The last of Kauai and the time we reservated a dog

The last couple days we stayed at the Kauai Marriott resort and the kids were in heaven! They were happy as clams spending all day in the pools so I'm glad we were able to get a few hikes and explorations in before we stayed here. 

It was a really cool resort and was right on the shore of Kalapaki beach. Jason and Jayden decided to rent surboards one day. Jason convinced Jayden he didn't need a lesson, he would teach him everything he needs to know. Their surf lesson consisted of Jason sitting out there on his board battling motion sickness for an hour while Jayden managed to get up on his own a few times. Kylie and I were cracking up on the shore because we couldn't figure out what Jason was doing. The woes of getting old. The rain started pouring down right after they got out and we ran back to the hot tub completely soaking wet, it was pretty comical to see us sloshing through the puddles and dropping towels and flip flops on the the way. 

We would walk around the corner to Skinny Mikes every night for our shaved ice, where Jason took great pride in the fact that he could convince the employees to give him the biggest shaved ice out of everyone, but we had to make one last stop at Hee Fats (or Knee Fat or Skinny Knees...Jason could never get the names straight, classic dad).  We did some souvenir shopping and Kylie was very excited to get her overweight hula dashboard girl.

We had a movie night, Kylie gave the boys an impromptu ballet lesson while watching Leap and she also had mascara streaming down her face as she cried during Lilo and Stitch. That girl makes me laugh.

So Jason and Ryder were watching the tourism channel the first day and they talked about a program where you can adopt a dog for a day at the local animal shelter. We passed the animal shelter on our way to Waimea canyon and Jason casually mentioned it. It was as if time stood still, in synchronized slow motion the kids whipped their heads around, eyes wide open and said whaaaaaaat?!?  There was no turning back. In complete disbelief Kylie was like "you can reservate a dog??". She is known to unknowingly make up words and the rest of the time we teased her every time we saw someone with a dog, "oh man, look they must have reservated that dog". We told them that on our last day there we would reservate a dog and it was all they could talk about. The day finally came, we went to the shelter and picked out our dog for the day. It was so fun having a temporary pet and watching the kids love on him. Until he showed signs of an eye infection. We took him on a coastal trail and to a dog friendly beach. It was a lot of fun, but by the end I was convinced they are a lot of work! So much to think about....is he hungry, is he thirsty, what are we supposed to do with him while we eat?, will he pee in the car, when is he going to poop?. Adopting a dog for the day was the perfect solution for us non-committal types and it was a fun memory for the kids.

Jason promised the kids a treat and circled around all of Hanapepe in search of some homemade popsicles he saw advertised. After asking around we finally found the place that sold them. We all filed in excited to try them then turned around and all filed out when we saw the price-ha! So grateful for the time we had to spend together as a family on this beautiful island. Our days are numbered having all our little chickens in the coop and it really makes me appreciate these memories so much more. Some little moments that made me laugh on this trip was when we were driving by a cemetery and Ryder casually said, "well, RIP whoever died over there". Or when we were at Walmart and I was teasing Jayden and tried to embarrass him by kissing him on the cheek and he turned his head resulting in me brushing him on his lips. We all teased him that he get his first kiss in Walmart. By his mom. Maddox is the king of "would you rather" and we all laughed when Kylie hesitated when asked "would you rather go a month without a shower or a month without internet?". Or when we would go through the McDonald's drive thru every night and bring Ryder's happy meal to whatever restaurant we were eating at. It was his dream come true. And the fact that I could not operate the keyless rental car and got stranded half way backing out the parking spot when I couldn't figure out how to start it, and then when I drove off to McDonald's while Jason had the key with him and then got stuck there once I turned the car off and Jason had to run a half mile in the rain to bring back the key. Good times. Speaking of McDonald's, Ryder was on a chicken nugget trip and called everything and everyone "chicken nugget". I've never heard "chicken nugget" used as a verb until now. Funny boy. Such a fun and memorable family vacation!

Kauai Part 3

I carefully researched the best time to visit Queens Bath, because if you're not careful it can be a death trap. They have a sign at the end of the trail with tally marks of how many died here. 23 and counting. But we managed to get her during low tide on a clear mild day and had the best time swimming in this picturesque pool.

As we were getting ready to leave there was a rogue wave that came in while Jason and some of the kids were still in and it freaked me out. We quickly got out after that and then more waves started coming as the tide began rising. Look at what a difference there is in the photo above and below. Don't mess with Mother Nature!

We spotted some sea turtles on our walk back. Such a beautiful spot.

Kylie had dreams of getting a coconut from a road side stand. I hope it lived up to her every expectation.

And Maddox was so excited to find this old coconut that looked like a face and carried it around for a while. He decided to crack it open and out popped a poisonous millipede. Welp, lesson learned.

I was so excited to hike the Kalalua trail and catch a glimpse of the infamous Na Pali coast. The kids were not excited about hiking (which comes as a surprise to no one) and it was super muddy and slippery so very slow going. It's only a 2 mile hike to the beach, but it felt like we has walked for hours before we finally reached the 1 mile mark. Since the beach is not a swimmable one we decided to turn around and just go swimming at the beautiful Ke'e Beach at the base of the trail. Not long after our trip this island was hit was devastating rain fall that resulted in flooding. This trail has been closed ever since and I'm grateful that we were able to experience it (even if only a portion) while it was still open.

We headed over to Hanalei Bay after that and it had the perfect boogie boarding waves. 20 degrees warmer would have been nice, but we were able to enjoy it for a little bit before the rains hit again. Such a gorgeous area and Hanalei is the cutest town, I wish we had more time to spend here. We spent $60 on pizza and wings and everyone complained about still being hungry 5 minutes after we got in the car. Welcome to Hawaii. The road had some serious delays due to a mud slide that morning as we headed up, we still ran into traffic 8 hours later on our way back but we made it back, hopped in the hot tub and reminisced about another amazing day in paradise.

They had the coolest grove of coconut trees by our Airbnb that we stayed in. I really wanted to get pictures of the kids there until we saw "do not trespass" signs posted all around. Maddox told me he would risk it for me and we were both so nervous the whole time, I am so not a rule breaker-ha!