried not to act nervous, but fro pretended we were out, and was teasing me- in actuality I am pretty sure he HAD to coast in neutral the entire way down the canyon because we would have run out!! Luckily we made it to the gas station!!
We had such a great time, and can't wait to go back but maybe next time to let our kids come and see what amazing things there are to see in Kauai. We loved celebrating our 10 years together and are amazed that we have been lucky to have each other for 10 years and counting!!
There is No better way to celebrate a anniversary-especially a 10 year anniversary than spending it with the man you love in HAWAII- KAUAI to be exact!!
