Kauai 2013

We busted the 2013 travel fund budget and took a little family vacay to Kauai in January.  It was amazing.  Actually, that doesn't even begin to cover it.  I think we are mostly just wondering why we came home.  (My parents met us over there, and have been dreaming of real estate ever since.)  Naturally, our sweet Noah was pretty near perfect the entire trip.  Really, I was so worried, but he was great!  He took his nap everyday, slept all through the night, perfect.  I think he probably wants to live in Kauai too.

After looking at the overload of pictures, I'm sure you'll see why we all loved it so much!

 

The view from our condo every morning.  I've never been so excited to wake up in the morning! And besides the sunrise, we could also watch the whales each day.  Amazing.

 

We drove to the top of Waimea Canyon one day, and this was one of the lookouts along the way.  The pictures hardly do the beauty justice at all.

Noah and I on the drive up.  I just think this is a cute picture.

 Once we were at the very top, the clouds started rolling in and this was about all we saw. Ha!  This was super pretty, but lasted about a half a second.  Steven drove up early one morning on his own to see it again.  He was blessed with beautiful views that day!

 Of course, most of our trip was spent at the beach.  We were only about 5 minutes from an awesome beach that had a great breaker for the waves, so there was a little kid area where Noah could walk out as far as he wanted and it was only about a foot deep.  He loved it!

We would usually go down to the beach for an hour or so in the morning, then head back for Noah's nap (and Grandma's nap... heck, everyone's nap!), and then head back out to the beach in the afternoon.  It was perfect!

 Here is Noah enjoying his afternoon snack of graham crackers dipped in sand.  He loved it!  Strange little guy...

 Playing in the water with Dad is the best!

 He had no fear about the water, and was happy to play and splash all day. 

 I know, the amount of pictures is getting a little ridiculous, but we took over 300 on the trip, and let's be honest... how do you even begin to pick a favorite?!

 

 But maybe it's this one.

 Another beautiful sunrise.  So blessed.

 It was so fun to have my parents come with us!  They were great traveling partners and we hope to get to do it again sometime!  Not only was it a blessing to split the cost and have time for them to get to know Noah, but mostly it was fun to kick their butts, not once but twice in Mexi-Train.  :)

 More beach time.  And we even got him to keep his hat on (most of the time), but the end of the trip.

 Just chatting with Dad out on the balcony.

 

Whales!  Seriously, it was so cool to see the whales right outside our condo.  These particular ones were seen on a boat ride that Steven and I went on.  We were supposed to see the Na Pali coast, but the waves were too big and we weren't able to make it all the way up the coast.  It was still a great adventure though!

Here we are on our boat ride, which allowed us to see a beautiful sunset.  We also saw some awesome spinner dolphins as they chased our boat.  But those pictures are in a different file, so I'll have to add them later.  :)

 The famous jump.

 So here is the sunrise from when Steven drove back up to the top of Wiamea.  Yup, I probably should have gone with him.  It really is quite beautiful, huh?!

 

On our last night, we went on another boat ride up the Wiamea river to the Fern Grotto and then went to a Luau, both of which were awesome!  Here is our sweet little Noah getting ready for the Luau.  I love this shirt!  He looks like a little old man.  Ha!

 Tob and Lou at the Fern Grotto

 You've got to love trying to get a baby to smile and then realizing that he can't even see you because you're looking at the camera.  Ha!

 The whole gang.

And can I just add, that Luau was fabulous!  I would go again in a heartbeat.  Such great food and entertainment.  I think Noah ate enough on his own to get the moneys worth for all of us! 

 On our last day, my parents flight left in the morning and ours was a red eye, so we drove around the island seeing any sites that we missed because we all just wanted to sit on the beach.  :)  Here are the boys at an awesome waterfall we went to.  Next time we go, we are totally hiking to the bottom and going swimming.  It was beautiful!

 Up on the north end of the island (we stayed in Poipu, on the southern end), we stopped at this lighthouse.  It was really pretty too, but I especially love the face Noah is making in this picture.

 Look at this little man!  No more baby...

 Just chillin'... we totally look like tourists.  Ha!

 And one of our last stops was a place called Queen's Bath.  It was really pretty and the walk down to it had this pretty waterfall (as you can see).  We must have taken 20 pictures, trying to get all three of us and the waterfall in the shot.  Success!

Kauai officially lists in my top 3 favorite places on Earth, which is saying quite a lot for it.  I think I can safely speak for the family in saying that this was an awesome trip!  If one day you show up at our house and we are no longer living there, come look for us in Kauai!  

~ 15 - 22 January 2013 ~