Aloha!

On the plane, ready to go.  We got off to a little bit of a bumpy start - our plane was about to take off when it experienced some technical difficulties, but after a brief check, we were on our way!

We got to our hotel pretty late at night, so it was nice to wake up to this beautiful pool and our little beach.

It was maybe a little less nice waking up to the rooster on our front porch, but the boys were pretty excited about all the roosters and chickens that run around wild on the island.  We had a ground-floor, garden-view room, which the hotel was a little apologetic about, but we actually ended up being quite happy with that arrangement.  We could head out for the day right from this porch, and put all our sandy gear there at the end of the day.  I guess we are a cheap vacation date.

Patrick and I got a couple of nice days off to ourselves while the boys stayed at the Marriot Kid's Club, which they loved.  A lot of Kauai's most beautiful waterfalls have been blocked off to public access, but there are still a lot of amazing ones to be found.

The Aloha spirit really is true.  Everyone in Kauai was very friendly and warm.  Patrick and the boys even found a spot on the top of our hotel to watch the 4th of July fireworks with a big group of employees from the hotel. 

Another beautiful waterfall.

This is the kid swimming pool at our hotel.  The boys had a blast here, literally.  Finn also found a few of many critters near this pool.  Every time we turned around, Finn had caught another lizard or gecko.  He was very gentle with them and set them free right away.  In addition to all the lizards, he also found the biggest snail we have ever seen.  We named him Slimey, of course.

The Marriot is a little hard to take a picture of because it is quite big, but this gives you a pretty good idea.  It's really much prettier than this, though. They have a lot of beautiful landscaping and nice decorations around.  The Hyatt is quite a bit fancier, but their beach did not look like a lot of fun.

The beach near our hotel was fairly gentle , but I think the ones on the North Shore were my favorite.  All of the beaches we went to were a lot of fun, though.  Each one was little different.  I suppose it just depends on what you're in the mood to do there.

This is pretty much what I did the whole time were were there.  I had this idea that I was going to try surfing, but it was so pretty and warm, I just kind of turned into a puddle on the beach every day. (Patrick picked these pictures, btw.  If it was up to me, there would be a lot more of him.)

Happy 16th anniversary to us!

We went to a really lovely restaurant called Gaylord's for our anniversary.  It was really, really pretty.

And they had amazing food.  We ate a lot of incredible meals in Kauai.

Patrick got to bodysurf quite a bit while we were there.  He had a great time, except for one bad run where he got tumbled and hit his head pretty hard.  He was still gung ho to go out the next day, though.

While Patrick and Finn went snorkeling one day, Jack and I explored this amazing 1970's style park.  It was huge and cool and a little dangerous... perfect for Jack.

Finn loved snorkeling.  He went in several times.

This is me with one of my many mai tais on the beach.  We had a problem with our plane on the way home and we had to get bumped to a later flight.  Another day in Paradise - what to do?  The airport held our luggage for us and we went back to the Marriot as squatters for the day.

This was a hike we took overlooking one of the North Shore beaches where we had just spent the morning.  I loved this beach and I loved this hike.  Every time you turned a corner there was something new and beautiful to see.  Which pretty much sums up Kauai.  We all had a really lovely, relaxing, healing time and hope to get back there again soon.