Last Full Day of Hawaii…I would be lying to pieces if I said I wasn’t said about leaving Kauai.  I missed the boys, but I LOVED the island…and Jeremy and I agree we would love to bring the boys to Hawaii one day!  On our last day there, we rushed out to the beach that morning to soak up the last few minutes of being there.  We went back to the first beach, Poipu Beach, and snorkeled and soaked up the last bit of sun we could.  After that, we came back to the hotel, showered up, and packed the rest of our things.  We had to check out at Noon, but our flight wasn’t until 8:30 that night!  So, we headed to the Marriott Kauai, which by the way, is the BOMB, and enjoyed lunch and the best HULA PIE ever.  We walked around and found an outdoor TV that no one was watching….Jeremy lovingly turned it to ESPN 2 for us to sit and watch. Now, that might sound weird, but I had a reason since my cousin Nolan was playing in the College World Series! We watched until rain delay came for the game and then we made our way around Lihue…stopped at Starbucks, walked through the Costco, and went to the Wailua Falls.  These falls are the ones shown at the beginning of Fantasy Island and since it had rained there was a beautiful rainbow there!  After that we gassed up and headed to the airport.  We were going to lose our overnight, so my goal was to sleep on the plane.  I think I managed an hour or two and we landed in LAX at 5 AM.  We caught our connecting flight and headed home to our boys!!! My mom picked us up at Marta and we rushed home to see the kiddos!  Our wonderful, loving, supervisor of the week, Ms. Mary, brought the kids back to our house and they were tickled to see us.  Noah would not stop hugging me and just wanted to be next to me for the next few hours.  They were precious angels for about 24 hours and then by Thursday, they were back to their normal, fighting selves.  It’s the punishment we get as parents for leaving them, right?

Happy 10 years J!

Karen

Sunday…Sunday…

We headed in the other direction today…off to the North Shore!!! We stopped at a Lighthouse on the way and the visitor center wasn’t open yet, but I got this picture…completely looks like a postcard.

We then headed into Princeville where we toured around the hotels and time shares there.  We walked through the Westin, which was spectacular and I decided I could spend the summer here every year!  We went to Hanalei where we had breakfast.  We checked out the Hanalei Pier and drove all the way to the “End of the Road”, literally.  Ke’e Beach is the end of the road, with barely enough room to turn our car around.  It was very crowded, so we didn’t stay. We parked it at another beach (Anini Beach) and snorkeled some, but mainly just sat on the beach.  My husband does a great job at just making me relax, and that’s exactly what I did.  I made my way through my book and we had a great last full day of enjoying Kauai.  On the way home we enjoyed Bubba’s Burgers which we delicious!  And later that night we enjoyed a HUGE Shaved Ice almost the size of Noah.  I was mad we didn’t get a picture of it before we devoured it!

Karen

One adventure after another…this day began with a trip to the Bakery called Sweet Marie’s Hawaii.  BEST coffee cake EVER as well as a cup of coffee that was to die for. My husband likes his coffee black, but I love mine with sweet stuff in it and she made it with some cinnamon she had just gotten from a friend who brought it back from the Big Island.  SOOOO YUMMY!

We were on our way to Kayak that morning.  We were with 2 other couples and our guide.  We paddled up the Wailua River and then we hiked a mile in to Secret Falls…

So beautiful…so peaceful… I remember hiking thinking I can see and hear the stream, but never the waterfall. And then we hiked up and over the cliffs, there it was. As beautiful and roaring as you can imagine.  We swam near it, but didn’t get too close…although we watched other people go right for it.  It was powerful you could feel the power long before you could reach the waterfall.  Completely amazing.

We dinner at the hotel that night…and my arms began killing me right about the time I went to bed.  Thankful for the Aleve we packed!

Karen

BOAT RIDE!!! Hello Catamaran…I am ready to set sail.  If you are my facebook friend and looked at my pictures, then you’ll know that I said our boat nagivator dude looks like the guy from Jaws…not what I wanted to be thinking, but none the less, I whispered to Jeremy, “we’re gonna need a bigger boat!”  Nice.

The view was spectacular and the boat ride was not bad…until the ride home. Long sun, up and down, not a lot of food, makes this girl a little sickly…not to fear, I sat on the back of the boat, with waves crashing over top of me and that, with the breeze was all good.

We had breakfast on the boat and saw the coastline in the most beautiful way.  We saw dolphins! And the big thing was we snorkeled!  We had the best time (best thing we did that day!) and I was overcome with God’s beautiful creation the entire day!

Needless to say, we were exhausted and we grabbed some fast food (Chinese!) and thought about our next day…Kayaking!

Here we are on the boat…after the snorkeling and before the sick feeling. HA HA HA!

Karen

Day 3 began later than Day 2…Praise Jesus for good sleep!  Today, we needed to go and see where our boat ride would take place, so we headed to the South side of Kauai.  We had breakfast at this little joint called Grinds Cafe…SOOOOO YUMMY!!!  Omelets to die for and of course, great coffee!  It was right near where our boat ride would take place on Day 4, so we knew exactly where we were going. It was also on the way to the Waimea Canyon! I’ll give you a few pictures, but let me just say it doesn’t do it justice!  It was a little overcast that day and we followed the book where it says “Cloudy out?  Fear not, wait a few minutes and the view will change”  Sure enough, it would!!! We have video (not downloaded yet) that all you hear is the wind blowing because we are up so high. I said I can’t imagine what I will say when I see the Grand Canyon…I’ll probably just be so speechless.  I know, some of you are thinking…REALLY?  SPEECHLESS?? RIIIIIIIIGGHHHHTTT!!!

Here we are on the way up the Waimea Canyon. This was a spot to pull over and it was as gorgeous as ever!

