Kauai - July 7, 2011

I'll bet you thought I'd abandoned this blog!  Well, I'm back!  With baseball and soccer and baseball and gymnastics and swimming and baseball and school and baseball this spring, my spare time was pretty limited, so I didn't even attempt to keep up with blogging.  I do hope to at least finish posting pictures from our trip to Orlando back in February, but for now, I'll be working on stuff from our current trip to Kauai.

We haven't been to Kauai in about eight years, since I was pregnant with our older daughter and our son was not yet two.  We'd been wanting to go back, so when we were able to purchase a week at a condo in Princeville in a fundraising auction, we jumped at the chance.  The kids have been excited to see a new island, but really weren't sure about what to expect.

Our son's favorite part of any trip is the flight, but he was disappointed that we were flying out of San Jose this time instead of San Fransicso and he wouldn't get the chance to see the planes from the international flights.  The rest of us were thrilled that we didn't have to get up an hour earlier and the dog was happy that he got to spend an additional night at home instead of having to go to day care the day before.  Our son got over it, though, when we flew into Honolulu and he got to see the planes there when we changed flights.

The flights were uneventful (thank goodness!) and the kids did really well. It was quick and easy to get our luggage and rental car and we were off to the condo without any trouble.  We debated stopping on the way for food, but the kids weren't hungry and just wanted to get to our condo, so made our way north to Princeville.  Two of them fell asleep and the third was dozing, so by the time we got to our place, they were ready to go again. 

We got unpacked and threw on bathing suits to spend some time in the pool and let the kids burn off some energy after being cooped up for so long.  The pool here is really cool, with 2 pools for swimming, one kiddie/splash pool with a waterfall, and a spa that's been perfect for loosening up my back, which I tweaked the day before we left.  After some time in the pool and showers, we headed to Hanalei to find some dinner.

Hanalei has a small shopping area, with a number of stores and probably 8 restaurants.  At the Hanalei Surf Shop, we got to talking to the guy behind the desk and found out that he does stand-up paddleboard (SUP) lessons, so we decided to schedule a morning with him for four of us to learn how to paddle (our youngest is too little to manage a paddle yet).  We then wandered across the street to the nearest restaurant, called Kalypso, for some dinner.  The food was surprisingly good (I had chesse ravioli with local mushrooms, onions, and tomatoes that was terrific) and by the time we finished the kids were barely keeping their eyes open.

So far, so good!