Kauai - Part 1

Since I have so many photos I want to share, I am not going to write a whole bunch... I'll just explain the stories behind my photos :) 

This was the view from the beach at our condos... Bali Hai :)

Sea Urchin we found on our favorite beach...

 Kauai is populated, over populated actually, with chickens.  They are everywhere!  Even on the beach where the will dig through your beach bag if left unattended...

 We went fishing!  It sounded like tons of fun... until Mom and I spent the entire day being seasick... ugh...

 But at least Ev caught a big fish!  He made for some very good dinners :)

 My favorite boys... mahalo.

 Kayaking up the Wailua river.  We were able to just go on our own and avoid the crowded tours, such a great day!

 After kayaking a couple miles, we left the kayaks on the bank and hiked a couple miles to a waterfall.  Kauai has to have the most perfect weather on Earth.  Never hot, never cold, just perfect :)

 Waterfall!

 The water was so cold, and I didn't really want to get all wet before hiking back through the forest, but Dwyatt kept saying, "You only get to do this once... don't you want to remember this?"  So glad we did... this is one of my favorite memories from the trip!  :)

 Stick fighting in the rainforest... at least they're entertaining...

 So while kayaking back toward Wailua we found this great cliff for jumping!  We decided as a family that the 5 of us would all go jump off and it would make a great family photo.  So after finding someone to take the photos, and climbing up the cliff, and all counting together...1...2...3... We jumped.  Well, most of us jumped... Mom got scared at the last minute.  Probably made for an even better memory :)

 Bali Hai at sunset.

 Dwyatt and I enjoyed many evenings on the beach :)

 We also visited Queen's Bath one day.  Queen's Bath is this natural pool formed in these black rocks that is fed by the waves, but protected from all the current so it's safe to swim in...  However, if you climb over the rocks and down by the water's edge...note where my Dad is... apparently it can be very dangerous! 

 But there were tons of sea turtles swimming around the rocks, so we had to go check them out :)  Later we were able to snorkel with the turtles at another beach!

 What's a beach vacation without a few mai-tais??

 So here are the photos of the kiteboarding adventure... Dwyatt has been learning to kiteboard all summer and has been determined to take all his stuff to Kauai.  One day the wind was perfect so he decided to give it a try...

 He made it!  Looking pretty darn good in this picture :)

 Not so good in this one... he later crashed into the reef, scraped up his entire right side and broke his left hand which resulted in surgery.  He is still in a cast today!  What am I going to do with this daredevil??

 Scuba diving!!  This was Evan's first time diving and it was so much fun!  We saw all kinds of fish, including the Hawaiian Humuhumunukunukuapua'a :)  We also saw some eels, sea turtles, sea urchins, and plenty of coral.

 Ev & I getting ready...

 Ev, you look so cool... :)

 This is kind of a random picture, but we were walking around a shopping center looking for souvenirs and I saw this tree with bananas growing on it!  Who has bananas growing on trees in a parking lot?!?!?  Apparently Hawaii does...

 Oh the scooters... Evan absolutely loved this thing.  Great way to see the island & tons of fun!

Ok that's it for part 1... I'll post more really soon!