Kauai Anniversary Trip Day 2

*Regular Font: David
*Italicized Font: Shantel 

Word of the Day: Perfect, the perfect start to our Hawaiian vacation. Or maybe Kīnā 'Ole (doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, in the right place, to the right person, for the right reason, with the right feeling; the first time.)

When we planned our week, it ended up being mid-week to mid-week, and with a weekend in the middle - we weren't sure exactly how to schedule our planned excursions. We ended up deciding to do BOTH our kayak river tour AND the Garden Luau on our first day there. Those were the two things that we wanted to do the very most and it felt like a good kickoff to our trip to have them on the first day. (Plus they were both close to our hotel so we had plenty of time to come home and get changed between.)

The River Kayak Tour was my #1 planning pick for our entire trip. The thought of kayaking down a river (imagine my arms waving in the air as I pretend to paddle a kayak) then hiking through the Hawaiian Forest to a hidden waterfall (imagine my arms pretending to hike) seemed like a dream, and whenever people asked me what we were going to do in Hawaii - that's what I led with (arm movements and all). 

It did NOT disappoint. 

We were up plenty early enough to watch the sun rise out our window (thank you time-zone-jet-lag) and met up with our tour group who took us to the mouth of the Wailua River. With very little instruction we were off, paddling together down the lush river, through the heart of the Wailua Valley. 

This was actually my favorite part of the whole day. I loved how peaceful it was. We ended up paddling mostly apart from everyone and really felt like we had the river to ourselves, it was quiet and peaceful. I was in the back on the way there and then we switched on the way back. I loved just talking to Shantel and looking at the beautiful surroundings. We would get into a really rhythmic paddling with me trying to match Shantel's paddle strokes and you could feel the boat speed up as we got totally synchronized. Every little bit I would stop paddling and just take in the scene around me and I loved it. 

From the tour website: This peaceful river winds through a tropical garden paradise of abundant palms, ferns, flowers and wildlife. After paddling through the Garden Isle’s most beautiful jungle river you will come to the trail head for Secret Falls. Enjoy a moderate hike through the Wailua rainforest, original home of the first Hawaiians, who paddled from the Marquesas Islands to Kauai almost 1500 years ago. The final portion of your hike is to the enchanting Uluwehi Waterfall, which descends 125’ into a natural pool surrounded by rocks and vegetation.

The kayaking was breathtaking and the hike was just SO cool. (Our tour guide knew so much about the local plants and we kept passing these tiny purple flowers he called vervain. Everytime I saw them, I thought about Lucy and could almost hear her little voice from her spot in the carrier on my back "Those are MY purple flowers, for me!" Which is what she says everytime we see purple flowers on any of our hikes.)

The waterfall was incredible. 

We waded out into the pool and climbed behind the 125 ft waterfall. The other people in our tour were friendly and we enjoyed eating lunch while soaking in the incredible view. The trip back out was equally as enjoyable and I left thinking that we should have put this activity at the end because it was SO great that nothing else we could do would possibly be able to top this adventure!  

I really thought that in the moment, I can't imagine we'll do something better than this all trip (I was wrong). I loved how warm the water was around the falls and I loved climbing all the way behind the waterfall. 

Before we went back to the hotel we drove around for a little bit and saw a waterfall, a great view of the Wailua river we had just kayaked and a beautiful Hindu Monestary which houses a Rudraksha Forest that visitors are invited to enjoy each day.

That night was the Smith Family Luau, which was David's #1 planning pick for the trip. We were surprised at how beautiful the gardens were and we enjoyed exploring before the dinner and dance. We were delighted to be seated next to a handful of honeymooners at a romantic table for two, right in front of the live music. I teased that I had upgraded us to the Romantic Honeymoon package. We took some beautiful pictures in front of the lake, ate loads of Hawaiian foods, and enjoyed the Luau show!

We were exhausted by the time we got back to our hotel, especially me (Shantel). But it was such a perfect first day in Hawaii that it was hard to imagine anything but the trip being downhill from there. (Spoiler, it wasn't - we did everything in the exact right order.) 

The show really was so awesome and I loved that after working hard paddling and hiking we could just sit and relax and take in some of the culture. Also, I feel like the best part of this whole night was at the end, we went and sat by the lake as the crowd all headed out. Once everyone was basically gone, we got up and walked toward the exit, which was a decent walk. The whole think was lit by tiki torches and so we had a beautiful fire lit stroll to end the night. 

Kauai Anniversary Trip Day 1

*Regular Font: David
*Italicized Font: Shantel 

Disclaimer: It would be absolutely impossible for the pictures to do justice or the words in this post to adequately express what an amazing trip this was. I don't think I've ever had so much fun and so much happiness on a trip ever, and I've had some great trips/vacations. Of course, it all starts with Shantel and when I get to be with her it is incredible. So 8 straight days with her would be amazing anywhere, but Kauai was unreal. However, we'll try and tell you how incredible it was anyway, and then just imagine it even better than that.  

Disclaimer #2: Also, a huge shout out to Jenna Haderlie for being willing to watch our kids and take such amazing care of them for 8 days so we could go on this amazing trip. I second this. Jenna is the best of the best and deserves the biggest sister prize out there. 

