Hawaii, April 19, 2008

Today was the best day ever! First we took some pictures with the coconut palms so the boys could see just how tall they are. :-)

Clouds and more clouds...

Then we went down to a beach to do some snorkeling. I didn't think I would be able to put my face in the water and breath like that. Too claustrophobic for this girl. And, indeed the first time I put my face in the water I came flying back up after about one second. But I tried again. After a couple of steadying breaths I spotted a fish...and I was off :-) I chased fish all around that pool (we were in a rocked in kiddie area) and had a blast. Nate got a huge kick out of watching me too.

When we got tired of the area we were in we drove a little way and tried another beach. Truthfully I was rather panicky about stepping on something that would hurt as we made our way. Ok, a lot panicky. Call me a chicken, if you have too. I also got a little freaked out when we got out far enough (it was flat and calm for a fair way) to feel the waves. I am not a strong swimmer. It was fun seeing the fish (of course I can't remember their names at the moment) that had dug holes in the sand, like burrows. They would be hanging out near them and go darting in whenever we go too close.

Chickens :-)

We drove up north looking for a particular town and did not come across it. Apparently we missed a turn somewhere. We found a neat little resort kind of thing overlooking the most gorgeous bay. We decided to pull in and have lunch before heading back (we had to be at the airport at 4pm I think). We had a wonderful lunch. I think the view really added to the flavor. I swear I got several pictures but I didn't see them, so ???

We visited a little coffee shop/art gallery and found the inspiration for our little tenth anniversary/trip to Hawaii "memento" That is a story in itself which I am not going to post here. Partly because the only pics I have are of me and Nate wouldn't get his fair share of publicity. :-)



After our little detour we stopped at Hanalei valley lookout and took in the view for a while.

These are taro fields. We got the kids a book called Old Makana Had a Taro Farm. It's a song to the tune of Old McDonald and is full of Hawaiian names for animals and the planting and pulling of taro.

We had such a lovely relaxing day. I have firmly vowed if we ever get to make a trip like this again that we are not doing any shopping. Nobodies getting presents next time y'all. It took up way too much of our time. Next time I'm loungin' on the beach from sunup to sundown...:-)

We loaded up our stuff and dashed of to the airport in Lihue. There we proceeded to wait for hours and go through security umpteen times ect...We had a 'red eye' flight and got home Sunday morning. Here's my handsome honey in the (San Francisco???) airport after breakfast Sunday morning. (Oh, my memory is so terrible these days!! I'm not even old yet. I blame pregnancy for this problem...)

I was unbelievably happy to see my kiddos. I'm pretty sure they were even happier to see me. Playing with grandma nonstop for five days has it's ups but there's nothing like mama :-) :-) :-)

All in all it was a lovely trip. I'm glad we went. I hope we get to take the critters before too long.

Where to next? I'm still rooting for Liberia next spring...

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.

Hawaii, April 17, 2008

Thursday we decided to drive south in search of a particular store I wanted to visit. While we didn't find it, we did see a 3,000 acre (and growing) coffee plantation and visited it's gift shop. We also found another place we were in search of, the Red Dirt Shirt factory. During the hurricane (i wish i could remember the year) the Paradise Shirt factory was flooded and all their shirts were stained by the red clay. So the red dirt shirt was born as a way to save the company from the ruin of losing all their shirts. We were directed out the back door of the gift shop and across the alley. Past a truck and a gaggle of smoking employees, this is what we found...

The walls are covered in globs of dried mud and words scrawled in mud "ink". We guess the employees have fun slinging mud while they work. The place is about the width of a single car garage and about twice as deep.

I was pretty miserable as we were driving. Exhausted and my head hurt. We'd been pretty short-tempered with each other the day before. Grand for this wonderful trip we were on. Did I forget to mention that Hubby was miserable with stomach pain and upset on the plane? He was pretty much recovered by Wednesday. This day we had scheduled an inner tube ride. A large sugar plantation that is no longer in operation allows guided tours including a ride down the old irrigation ditches. We thought this sounded like a blast so we reserved a spot well before our trip. As we finished at the coffee plantation and headed back north for our tour I was feeling feverish and my stomach began to feel very uncomfortable. I kept telling myself it was nothing. I did NOT want to be sick.


