Exploring the Island

The Beach House Restaurant. I loved that everywhere you went their was outdoor seating and gorgeous views of the ocean. The windows are always open, and no screens are necessary because I think we only saw 1 fly the entire time we were there.

People from all over come to watch the sunset in Kauai, even the native's seem to show up on the beach. This picture is taken in front of the Beach House restaurant where we ate delicious fresh fish. I am not a big fan of fish, but it sure tastes good when it is fresh. I loved the food in Kauai because everything had a slightly different twist of tropical flavor to it.

We happened to find a Botanical garden while waiting for our dinner reservations, Ty was not too into it at first but then changed his mind after seeing some of the most interesting flowers there.

This one almost looks like a bird if you notice the yellow "beak" at the top.

Ty putting on sunscreen getting ready for our first snorkeling adventure.

Amazing sunset at the beach.

We watched three sea turtles here at Spouting Horn beach.

Watching the sunset.

Spouting horn, the waves go up through this lava rock and spits the water out.

The very first beach we visited we happened to have this Monk seal to enjoy the sun with. He had reserved seating at the beach. Posts were put up with a rope around them, and everyone left him in peace. It did not seem to bother him to share the beach with the people.

Whew! Hot stuff!

Roosters are everywhere on the island, or what Ty refers to them as "Cocks". Seeing a rooster at the beach just seems like something is wrong. We seen "cocks" at the beach, the supermarket, the forest and everywhere whe went. They have no predators to eat them and their population out does the islanders.

This was one of my favorite trees here, they were huge and the leaves had a fern look to them. The remind me of the ones you would see in Africa. This is only the top of one that was growing in the canyon below.

Some one happened to have carved this into the hillside, it appeared to be rock but I was suprised when I put my hand on it the dirt crumbles easily. This is the type of red dirt that can be found all over the hills.

Helicopter Tour

Ty and I were able to fly on the Blue Hawaiin Helicoptor tour. This is one of our favorite things we did on the island. This beach was called Kee Beach (Kay-A for Utah pronounciation).

You may recognize the waterfall in this picture it has been named the Jurassic waterfall because Jurrassic Park the movie was filmed here. This waterfall can only be accessed by air and is on private property owned by the Robinson family. The Robinson family happen to own 60,000 acres and run a sugar cane farm, which was purchased by the grandmother for 8,000 dollars. We were able to see their vacation home on the hill and their many hunting cabins throughout their property. We happened to run into two of their private helicoptor pilots on the zipline tour.

This was the beautiful Na Pali coast with many private beaches that can not be accessed by the public. We were told that in the old Hawaiian civilization that they used to bury their dead here in the sand. This is considered to be a sacred spot to the natives, when the tide gets high, unfortunately it sweeps away some of the bodies from the sandy graves. In 1920 the very last native living here decided to "put some pants on and go to civilization" from what our guide told us. That is what Ty and I had to do to come home, it was unfortunately time to put our pants back on literally and come back home.

Bright neon green is the color of these mountains and I think this shot captured the colors well.

Another beach that Harrison Ford filmed 6 days 7 nights on where he runs through the tunnel that is in this lava rock. Our pilot for our helicoptor tour personally flew him down here to this beach.

Tunnels beach is what this is called. The water was "windex blue". You can see the reef.

Another close shot of the Na Pali coast (Na-Polly). They called these peaks cathedrals.

Here is a better look at where the tunnel goes through the rock. You can drop me off at this beach and I would be just fine.

This is a look at the Waimea Canyon, it is huge and is called the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific".
Sheep and wild pigs are found here.

This is a cattle ranch owned by the Rice family. I think even the cows have the life!

Back from our trip to Hawaii

Here are some of the pictures from our first day in Kauai. This waterfall is the Wailua Falls.

I couldn't resist taking pictures of all the flowers that were everywhere. Even the weeds had flowers on them. This one is the Hibiscus flower.

I couldn't believe how beautiful the beaches were. The contrasting lava rock that outlined the beaches had white coral washed up from the ocean.

This is a bush that grew wild just about everywhere you looked. The colors of green were amazing.

We got up early many mornings just in time to watch the sunrise right on the patio of our condo.

There will be more pictures to come of this awesome trip. I promise.

Its our 15th Anniversary!

I can't believe it has been 15 years. Looking back I have loved every minute of it and wouldn't trade these memories for anything.

You know the economy is bad when.....

When you have to sell your kids. Ok, we weren't really selling our kids but it sure looked as though we were. Halen came running in the house asking for supplies to make a sign. Sadie and Halen decided that it would be fun to earn some money from doing a yard sale. They gathered who knows what, out of the basement and stood on the curb with these signs. I thought that this would easily keep them entertained while I had some time to breathe. I expected that they may entice the neighborhood kids, (I am sure that their parents are thrilled with the new junk at their house. Sorry Holly and Lindsey) what I did not expect was that adults in cars would stop by the junk sale, even strangers. I had to start keeping a pretty good eye on them out the window. When all was said and done after 3 hours they had made $8.00. They sat down with no help and split the money evenly, and they said that they are saving it for Alaska and Hawaii. (I don't know when or if they are going there).

What Utah kids have to do for entertainment

This is what Aubrie and her BFF Aspen found for entertainment, it was a cold weekend and they swapped clothes and pretended to be each other. They tricked us for a few minutes, and this made them squeal with delight. These girls have been the best of friends since 2nd grade, they only get to see each other on long weekends because Aspen moved out of town. They are pretty silly.