Aloha!

First of all, posting a picture with my last post was kind of a new thing for me. And guess what. I like it. So now you not only have to read my words, but you have to look at my photos. Ha.

Second, my blog has had it's first hit from Hawaii and that's because I've been in Hawaii for the past week! My family is here until Friday for vacation before school. Fabulous!

My family and I landed in Kauai at the Lihue Airport Monday at about 6:30 (I think... honestly I don't remember. I just picked a number that looked good...) We drove out of Lihue, through Kapa'a and into Princeville to the fabulous condo we are staying in. (A shout out to the Jaspers and their friends. Thanks for the hook up.)

A bit about the beautiful condo. This here is the view from our balcony. Oh yeah. Look at the blue. Look at the green. Also look at the tiny white sailboat. Yeah.

Imagine yoga every morning with that right outside the window. Bliss.

The condo is a three bedroom, 2 and a half bathroom wonder right on a golf course. (That means really pretty ground and very well maintained. I'm not much of a golfer.) It comes with a full kitchen, a very comfy living room area, two balconies, and two cars (one mini van and one convertible).

A short walk away from the condo is a trail that leads to a series of 191 steps down to a hidden beach. (Just so you know, these numbers I'm spewing out are numbers I maybe thought I heard from my siblings/mother as they were reading out Kauai Guidebook, but I never bothered to check the facts on. I could be 100 off for all I know.) Hideaway Beach is just that. A beach tucked away between two volcanic rock outcroppings. Not a lot of people, great snorkeling (or so I'm told), tons of rocks to climb around on, and wonderful scenery.

Sunset from Hideaway Beach

Kauai is known as the garden island. It's the oldest of the Hawaiian Isles (I feel so much cooler saying Isles rather than Islands. I dunno why.) and most would say the most beautiful. It is the home of the Na Pali coastline. The coast is only accessible by boat, helicopter, or hiking and has cliffs that rise as high as 4,000 feet! Well that's where we went today. We hiked into the Na Pali mountians and it was awesome!

Along with gorgeous mountains and waterfalls Hawaii also has a lot of chickens. They just wander around parking lots and beaches. A few other critters (I can say critters because I'm from Utah and also because my grandpa says crick instead of creek) we've become familiar with are:

The Cane Spider:

Oh my goodness. For someone like me who is terrified of spiders this is the worst thing I could have ever encountered. Luckily it was my sister who found it in our room and not me, and luckily the vacuum it's stuck in is in my brothers closet now and not mine... *shivers* According to what my sister read in our Kauai Guidebook, the Cane spiders are not poisonous, but they think they are so they will often chase people and try to bite! AHHH!! What a freaky little beast!

Portuguese Man-of-war:

Now I'm sure you've heard of the huge monsters off the coast of Australia with stings that cause anything from welts to death. Well these little guys isn't nearly as bad. (or maybe these are just the baby ones.) Once again from our handy guidebook (It's beginning to feel like a Pokedex of some sort for all of these Hawaiian creatures. Yeah... I just went up on the nerd scale...) these little guys are related to jellyfish and they can't swim. They have one long tentacle (this one has a tiny one, but the one we caught had one that was at least a foot long) that is used to paralyze prey. Here's our story with the little squishy:

We were out at the beach doing some boogie boarding when my little brother who was chilling on the shore complained that he was stung by a jellyfish. Well, he's the youngest and we all just brushed it off as some ploy to get attention. (I know, we're mean.) Well after I got tired of the salt in my eyes I decided to sit on the shore in the water and watch the surfers. After about ten minutes I felt a prickly stinging sensation on my wrist and I looked down and saw a black thing wrapped around my wrist. Naturally, I flipped out and flung it off of me. It left behind little red bumps and a bothersome itch. (Yes, I then apologized to Zach for not believing him). Later as we were preparing leave, I went down to the water in a futile attempt to rid myself of the sand clinging to me and I stumbled across one of the (men-of-war? mans-of-war? man-of-wars? I don't know) on the sand. I scooped it up with my flip flops and brought it back to my family. We then spread it out on a boogie board and proceeded to poke it. Fun stuff.

People of cyberspace, Hawaii is spectacular. Every morning I we get into our swimsuits and I wrap my cute little sarong (or lava lava or pareo) around me and we head to the beach where we splash in the waves and soak up the sun, or we visit a snorkeling haven and gaze at the little fishies, or we go on fabulous hikes and swim under gorgeous waterfalls. I'm loving this. I could be here for hundreds of years and never feel like I've taken enough pictures.

Just a little taste of the community we're staying in. That and I love pictures with roads, paths, trials, and the likes.

This tree was huge and all of the sand/dirt that used to be around the roots had been washed away over time. Cool!

I have no clue who this lady is, but this is at Queen's Bath. I just want to thank this lady for standing there in her orange and adding some color to my shot. I think it turned out nice. I'd also like to thank her for not turning around while I was being a creeper taking her picture. Yup...Mahalo...