HAWAII

February 8-16, 2011

This is what February 8th looked like in Salt Lake City, Utah:

This is what it looked like from the inside of a Boeing 757 (looking out at Mt. St. Helens):

And this is what it looked like in Oahu, Hawaii:

Since Matt and I became parents nearly two and a half years ago, we haven't been on a vacation with just the two of us.  We were fortunate to have our parents be able to watch our kids for us for a whole week while we spent some quality time together in Hawaii. We spent 2 days in Oahu, then another 5 days in Kauai -- and had an absolute blast.

On Oahu, we visited Pearl Harbor and toured the USS Arizona Memorial and the USS Bowfin Submarine:

And we got to visit the villages of Polynesia at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We did a little spear throwing (Matt was a natural), ate roasted pig at a Luau, and watched some amazing fire dancing. 

We spent our last day on Oahu driving around the island. We found a cool cave, ate at Giovanni's shrimp truck, explored a hidden beach cove, and checked out the dangerous shorebreak at Pipeline on the North Shore.

We were sad to leave Oahu but super excited for our next destination . . . Kaua'i!

Upon arriving in Kauai, on our way from the airport to our hotel in Lihue, we found . . . wait for it . . . a WAL-MART!

On that same note, but on another day, we found a COSTCO, and a HOME DEPOT! 

Wow! We could definitely live in Kauai!

Now, here is a little teaser about what we did on day #1 in Kauai:

This is what I'd like to call, "The progression of the mud."

This is how we started out our ATV trip at the amazing Kipu Ranch Adventures: Happy, clean . . . and me, unsuspecting.

My fearless driver (fearless in not such a good way):

Here we are, still clean.

Matt looks like he's up to something . . . 

At least he got his ATV-tipping fun out of the way while I was safely on the banks of this steep ravine . . . too bad our guide was unaware of Matt's wild side! ;)

Me showing off my wild side:

And Matt, attempting to show off . . . key word: attempting

Here is Matt in his element:

And here is where I realize I'm about to get really really dirty . . .  

And this is a little audio/vid for your enjoyment:

All in all . . . IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT!

Especially since we got to clean ourselves off under a waterfall after the messy muddiness.

We made some awesome friends on our ATV ride and somehow, even after they had previewed Matt's wild side, we were able to convince them to join us the next day in a in a little off-roading in our Jeep. We stopped for food and beautiful views along the way (but alas, didn't manage to get a pic with our buds!)

Here is a little clip of one of our exciting off-road adventures. I think you may start sensing a theme in the audio of these types of adventures . . . i.e. Matt's off-roading makes me nervous, and when I get nervous I kind of start squealing like a little girl. Good thing I am a girl. I think that entitles me to squeal like one. Especially when Matt is behind the wheel and has found things he calls off-roading "playgrounds." 

After the "playground" excitement, we found more excitement by following the trail of mud-covered cars. We kept seeing the mud-soaked trucks pass us on the road and couldn't believe how anyone could possibly get a vehicle so muddy. Then, we found the trail. This is how our Jeep looked after making it through the mud and on to a gorgeous, secluded beach:

This is what happened on our way out:

And this is how Matt spent the next 3 days, seeking out hoses and car washes, and anything he could possibly find to clean all the mud from the Jeep. 

On Sunday, we had the privilege of attending the LDS church in Lihue. After sacrament services, the visitors were asked to stand, and a few women went around and placed a crocheted lei around our necks. Then the entire local congregation stood in the front of the chapel and sang the Aloha song to all the visitors. Matt and I were both very touched by the gesture.  The lessons were amazing that day and we felt so blessed to be in such a beautiful land among such beautiful, loving people.

On Monday, we went Snuba-ing. It's a lot like scuba, except that instead of carrying the air tanks on your back, the air tanks are on flotation device on the surface, which you pull around via a ~20 foot air hose attached to the regulator. Highly recommended. We got to see (and feed) all sorts of colorful fish, and even found an octopus (the eight-tentacled little guy got a little too attached to Matt . . . )

Here we are hangin' loose with our super cool Snuba instructor.

We continued Monday's adventurous streak with a trip to Kipu Falls. Our friend had told us about the falls and said that we just HAD to do the rope swing there. (You can just barely see it in on the far side of the falls in this picture).  We were having a hard time finding the path down to the falls and luckily ran into the locals that took us around on our ATV trip. They were nice enough to take us down to the falls and they even jumped in with us. We were very fortunate that we ran into them because apparently the falls don't usually look like this:

Kipu Falls usually looks like this:

And had we somehow crossed the raging river to get to the rope swing, we very well may have been swept away by the rapid undercurrent just below the rope swing as a few tourists are each year. YIKES! So, after a warning from our knowledgeable local guide, we decided we would just jump off the edge of the falls, a much safer bet. Still a bit wild and crazy, but not "kill you" wild and crazy. ;)

Speaking of wild and crazy, our last day on the island, we decided to book a flight lesson in an experimental ultralight to get a glimpse of the Na'pali Coast.  This ultralight was basically a 2-person mo-ped with wings. My cousin and her new hubby had taken lessons on their honeymoon just months earlier and had LOVED it. They recommended a company to us, so we booked a couple of flights at 3pm. We were super excited. On our way there, I called the company to make sure we were still on for the trip. When they told me our flight had been cancelled I was totally bummed and persisted in asking if it was the wind, the cloud cover, etc? Finally, the guy said, "We don't know what has happened, but please just pray for our pilot and his passenger." We immediately began searching the local news and found that some Kayakers had seen the ultralight crash into the water about 200 yards from the shore. Both the pilot and passenger were killed in the crash. We thought about a lot of "what-ifs" that day, and felt a bit strange and very saddened about the whole incident. But also felt very lucky that we were going to be returning home safe to our children.

We had a great time in Kauai. Thanks to Yelp (and our ATV trip pals who had a sweet book on Kauai), we ate some great food:

And saw some great sites:

It was so much fun to get away together.

WE LOVED HAWAII!!