Hawaii ! ! !

(I couldn't figure out how to have the writing above this picture, so sorry for random dolphin opening to this post)


Yep, be jealous, cuz it was THAT awesome. I love Hawaii so much and I owe my third time there to my cute in-laws for planning the Harper family vacation there. This was my first time to Kauai though, and I loved it!! It's so beautiful and quiet there. We had so much fun doing all sorts of adventures: kayaking, cliff jumping, rope swinging off into a waterfall, snorkeling, and my favorite the boat tour of the Na Pali coast. So our boat was more like a raft on steroids. We literally sat on the sides and held onto ropes to stay put. We saw dolphins and turltes and humpback whales. Which it wasn't like, oh sweet, there's a whale way out there at sea, grab your binoculars....they were RIGHT THERE. Like, 10 yards from us. It really puts things into perspective when the whale is bigger than your "boat". Yikes! And just to give you a better idea of our watercraft, the captain told us that he had a cool experience where a baby whale came and put his fun IN the boat. Yeah, in it. Crazy eh? I was literally shaking I was so excited to have that experience. They also took us in sea caves and served us lunch on a beach. There we got to walk through an ancient fishing village and and a burial ground for their royalty. Very cool. We ate lots of good food, layed out on the beach, did a little shopping. We spent our last 2 days on Oahu where we went to the Dole Plantation, Matsumoto's Shaved Ice (yum), and Pearl Harbor. Kevin is trying to brainstorm on ways that we could move to Kauai. So far he has come up with taking my dad's and his dad's retirement money and rebuilding a burnt down hotel. So pretty sure we won't be moving anytime soon :(

inside the a sea cave
I didn't mean to put this picture in here, but can't figure out how to get it off. So there you go....
Picture of the Na Pali coast from our raft
Our raft

Us laying at the pool at our hotel
This is us on the hike down to Secret beach. Except that it's not so secret, we found it on a brochure, along with everyone else. Maybe they should call it, "Waves Will Kill You and Take You Out To Sea Beach" because I got my #% handed to me in the water. It was still fun though. It's crazy the power the ocean has.
Us getting shaved ice at Jo Jo's. Here we are kayaking down the river. It was SO pretty, this picture does not do it justice. After this we all cried from the pain of rowing for 4 hours.
My husband looking hard core jumping off the rope swing