Shantel and I had planned to take a 10 year anniversary trip in 2019. We had saved our money and were so excited. As it got closer, Shantel got pregnant with Lucy and we decided to push the trip to our 11th year anniversary when Lucy would be 1. We actually talked a long time about where to go. That is the funny thing, when you can go anywhere and do anything - it can actually be really hard to decide. We finally narrowed in on some of the things we wanted. I really wanted a beach and somewhere we could relax. We also wanted to go somewhere new for both of us. We started talking about Hawaii and decided that would be perfect for what we were hoping for. 

As it got time to start booking something for June 2020 and we were talking about it, we just felt like we should not book anything for 2020 and push it to 2021, although we really could not figure out why. Of course, in March/April 2020 we were glad we had not booked a trip since everything would have been pretty much closed if we could have gone at all. We started planning for November 2021 for our trip. However, as it got a month or two away and COVID cases were still bad (and Hawaii's governor was asking tourists not to come), we decided to push it off one more year. 

So again, we booked our flights, this time for the first week in September 2022. It could not have worked out better. I could list a million reasons, but here are a few things that worked out really well. 

-We initially had a 6 day trip, 2 days of travel and 4 full days on the island. After looking at everything we wanted to do the first time we booked the trip, we realized we really wished we had 5 full days on the island. So when we booked again, we had 5 full days, plus two travel days. 

-November 2021 ended up really busy and stressful for me work wise, which I did not really know in advance since 2021 was my first year in the NAO. This time around, I knew September was better for me and that made it less stressful to get totally disconnected from work. Because of this, I actually took over 2 whole weeks. 3 days before our trip, plus the week of the trip, plus the 2 days after and that was nice. It made it great to be totally disconnected from work and be ready for relaxing once we left for Hawaii. Plus then I had two post trip recover days. 

-Our kids were just a little bit older, which did make it easier to leave them that extra day or two. 

Okay- so then, we had decided on Hawaii and just needed to decide which island to visit. Shantel was awesome and did a ton of research. What she determined is that you should go to Kauai when you are young and able to take advantage of the amazing hiking. Then you can go see Oahu when you are older and not quite as able to do some of the difficult hikes. We settled on Kauai and starting planning our trip. 

Shantel did an amazing job of putting together some initial options and then we picked the things we really wanted to do most. We obviously could not do everything and stay within our budget, but we also did not want to pack our days too full and not have enough time to relax or be a little more spontaneous and open about what we did. Just a note about what we decided not to do. We heard the helicopter tours were amazing, but nixed it because 1) It was about $900, which was really expensive for a 50 minute activity, 2) we wanted to do the boat tour more which also goes along the Napali coast, but was only about $450 and was 5 hours and 3) We were glad because the Helicopters are loud and more invasive those hiking and enjoying the experience and we did not want to support that interruption. We also did not spend a lot of time or money on expensive restaurants (or really restaurants at all). For the most part we just picked up food and ate at the beach, in the mountains. We were so glad because it gave us so much more time to just enjoy the island vs. trying to eat at restaurants and plan our days around that. 

Okay with that, I'll give you a general summary of what we did do:

Day 1: Travel to Kauai; Stop and see the beach

Day 2: Kayak up the Wailua River and Hike to Secret Falls; Smith Family Luau

Day 3: Waimea Canyon & Lookouts; South Beaches

Day 4: Church; Biking along the coast; Book reading on the beach

Day 5: Hike to Hanakapi'ai Beach and Falls; Ke'e Beach

Day 6: Makana Boat Tour of Napali Coast; Shaved Ice; Spouting Horn

Day 7: Last Beach Stop; Travel Home

The flight out to Kauai was the best flight I've ever been on. We had an hour long flight to Las Vegas and then got on the flight to Lihue. 

We packed plenty of snacks and food for the flight which was really nice to have good food to eat. In addition, as we started loading the flight for Lihue, they told us they had 80 open seats on the flight, so Shantel and I had the row of 3 all to ourselves. It was so awesome to have the extra space and not have someone right next to us. We spent the flight mostly reading our books, but we also played Qwixx, ate snacks and talked. We both hit home runs with having really good books and so that was fun. Also, Southwest did a really nice job with the snacks. Shantel just went to Oahu on Delta in February and said the Southwest snacks were way better. They were super delicious and also probably won Shantel over with the Hot Chocolate. We got to see Oahu on our way to Kauai below. 

We landed and picked up our rental car and then decided to find the first beach we could which was Kalapaki Beach right near the airport. We looked around and watched the waves for a few minutes before heading to our hotel. Below is the beautiful view from our balcony of the resort and the Ocean. We stayed at Kauai Beach Resort and it was great. We loved being able to hear the ocean when we had the door open and being able to watch the sun rise over the ocean from our room. A couple nights we left the door open all night to just listen to the ocean as we fell asleep. 

We went out and walked along the beach connected to our resort (Kitchens Beach) for a few minutes to check things out.  Then we went to the hot tub and relaxed for a few minutes before heading to bed. It was hard to believe we were finally on the Island. 

I just have to say again that the flight on southwest to Li'hue was the best flight i've EVER been on. The flight attendants were fantastic, the snacks were so yummy, and sitting next to David for hours on end with a whole week of vacation ahead of us made me feel giddy. I loved it so much.