Kauai, Hawaii

Ty and I took kind of a last minute trip to Kauai. We have been wanting to go somewhere, just the two of us and have been watching and waiting. I have wanted some of the covid restrictions to lighten up. A lot of place have lightened. At the first part of March, Hawaii was going to drop their test to enter mandate on March 26. I text Ty and said lets go!!! So we did. We are grateful for Grandma Shelly and Debbie that were here back at home to hold down the fort. It truly was such a wonderful get a way. We were there from March 26-31. We did lots of hikes, a tube ride through the old sugar cane fields and tunnels, lots of beach hopping, eating, getting shave ice, and doing whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. Our favorite places to eat were dukes, and  the cabana. Our favorite shaved ice was at Uncles. Our favorite beaches were tunnels beach, Poipu beach, and Lydgate Beach for family. We really like the hotel we stayed at, the Sonesta. We went through an entire tank of gas from all the driving around we did. 

Our first meal once we arrived.

The first sunset we saw from our room's porch. 

Hawaii is 4 hours behind Utah. We woke up the next morning at 5 am. We decided to go find somewhere to watch the sun rise. It was beautiful. 

This was our view for breakfast our first morning. 

We loved all the greenery around. 

Chickens are everywhere! 

Our first hike was Waimea Falls. One of the biggest waterfalls on the island. It was about a 3 hour hike in and out. Our calves were sore for a couple days. 

We hiked along the left of the picture where the red rock is. Then we hiked down into the trees. We were at the top of the very top waterfall where our picture is. Then that small waterfall leads to the first one you can see in the picture and then drops to the big one. Such a big big waterfall that we couldn't even see the biggest one from where we were standing. 

Kauai rains a lot. We woke up one morning to see a rainbow!

Monk seals are endangered on the island. It was fun to see a few of them. 

This was the biggest shave ice we found. We tried 3 different places. This was the biggest but not the best one. 

On our tube ride they took us into some of the land that other can't get to. Beautiful place. 

This was a natural cave. Makauwahi Cave. By the cave had one of our favorite beaches because it had huge cliffs as well as beaches. 

On our last day we had the red eye flight. We woke up early almost every morning while we were there because we were so used to Utah time. We went and did another hike before we had to check out. It was Little Giant. While we were hiking we got caught in a rainstorm. It felt like we were in a shower. We were soaked and I had to keep wiping the water from my eyes. We laughed and enjoyed the moment. It is not a cold rain but it sure made everything muddy. We definitely saw some amazing views. 

When then drove back over to Poipu and ate and found another shave ice place. This one was made from natural syrups and topped with honey. 

The plane ride home was fine, but that red eye flight is super rough!! Everyone was excited to see us. It was super hard to jump back into regular life though. I am already ready to go back! The kids think they need to go now. Hopefully soon we will be able to go back and make more memories.