GREAT VACATION!
after almost a year of planning, the brown's, the edge's, the lowe's, and the lok's kicked back and chillaxed for a week of fun, sun, and sand :-) thanks to a groupon deal, i'll be able to put together a photobook of our vacation, but until i get my butt in gear, my blog will serve as a journal for now.
the flight!
we started our day at 4 a.m. with a drive down to seatac airport. gabe didn't sleep in the car like i hoped, but did manage an hour on the plane - unfortunately for me, 45 minutes of that nap was curled on my lap. this was gabe's first time having his own seat on the plane - he had a bit of trouble with the seatbelt on/off rules, but overall he did great...thank goodness for ipads, ipods, iphones, touchpads, activity books, sticker books, and food - nothing kept his attention for more than 10 minutes!
the chickens!
we first discovered them at the car rental agency - at first i thought it was cute and funny, but having them pecking at your bags and beach stuff, it's not so fun. i later read in a travel book that during a storm (many years ago), a farmer lost all of his chickens and couldn't round them up. so they got loose, started procreating, and that's that. now there are chickens EVERYWHERE on the island. they've gotten used to tourists feeding them that some of the roosters are aggressive and may peck at small children :P
the accommodations!
we rented a "5 bedroom" condo for the week. now, the term bedroom is up for debate...the 5th bedroom was actually a loft overlooking the living room, so the plan to have the 3-year-olds share a room never panned out. fortunately for all of us, the kids were accustomed to sharing a room or a bed with parents on other trips, so this wasn't a huge issue. (however, the re-training to sleep alone at home was not pleasant!) after an email to the property manager, i have since checked out the vrbo website and the pictures now properly reflect the loft even though it's still called a bedroom. asides from that, our place was great - newly renovated, lots of space, and close to the beach :-)
the beaches!
we started out a bit rough cuz we couldn't find any gear at the condo so on our first day, the kids hijacked someone else's toys :P fortunately for us, the repair guy had to come and help with a few household items later that day, and told us where to find all the goodies - so from then on, we trekked to the beach with strollers full of beach towels, chairs, boogie boards, sand toys, snorkel gear, and coolers of beers :P we were pros!
brenneckes beach - a 7 minute walk through our condo property. great beach, playground for the kids, with boogie-boarding for the adults.
poipu beach - a 2 minute drive from our condo. on this side, there wasn't a protected ocean area, so the kids encountered the waves. lexi definitely wasn't impressed, but gabe and aly hopped on the boogie boards to catch some little waves along the shore.
ke'e beach - the northern most point you can drive to on kauai. this part of the island was definitely a highlight. upon arrival we saw we a sleeping monk seal - 1 of approximately 30 seals that make kauai their home; we passed by a couple of wet/dry caves along the way. i would've liked to investigate one of them further, but gabe was a little scared of the dark depths.
after 2 failed attempts at snorkelling in the past, i decided to give it another try. even though i took swim lessons through the lifeguarding series, i'm definitely not comfortable in the water anymore. putting my face in the water, wearing the mask, breathing thru my mouth...panic set in. i drank a lot of salt water, sputtered a lot, and managed to scrape my leg on the coral and rocks. good times :P to be fair, i did try 2 more times, but i prefer to have my feet on the ground and look in from above. so instead, sunny and i would take the boogie boards out and float around awhile :)
the kids had a great time building sand castles, making "soup", helping dave build a sea turtle, digging holes to china, and general kid-like beach chaos :-) but no matter how many sand buckets or shovels you have, a fight shall always erupt :P it was pretty funny to keep track of who was not talking to who!
the food!
since we were a party of 14, we knew dining out would be a challenge, so each family took a turn cooking dinner at home. it was great - not having to worry about getting dressed up, worrying about meltdowns, trying to find 6 boosters and highchairs...definitely this was the stress-free route :) so happy kauai had a costco!
poipu shopping village - puka dogs - the hawaiian version of a hot dog. instead of traditional mustard, ketchup, etc., the choices were a lemon secret sauce and a tropical relish.
koloa fish market - famous hawaiian poke tuna! i think the hands-down fave was the korean style. for the kids, there were cooked bento boxes. delicious!
the shops at kukui'ula - there's an ice cream place that all the travel books recommended - lapperte's! the kona coffee ice cream was DELISH!
hawaiian shave ice. i only had this on my last day at the beach...probably a good thing, too, otherwise i would've been there every day :P when we go to hawaii next time, definitely gonna have this more often!
to celebrate a great vacation, on our last night we had dinner at roy's. the food and service were great, and in typical fashion aly and gabe were restless so they required some play time in between courses. they were absolutely fascinated by the lanterns at the shopping village so we'd run around in circles checking them ALL out.
the sights!
hanalei - we did stop there for lunch after ke'e beach, but didn't get a chance to walk around and enjoy the sights. there were some great looking houses raised on stilts...unfortunately i didn't catch any pix of them :P i did manage to get a kona coffee & chocolate milkshake :)
kilauea point lighthouse - we stopped en route from hanalei, but unfortunately we arrived 20 minutes after they closed, so we just took some pictures.
waimea canyon - gorgeous! very similar to the grand canyon, but on a smaller scale. at the highest point, kalalau lookout we had a gorgeous view of the Pacific.
kilohana plantation - they have a 40 minute train tour of the crops - sugarcane, banana, taro, cashews, etc. - and included a stop to feed the wild pigs (and chickens) - definitely a highlight for the kids! after the tour, the boys went to the koloa rum company for a free tasting, and the girls got some souvenir shopping done. there was something for everyone on this outing :)
the friends!
what can i say...it was a great trip with our friends. with the exception of brendan, all of the kids had a little playmate on the trip. however, lexi did take quite a liking to the younger man :) and 5+ weeks later, gabe is still talking about our "hawaii house", our luggage being left behind at the beach, and playing in the sand.
the lessons learned!
- at breakfast, beer is an acceptable substitute for coffee.
- this should've been a no-brainer, but alas...always dress for the return destination weather - you never know when a plane will be overweight and luggage will get left behind. thankfully i knew exactly which suitcase model i own, as well as enough identifying features (olympic mascot tags and purple pom-poms on every handle!) to make yet another black suitcase unique!
- perhaps next time we'll rent a house, or at least a ground floor unit - the poor people below us must've thought a herd of elephants (aka, 5 kids) were running above them :(
- changing time zones backwards is rough. the lowe's had it the worst...they would be up at 2 a.m. with the boys. by 4:30 a.m., gabe would be stirring and by 5 a.m. pretty much everyone was up and ready for breakfast :P
now, did someone say cancun 2013?!
