Hawaii Day 2

Oh Kauai, I love you. This was our view from our hotel room. Most mornings there was a rainbow. The inside of our room was actually a disappointment. It needed to be renovated, and for vacations we only do every 10 years or so, we wanted something nicer. We felt like the pictures we had seen online were misleading, so we complained and got moved to a bigger, renovated room. I was sooo grateful. 

It is such a treat to wake up whenever you want. We didn't ever sleep past like 7:30, but that's sleeping in to us! We had a quick breakfast Tuesday morning at a little place in Princeville. There were tons of wild roosters hanging around.

Our big plan for the day was to hike along the Na Pali Coast. This was an amazing day. I am just in love with all that green!

Someday I may add more detail to this post, but suffice it to say, it was BEAUTIFUL. The colors were unreal. 

This is where we stopped hiking. You can keep going to a waterfall, but it was just a little too far for me. I would love to have another chance to do it someday. This beach was a great place to have a snack and rest for a bit.

After the hike we stopped at a little farmer's market. I'd never had coconut water right out of a coconut, so we got one of those. I didn't really like it much.

Now this I did like. Shave ice! It's got shaved ice, ice cream, and sweetened condensed milk. 

We spent the evening at the beach within walking distance from our hotel. 

The trees are incredible!

We ate dinner at a local taco shop that night. I insisted we stop for some ice cream at the store so I could do one of my favorite things that night - eat and read in bed!

Hawaii Day 1

I just really don't feel like I should be blogging. We are moving in a week! But I really want to get these pictures on the blog before we disappear into the moving abyss. For the first time since our honeymoon, Nate and I took a vacation together, just the 2 of us. Kami watched our kids for us from Sunday night till Thursday morning, and then my mom, Aunt Robin, and my cousin Grace came for the last 2 days.

We left on a Sunday evening and even just being kidless at the airport felt like fun times to me. We had a 6 hour flight to Honolulu that was a little long and uncomfortable, but I loved having so much time to read. I finished one of my favorite books of all time, Unbroken.

We picked up our rental car late that night (a white Ford Mustang convertible-so fun), and spent the night in Honolulu. It was really overcast and cloudy when we woke up, but I learned that the clouds come and go quickly. It sure was humid.

We hadn't planned out where we would eat every day, and after leaving our hotel we just cruised around until we found some delicious breakfast. My favorite part was the coconut pancakes.

We spent a lot of the first half of the day driving around and stopping at beautiful places. I didn't mind being in the car one bit. It was so fun to not have a schedule and to be in such a gorgeous place. I'll just let the pictures do most of the talking from here on out. :)

We both really wanted to go to Pearl Harbor. It was incredible. There is a lot to see there, and we only spent a few hours, but I still loved it. During WWII, more than 3600 officers and crew and 52 submarines were lost in the war at sea. This was a memorial to those brave men.

Our tour of the USS Bowfin:

 We also visited the Pacific Aviation Museum which was very cool.

After our visit to Pearl Harbor, we headed to the airport and that night we flew to Kauai!

30 Hours of Awesomeness

Shadoe, Julie, Katie and I managed to squeeze in one more overnight trip to St. George before I move. I have really been looking forward to it, but also stressing out because Nate was going to take all 3 kids camping by himself while I was gone. More on that in another post. We got tickets to see Mary Poppins at Tuacahn on Friday night, but first we had to stop and get some treats. 

I just love the atmosphere at Tuacahn, especially after the sun goes down and I can look at the dark desert sky. It was SO hot this night though. Our show didn't even start until 8:45, but we were all very hot for the entire evening. Something about the chairs we were sitting on made us all sweat, sweat, sweat. Of course we still loved every minute of it.

This was one of those pictures that I was so embarrassed to ask someone to take...and SO happy we did. Favorite picture from the trip.

We tried out a place called Swig that everyone has been ranting and raving about, but none of were impressed AT ALL. The sugar cookies were delicious, but that's about it.

Not much to take pictures of when all you do is shop and eat all day! I love that these girls like to do the same things I do.

This was just as we pulled up to my house...just showing off a few of our bags. I was so sad our weekend was over. I still needed to run to the store that night for some things because we were hosting a dinner at our house Sunday night. I also had to finish writing a talk I was giving in sacrament meeting. It was a very busy but great weekend.

Lasts

A few of our "lasts" from the past couple weeks...

Last soccer game of the season...made extra fun by having Grandpa and Grandma Jody in town. We just had a couple days with them, but we sure loved having them here. 

Natalie always looked forward to soccer practice and games. We lucked out with a really great coach and a fun group of kids. 

 She's sure happy to have her first trophy.

Last trip to The Cupcakery. Oh, it was also our first trip there. Delicious and messy.

Last day of school and last day at John Tartan Elementary School...both were happy to be done, but Jansen has commented a lot of times in the last few days that he really misses school.

Our smarty pants kindergarten graduate. She is the top reader in her class, and she is reading at a 3rd grade level. 

She will really miss her teacher Ms. Holenscack.

Last visit to the taco truck and last trip to the park with the Nelsons. We will sure miss these cute kids. 

Last girls' night out with these lovely ladies. We were celebrating Becca's birthday that's coming up. I'm so glad we were able to squeeze something in before we move.