Hawaii, April 18, 2008

The Anniversary!! Happy tenth anniversary to us! :)
So, I woke up on this fine morning with no fever and feeling considerably better than the night before. I was still very wobbly though and my stomach was only feeling ok. So, I stayed in bed while Nate went out snorkeling and such (much to the horrified consternation of our kind hosts... it was raining. They almost didn't let him borrow their body board(?) because they couldn't imagine anyone swimming in the rain lol). I watched tv and slept. After a couple hours I felt a little hungry so I ate half an orange... and that's how the morning went.

We had bought tickets to a luau for tonight and I was a little worried about being up for a long evening. Especially a long evening filled with rich food. But I was determined to have fun :-)

This sign was right outside our door, it still makes me laugh.

On our way...

I was continually surprised by how much cloud cover Kauai had. I guess I shouldn't have been, you have to have clouds to have rain! I guess I was just thinking warm, and tropical. :-)

Sadly this is the only picture we have of this very cool mountain that we drove by nearly every day.

Here we are at the Smith Family Gardens.

The ever-present chickens. This time a mama and babies.

The gardens were full of birds. Swans, ducks, doves, peacocks (and hens), and you guessed it, chickens.

Here we are watching as the pig that has been cooking in the ground all day is uncovered.

Way cool tree...

Happily I was able to eat and enjoy some of the great feast. I was surprised (Nate wasn't)by the macaroni salad and other typically American potluck dishes that were there.

We sat between a large Mormon(?) family and a nice older couple who had been to Hawaii several times. We visited a little and had a nice time. Oh...they had everyone whose anniversary it was stand up for a song. That was fun.

After dinner we moved to an outdoor theater kind of thing for the show.

We enjoyed the fact that you didn't have to be a twig to be a dancer :-)

The show covered many of the cultures that are represented in Hawaii. They talked when different cultures each began showing up on the islands and what they brought with them. There were dances for each one.

Japanese

Filipino

Maori

Samoan

To name a few...

We had a lovely time :) My favorite part was the Samoan fire and knife dance. Woohoo!

On the drive "home" we stopped at little lookout spot because the view of the moon over the ocean was stunning! Even the lights of a cruise ship on the horizon were pretty. Happy anniversary!


A gecko outside our room.