More about Hawaii....

• Wednesday - Cory's parents got to our house the night before so they'd be there to watch the boys. So on Wednesday morning (early) we flew from Cedar City - SLC - LA - Lihue, Hawaii. A LONG day of flying, but it was nice to get to fly out of Cedar City and not have to drive to the airport. After getting to Hawaii we checked into our hotel (which was AMAZING!) - The Grand Hyatt. We got settled, unpacked, and went out to dinner with our friends Crae and Jenny (they own the Logan franchise of The Blind Guy) at a tasty restaurant called The Beach House. It was right on the beach and the restaurant opened right up to the beautiful view. Unfortunately it was too late to see much....but the food was still yummy! I had a VERY good Watermelon salad!
• Thursday - We got up early and drove to our fun outing - Kauai Backcountry Adventures to go tubing down irrigation ditches that had been used for an old sugar cane plantation. It was SO cool! The ditches went through underground tunnels and over 70% of the ride actually went undergound! We had on helmets and head lamps and it was so fun! On the drive up to the drop-off spot we saw some awesome views and got to learn a lot about the history of the area. After our tubing ride they fed us lunch and we drove back to our cars. Oh - we drove in these cool old Swiss army trucks. They were all open and the mud flicked right up....right up on me. I don't know how - but I was the dirtiest of the bunch and Cory kept teasing me and saying I looked like I had just grown "whiskers". Gave us all a good chuckle. After the tubing adventure we headed up to see a few pretty views. We drove up to a beautiful waterfall (I think it was called Wailua falls...?) and then I think we went back to our hotel....we hung out at the pool and rested in some hammocks. It was SO beautiful and relaxing. Then all of a sudden we remembered that we were supposed to be at a group dinner at 5:00. So we rushed up to our room and got ready. We ate dinner with the group (which had the BEST Kuala Pork and AMAZING Pina Colada drinks!!!) We were supposed to stay for a motivational speaker, but Cory and our friends decided to skip out - so we went out to have dessert after at a restaurant at the hotel. I had a chocolate BOMB (YUMMO!) and Cory had a very disappointing tapioca/fruit dessert. It was horrible....but afterwards we sat on the beach watching the waves and then went back to our hammock to listen to the sounds of the ocean. Heavenly....

• Friday - We started this morning EARLY - way too early.....we had to be at our excursion at 6:30 and it was 45 minutes away...We went on a boating trip up the Na Pali coast with the Na Pali Explorer company. We were supposed to be on a small 16-person boat, but it wasn't working - so we took the larger 40+ people boat. It took us up the Na Pali coast - which is out of this world! My very favorite part of the whole thing was that we saw hundreds and hundreds of Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins - swimming right next to our boat! They jumped, swam, and made me smile. It took all I had in me not to just jump out of the boat and grab onto one of the dolphins. My favorite part were the baby dolphins - they were tiny and adorable! After boating up the coast we stopped to try to snorkel. There was a surge coming in, and so the snorkeling wasn't great....in fact - it was the worst we've had....that was a bummer, but you can't control the weather. But the tour was cool, we got to see some awesome caves, places where many movies were filmed - and just beautiful scenery! On the way back the weather got a little crummy and the waves were much bigger. It was quite an adventurous trip back. After the Na Pali Explorer trip we headed up to see Waimea Canyon - which is considered Hawaiian's Grand Canyon. WOW! It was beautiful too! We toured around there, and then headed back and had some fun food at Barefoot Burgers. I just ate a tasty shaved ice - which was YUMMY! We headed back to the pool and relaxed some more afterwards. Friday night was the night we stuffed our faces - we had a group dinner "dine-around" - which was like a progressive dinner. We had 4 different stations or different restaurants that we had to go to. There was a seafood station, Italian, Chinese and dessert. We ate so much and it was SO yummy. It was fun to spend time that night with a lot of the other Blind Guy franchises and chat with friends we've made over the years with the company. We love our Blind Guy friends - good folks!

• Saturday - This was our relaxing day....which felt a little boring. We stayed around the pool (which was the coolest pool I've ever seen at a hotel! It went on and on - it was gorgeous!) I read, Cory got antsy (he has a hard time just sitting and relaxing). We left for lunch at a yummy Hawaiian place, did some shopping and had fun just being together. The shopping was really fun - I found some fun things and had a good time shopping without kids (love the kids - but shopping is much more enjoyable without them....) One of our favorite stores was Honolua Surf - and they had the cutest clothes! I even got an awesome new suitcase - I love it! Saturday night we had a group dinner again - it was like a Hawaiian beach party. Unfortunately as we had finished eating (eating way too much...) the sky opened up and started POURING. We were drenched by the end of it, which was actually kind of fun....

• Sunday - To end our trip we did the most AMAZING thing I've ever done I think. We took a HELICOPTER ride! We had gone back and forth about whether or not we'd do it (it is so expensive and I wondered if it would be worth it) and I'm SOOOO glad we decided to take the plunge. It was worth EVERY PENNY! We opted for the open door helicopter and I am so glad we did! The flight was super smooth and our pilot flew right into these cool crevice areas, right into beautiful canyons - and at times I felt like I could almost reach right out and touch the waterfalls. We saw the entire island, and I can honestly say that it was the most spectacular view of beauty I have ever seen. If you go to Kauai - this is DEFINITELY the way to go!!! Then afterwards we had some dinner with friends and got ready to fly home. We took the red-eye flight from Hawaii to LA/SLC/Cedar City. We didn't make it to Cedar City until Monday afternoon, but once again we were grateful that we got to fly right home and didn't have to also drive home after all that traveling.

An AMAZING trip - one that will not be forgotten. I hope that someday we'll get to return to Kauai - it was one of the most perfect places we've ever been!