Hawaii '09

West and I took a trip to Hawaii and spent a week on the island of Kauai. My sister has the summer off because she is a teacher and watched the kiddos for us. Thanks again Lor!!! We were kid free for a whole week. We missed them like crazy though! We always found ourselves saying things like, "Ahhh, Marlee would have loved to do this" or "Flash would have loved that." Although, it was nice to have all of the one on one time with West and just relax......well sort of. We actually did a lot of activities so we were "go go go" a lot of the time. I haven't developed the water camera pictures of us scuba diving, kayaking, and a boating on the napali coast yet, so for now here are the other things that we did!
Just arrived at the airport. As soon as we stepped off the plane you could feel all the humidity in the air, but you could smell how fresh the air was. Beats breathing the horrible Phoenix air!

The view from outside of our place. I loved being able to look out the window and see the ocean.

West's brother told us all the hot spots on Kauai since he has been many times. He told us about Secret beach and the secret lava pools that were off of this beach. We hiked over lava rocks for about fifteen minutes to the secret lava pools. The ocean flows into the lava rock forming pools. We went to the furthest point and had our own secluded area between two peninsulas. We even had our own private waterfall. It was about 7 feet deep in the middle of the lava pool that we were swimming in. It was so amazing. I won't even tell you how amazing! ;) On the way back we found that someone had welded a small hand bar on a lava rock to climb up a big section of rocks. West insisted that we go back the next day, which we did, but there were a couple small groups by "our spot." It was still fun though. No one was in the lava pools. The one that we were in the day before was hard for anyone to see the second day because the ocean was pouring into it when we arrived. You would never know it was there unless you already knew about it. As soon as we jumped in, one of the other groups came over and asked if they could jump in for a minute.

Here is West on the first day diving into the lava pool for the first time.

It took me a couple minutes of standing there before I jumped in because it was a little cooler then I like and I was thinking about all of the fish and that slimy bottom that I would have to encounter. I finally jumped!

This was the waterfall that was right next to the lava pool that we were in.

I am so horrible. The second day that we were walking back to "our spot" a lady laid right in the path that we were walking. She must have not known that we were coming her way. It was so funny because we were climbing up a section of rocks and as soon as we reached to the top we had a butt in our face. I had to take a picture. West pretended that I was taking a picture of him and then a pointed her direction and snapped.

I got brave and climbed down a big rock to sit on this small platform about 30 feet above a big section where water was crashing into. I was so scared. I knew that the lava was strong and wasn't going to break but in my head I was telling myself that this might break. I would have been in a lot of trouble if that happened.

As the water crashed and filled this big bowl it would rise up and then pour back into the ocean. If you were down there you would be thrown into the rocks. It was almost like a toilet bowl.

One day we went zip lining. There were nine different zip lines. The newest and longest was 1200 feet.

Here I am about to go for the first time. I was very nervous. This line was one of the shortest.

And I'm off.

Here is West. Things like this never scare him. We had a lot of fun but after a few zip lines it wasn't as exciting. It was more for the scenery at that point. I thought that I would make it more exciting by doing "no hands." It made me almost fall back. The guy asked me not to do that again. Come on where's the fun?

We also went to Kipu Falls. It's a little hidden place that has a 20 foot cliff and a huge rope swing above a pond that you can play in. I am such a loser and didn't do the rope swing. It was big! I saw alot of people not let go properly and back flop, face flop, side flop and belly flop. I was scared I would flop as well. West made fun of me for not going. It's was a big drop by the time the rope swung you up.

West swan diving off of the cliffs. I love this picture!!!

Yes, I too jumped off of the cliffs. The second and last time that I did it I got so much water up my nose. It was fun though!

Us at the Polihale State park heading to the beach.

On the west side of the island we checked out Waimea Canyon. It was beautiful!

Another shot.