Aloha Welcome to Kauai-Part 2

Day 4:Mom and Dad woke up bright and early everyday and enjoyed the sunrise from the lanai

I choose to spend my vacation a little differently

We had a little break in the rain and decided to go to the Botanical Gardens. We had to pay extra money to go on a guided tour because the cheaper self-guided garden was flooded.This is an overlook of most of the garden that we toured. The original founder of the garden left it in his will that the gardens must be kept in exactly the same fashion that they were when he died. The house in the bottom corner was the original owners house.

These trees were the coolest part of the gardens. This is where they filmed the scene in Jurassic Park where Grant and the 2 kids find the raptor eggs.

The roots were MASSIVE and were taller than me, it was very cool.

A lotus blossom, one of the only actual flowers we saw on the tour, but it is a sweet picture

This was called the lipstick plant. The seeds were covered in what felt like oil based Halloween makeup. I was this close to convincing dad into a makeover

After the gardens we went down and snorkeled at the beach. This is one of my favorite pictures ever. You can't really tell but the family is just staring at dad in the water. They were staring at him for a good 15 minutes, it was hilarious!

We came back and had a regular feast. The master chef cooked us sish kabobs in the dark. He had a little assistance from dereks old head flashlight. The beef was a little underdone, but we also had chicken, sausage, mushrooms and pineapple, it was really good!

Master chef #2 (she works more behind the scenes)

Day 5-6:

Don't remember the name of this falls, but it was pretty

We then headed off to Waimea FallsI almost went blind getting this picture

We then stopped off at puka dog. These were hot dogs that were cooked and then stuffed inside a bun that wraps all the way around. Also they add all the condiments inside the bun. They had interesting condiments as well; they had lilikoi mustard, a mango sauce, and other island combos.
This was one of my favorite stops in Kauai. I am proud to say I'm the new owner of a beautiful ukulele. Although I am not proud of how much I have actually played it (so far).

We later went back up to the north side of the island and of course went snorkeling again.Snorkeling next to the pali coast, this place wasn't that good so we went to a different beach (name unremembered)

I'm not sure if you can hear it, but in the movie towards the end I got freaked out because I heard what sounded like Chewbacaa following me, it turned out to be the fish making the noise, but it freaked me out pretty good.

Flying Gurnard, we also saw a flat fish (very cool), but swam away before I could take a picture

Then we headed back to Tunnels

I wonder why they call it tunnels?

These are some of my favorite pictures EVER. I thought it would be an easy task to take a simple underwater picture of all of us...

This has gotta be one of the best

After I got a picture with mom I tried to get one with dad...

I decided to call this the best picture with dad since it looked like his head was going to explode


I then tried to get one with all of us...



I saw this was going nowhere, so I thought just taking a picture looking down would be easier...

I love dads fogged up goggles!

On our final night we (me) broke open a coconut we found. It was a little over ripe though

Our final sunrise This was one of moms favorite posses

Getting ready to check out

We didn't have any real plan and since it was sunday we couldn't go to the beach, so we went around and hit all the resorts.

Mom almost had a melt down when she couldn't get a flower to return to her, this was like her 8th flower. The others all got crushed in the waves.

Why didn't we come here before?

Our last few moments before leaving

We had a fun trip, full of lots of memories, and it was the best graduation present ever!

Until we meet again...

Aloha Welcome to Kauai-Part 1

After a short flight we landed in Kauai!

They follow the boy scout motto wherever they go

We stayed near the Coconut Plantation at the Islander on the Beach. It was a nice condo and we had an ocean view room!Coconut Plantation

Front Desk

After waiting until our exact check in time we were finally let into our room. We set up camp then we decided to head out and check out Kauai

This was the closest thing we could find to the swap meet


We finished off our first day with a delicious and healthy pizza

Day 2-3

We were still suffering the effects of the monsoon, so the only beach that we could snorkel was Tunnels, which turned out to be our favorite, and I finally got to test out my new underwater camera (which I LOVE)Pretty bird wrasse

Convict tangs and saddle wrasse and 1 lowfin chub in the back

I had to included this video! I walked all the way down the beach and back (in total at least a mile) and they were in this exact position when I left. Mom is the only one stuck on the reef in the middle of the calm clear water. Dad is to her left not knowing how to help.

They might have been a little out of their element!

The next day we explored the south side of the island:
We hit the Grand Canyon of the PacificThe vog was really heavy that day because the trade winds were cut off due to the monsoon

We drove backwards just to hit JoJos so Dad could get some more shave ice

It was really good mac nut ice cream

After dessert we decided to have lunch, and took Grandpa's recommendation for Tomkats Grille. Im glad we did because the food was really good!-Thanks Grandpa!!

They did actually have cats that came around that begged for some food

After lunch/dinner we went down to Poipu beach. Now this was the beach that I remember from 6 years ago, I loved Poipu the last time we were there. This time it was not that good...sadly

Half of the parking lot was still under water from all the rain

Flaunt it if you got it

The waves and currents were really strong, but we did see a couple of monk seals, and mom got some more chances to chase the chickens around and get her pictures


The second half of the trip is comming!