It is Time!

It is time to finally do a post!!! The question is about what? Hawaii or our new house?? Hawaii wins today.

We got to go to Hawaii for 2 weeks a couple of weeks ago. We had such a great time!!! It was incredible! Matthew's parents have a timeshare there, so they invited us to go with them. We camped for 5 days and were in the timeshare for 7. Camping was way better than I thought it would be. Our tent opened up right on the beach, so I watched the sunrises and sunsets from bed - awesome!

The first day we were there, Matthew and I decided to take the kayak out and do a little snorkeling. We found out you don't want to play games with the ocean - it's not very nice. We went too far out and got pounded over and over by waves. They kept tipping us over every time we got into our kayak. We both lost our nice scuba diving masks and snorkels. Bummer. But at the time the most important thing was keeping our head above water. A big wave took me, kayak and ores into the shallower part. It was fun riding the wave! Terror erupted in me when I looked back to see Matthew out in the rough, and there was nothing I could do about it. He caught a few waves and paddled into safety. We collapsed on the shore, grateful to be alive, grateful for each other. I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life.

With so much time there, we did so much of what could be done on Kauai. It was awesome! Loved every minute of it! We did an 8 mile hike to a beautiful beach and falls. We kayaked 3 rivers. We did 2 rope swings. We ate all kinds of delicious food: sushi, thai, Japanese, Chinese, Indian. We went to a Luau with yummy food and an incredible show. We did some surfing. We went snorkeling and scuba diving. We took a boat trip along the Na Pali coast. We saw Harry Potter opening night. We did some cliff jumping. I had a different kind of flower in my hair every day - loved that! We took many long, romantic walks along the beach. We took TONS of pictures. Matthew whispered sweet nothings into my ear - more than once. Did so shopping and got some great stuff! 2 weeks of paradise. It was hard to come home. Matthew kept saying we are just
going to stay there and not fly back home. Deal. Done and done.

Here's some pics - out of the hundreds we took
This was one of the awesome views of the sunset from our tentHere's us a the Luau
There was a full moon while we were there - it was fun to watch the ocean waves with the full moon
Outside the condo
During our 8 mile hike - along the Na Pali coastThis was the beach we hiked to - 2 miles to get there. This part of the hike was so fun, because for 5 minutes you would get the beautiful view of the coastline and ocean. The next 5 miles you were in the jungle, totally covered in trees. Loved it!We saw lots of avocado trees. Most of them just had little avocados, but we finally found one where Matthew could stretch his arms and get a few. So fun! They didn't ripen in time for us to leave. We were bummed about that - I totally wanted to eat them! I did bring home a couple of pineapples that I'm going to plant and have a pineapple plant! Can't wait!The second half of our hike was quite the adventure! It had rained a ton the night before! (We would know too, because we were camping in it. It literally rained hard all night long - 2 nights in a row) Our camp was pretty wet. Needless to say, we were excited to get into the condo after that. Because it had rained so much, it was super muddy! There were lots of puddles. There was sludge and mud. It was slippery. It would squish under your feet. It was so fun! I'm so glad we did it! This is our muddy feet afterwards
This is the waterfall we hiked to - well worth the hike. It was beautiful! It was majestic. We dove right into the water. It felt SO good after our hike. We swam up to the water and went behind it. So magical. Loved it!!!!Sushi dinner outside along the Hanalei river - that we kayaked down the following day
A little waterfall right before Queen's bath where we did some cliff jumping
Not a good picture at all, but this is the cliff (on the right) that we jumped off. The fun/kind of scary thing (especially after our ocean craziness the previous day) was the waves would come in and out of this little inlet raising and lowering the water level. What a fun adventure!
On one of the many beautiful beaches