Here is Hubby with his helmet and headlamp, and wetshirt he bought the night before...

Our lovely guide (in the middle looking this way).

We rode up in these Swiss army truck thingys. They were open on the sides and very loud. Our tour guide had a microphone set-up, but we could still barely hear her. The rest of the folks in our truck had come off a cruise ship and were all friends. They were a fun crowd. We got to hear lots of corny Hawaiian word jokes from our guide as well as lots of interesting stuff about Kauai's sugar history. Also I guess almost all the plants there are not native. Every culture that moved in brought some trees and stuff with them.

This light green stuff is a fern and one of the only natives. It has a very strong and extensive root system that holds together the crumbly volcanic rock of the hills and mountains. The olive green is berry bush. Some fellow thought he'd make great money growing these berries and selling jam and stuff. I don't know what became of his enterprise but the bushes that he planted have spread all over the island and are crowding out the native fern. Experts are guessing the fern will be completely gone in twenty to thirty years.

There is a mountain here that is constantly covered in cloud. It gets the most rainfall of anywhere in the states (?) Definitely don't quote me on any of my facts here!! I think it is the second wettest place in the world?? I don't remember.

Our kind driver offered to take our picture :) He was really nice. I felt bad for him standing behind the truck every time we stopped with his hand held out in front of him in case any of the ladies wanted a hand. He was completely ignored. So, even though I did not take his hand, I smiled and said thank you every time I stepped down from the truck.

Once again, all the pictures of our water-y ride are not on the computer. So you can't see them. Unless someday I take the time to go to my mom's house and scan them onto her computer, then copy them to a disc, then... Doubtful.

It was fun. Most of the ride was through long dark tunnels dug under mountains (thus the headlamps). The impressive thing is that all these miles and miles of ditches and tunnels were hand dug.

So here we are at a waterfall at the end of the tour having our lunch/dinner. I'm being silly cause I'm trying not to mind having my picture taken...

A hundred-or-so-year-old mango tree.

I was very glad to take a hot shower and tumble into bed as soon as we got back to our room. I definitely had a good fever going by then and my stomach hurt really bad. I felt like I was going to throw up, but never did. I called my mommy and she prayed for me. We stayed in bed all evening. Hubby watching tv and me curled into a ball trying not to cry. Eventually we both fell asleep. I slept really well and the one time I woke up in the middle of the night the fever was completely gone (Yay!).

Hawaii, April 16, 2008

In our little studio cottage. Where are we going today? Edit: This is the day we went kayaking way up this river and hiked a mile through the jungle to a waterfall. I don't have any of those pics on here because we only took the disposable camera. There is a really funny one of a sign that says "Danger! Falling Rock. Do not pass this point" Or something close to that. Past the sign are all the tour guides and other tourists. Pretty funny. As long as no one is killed by falling rocks. Did we stay behind the sign? :-) I'll give you one guess...lol

These little birds were quite common. We have pictures of them in the orchard too, but all of them are blurry like this one, and farther away.

Chickens are everywhere on Kauai. We found out the tour guides all have a standing joke... Please take some home with you! Lol. I guess the story of the chickens is there were some wild chickens descended from the original birds(moas, Hawaiian for chicken:) brought by the Polynesians. When Filipino folks came to Hawaii they brought their fighting chickens with them. A few years ago when a hurricane struck the islands everyone brought their best chickens inside and the rest got blown all over the island. Now there are lots of wild chickens everywhere. Since most folks can't tell the difference between a regular chicken and a moa all the chickens are protected. :)

So, we were all dressed up to go shopping and have dinner in Hanalei. We decided to have a nice walk on this beach before we went. We got all the way to the end of the beach ( a fair ways from where we took these pictures) and it started to pour! :-) First of all, we are native Oregonians, need I say more? Secondly, we both LOVE the rain. So we didn't mind getting soaked in the least. We had our waterproof camera bag with us, so both cameras were protected. We just went back to our room(about a 15 minute drive) and changed clothes before going on.

After shopping we looked for a place to eat dinner. We went in one neat looking place to find they only had sushi. Since neither of us really likes sushi this wasn't such a good thing lol. We retreated and kept searching. This is where we ended up.