Along Came Our Monkeys

Tuesday, July 02, 2024

Dianne and Tim's 50th Anniversary in Kauai

We stayed in a house in Poipu, a close walk to the beach. It was fun to play in the ocean and then head back to play in the pool, we did this most days. The house was a 4 bedroom, 5 bathroom house. Alia definitely liked having her own bathroom.

The yard had the weirdest grass, it looked fake but did feel real.

It rained everyday we were there, but it never lasted very long. We always had sunshine at some point in the day unlike Vashon that is always cloudy.

We enjoyed a rainforest hike on the Kuilau Ridge trail near Kapa'a.

We were on an ant hunt. Kauai has some amazing ants and we were hoping to find some on the hike.

The African tulip trees were really cool but they are one of the most invasive horticultural plants there. They were imported to Hawaii in the late 1800's for reforestation efforts. They grow quickly and the papery seeds can blow in the wind for miles.

The views were beautiful.

It was a really muddy hike with a downpour when we reached the top.

There were quite a few slippery spots where I narrowly missed wiping out.

The Banyan trees were cool throughout the grounds of the Hindu temple monastery in Kapa'a.

We went on a mountain tubing float with Kauai Mountain Adventures. We floated for about a mile and a half down hand dug canals that were created in 1870 to water the sugar cane fields. On the float we got to go through 5 different tunnels. It was a fun adventure and one of my favorite things we did on the trip.

We were told to paint our faces with the clay we floated past. Grandpa decided to help me with my face paint.

Beach days! We spent most of our time on the beach in Poipu as it had fun snorkeling and boogie boarding and was a close walk or drive from our house. Avery and Scott loved doing an evening boogie board.

Donkey beach north of Kapa'a. We enjoyed watching the crabs here until the rain came.

A fun trail leading to Donkey beach also known as Paliku beach.

Since it started to rain, we decided to head to Kapa'a to find food and shop. We found a shop that grew orchids and picked out 2 to ship home to Grandma and Grandpa to celebrate their 50th.

Great food at The Musubi truck.

We found donuts at Holey Grail. They had a lot of fun flavors and they weren't too sweet.

We ended up taking a short cut down an alley with a cool painting and we stumbled upon this guy making bagels. He invited Lilly in to help him and then he gave us 7 free bagels. It was a fun moment of serendipity.

Monk seals used the beaches to sun and rest.

We saw so many sea turtles while boogie boarding and walking the beach. It was intimidating seeing them ride the waves beside us as they were really big. The liked it out in the waves and would pop their heads up. Avery had a few times where he caught the same wave on his boogie board and would ride just above one.

We enjoyed a boat ride and snorkeling tour with North Shore charters along the Na Pali coast. It was great to see the coast line and snorkel at Tunnels beach were the reef was out a ways from shore.

We rode on Anini 1, a 32 foot catamaran. The boat was small enough to enter some caves along the coast.

50th Dinner anniversary at Dukes Restaurant. We had beautiful views looking out at Kalapaki beach.

Great food and fun drinks.

Hulu Pie

Fun to drink out of a real pineapple.

I will always think of wild chickens when I think of Kauai.

Amazing shave ice with real fruit juice at Sunrise shave ice. Alia and I got mango strawberry with a honey drizzle.

Happy 50th Grandma and Grandpa, thanks for the memories!

Sunday, May 12, 2024

In the kitchen

Alia loves to bake and cook things she sees on Instagram. It's fun watching her create dishes and it's tasty too!

Chocolate croissants

Homemade ravioli

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Spring Break

This year we went to Corvallis to visit Oregon State university and then off to Bend Oregon to cross country ski.

We spent some time on campus exploring the area and doing a geo cache. This was a cool sculpture that you could change. There were also robot carts on campus that delivered food.

We were able to meet up with Tony since he was working in the area. We went to Escape Corvallis. We managed to escape with a few hints.

We love taking Glenda on adventures.

Bend has some great cross country trails. We spend time at Mt Bachelor and Virginia Meissner sno park.

We spent time wandering around Bend and enjoying the shopping district. Alia was excited to be able to go into stores and try clothes on. It's hard being a teen on the island sometimes!