The picture above is just one of the views we saw…again, it doesn’t do it justice…

The next one is us at the top…as you can see by my hair…it’s windy out!!!

We drove further up the canyon to Kalalau Lookout and got some pictures of the NaPali Coast below…the next day we would be on a boat looking up at the canyon.  How surreal.

It rained a bit while we were up at the top of the Canyon, but it was truly a breathtaking site!

On the way back we scoped out the Kauai Coffee Company.  It was still raining off and on, but we got to walk around the plantation and try all sorts of coffee…Jeremy felt like he was in heaven!

We had the best time there!

This stamp was in every piece of sidewalk and I loved it so much that I took a picture of it.  I told Jeremy I would like this on a tile and placed behind our oven or something!

We spent all day away….before the coffee company we located our boat place and had lunch and the best chocolate ice cream EVER. I had an Ahi Tuna wrap with Wasabi dressing and it was amazing!!!  The chocolate ice cream was at the Kauai Chocolate Company. After the coffee company we went to a family friendly park to check that out…and we ate at a little Mexican place for dinner…Seafood Tacos…oh my…SOOOO GOOD!  I even tried to re-create them already.

ALL of that was “THE BEST THING WE DID THAT DAY!”

Karen

Day 2 – June 15th

Day 2 began EARLY…like 3:00 AM HST, but I forced myself to not get up till at least 5:00 AM HST!

Here is the view from our balcony at a little after 5:00 AM…

So beautiful!!!  It was amazing. Watching the clouds roll in and the sun rise, it was really breathtaking.  We headed to Poipu Beach and got there around 8 AM!  Of course, it felt like lunch time to us! When we arrived, there were 2 seals on the beach and a team of researchers were there tagging them and taking blood work…they watch them to see how they are using the reef that was within reach of where we were.  We tested out our snorkel gear, first time for me, and you could see fish in the shallowest of waters.  It was as if you were swimming with them, not the other way around.

We had lunch at Puka Dog and checked out the local Gelato.  ALL YUMMY!  We then drove up to Spouting Horn…

As you can see, it’s gorgeous!!!

We headed to the local Walmart to gather some waters and snacks to keep stocked in our room as well as pick up some things to bring back to the boys.  We had a big night planned at the Smith Family Luau, and we needed to rest up for that!

The guy who ran the show took this picture of us!  We were thrilled to be there!  It was incredible watching them take the pig out of the ground and then the show…well, the show was awesome!!!!  We did video some so I’ll have to get those on the blog one day.  After we ate I got severely tired, but glad I made it through the show.  I was also a little bit sunburned, so sitting in a dress, on bleachers, was a little rough.  It was pretty amazing though and at the end of everyday I would say “This is the best thing we did today!”

Karen

It all started when we began thinking about our 10 year Anniversary…

We did the typical…”where do you want to go?” “I don’t know, where do you want to go?”  You know the scenario.

We had all these sky miles and we wanted to cash them in, cutting our cost of the trip.  I was thinking California. Never been there and we talk every year of going to San Diego, taking in a ballgame and enjoying the Pacific Coast.  He was thinking Europe.  We compromised on Hawaii!!!  What a great compromise.

So after all the planning and figuring who was watching our two little blessings, we jetted off to Lihue, Kuaui, Hawaii.  We dropped David and Noah at my friend Mary’s on Monday, June 13th.  She and Bob are sweet sweet friends of ours and their kids Caroline and Robert are in high school and middle school respectively.  Caroline has babysat for us before, and the boys LOVE Ms. Mary’s house because they have a dog named Brady.  Brady is HUGE and is in trouble A LOT, but they boys have a soft spot for him.  We did the “week before walk through” with a “here is where you will be sleeping” and Noah was in heaven!  I didn’t hesitate for a minute about leaving them. Thanks MARY and BOB and Caroline and Robert and all the girls who came and helped out that week!!!!!

We then drove to my mom’s house to leave our car and have dinner with her.  With no kids, we haven’t had a quiet meal like that in over 7 years years.  She then drove us to Marta and we rode to the airport.  We then picked up the Airport Shuttle to the Westin hotel, which is the place we stayed the night we got married.  It was just as we had remembered and we each had a great night sleep before our big day of traveling.

Tuesday, June 14th -

We got up and got to the airport in plenty of time to grab breakfast and check in.  I had not been on a plane in like 6 years (I know, how awful!) and I have never been further than Dallas, TX, so this was really exciting!!! No problems getting to LAX and grabbing lunch before the next flight to Lihue, Kuaui, Hawaii.  It is a long 5 hours and change to Lihue, and the plane could be have been bigger, but we arrived and were tickled to be there…tired, but tickled!!!  Got the rental car, and drove to find our hotel.  We stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott on the East Coast and although it was on the beach, it didn’t have a beach to sit on.  That was fine with us, since we were only there to sleep most days.  We pushed through the pain of wanting to sleep (it was 6:00 HST which means it was like 12:00 AM EST).  We ate and I think I made it to 8:00 before I had to sleep.

More adventures to come….

Karen

I must apologize for my lack of writing lately…juggling a newborn and busy 4 year old, well, it’s enough to wipe ya right out! I have written and thought about so many things in my head while resting or washing bottles or feeding, and with some time this morning, I figured I would finally get my words out.
I was thinking about distance and the old addage that the distance between two points is a straight line, and although on paper that might be true, it isn’t always the case in real life. I often imagine the image of a path God is leading us on and the twists and turns it takes to get to the destination…I must admit I don’t always like the twists and turns, but if I keep pressing on, moving forward, the destination is coming. I think I know what the destination is going to look like, but it sometimes turns out to be something completely different. Am I okay with that? Depends…depends where my eyesight is. Am I focused on the destination or the Deliverer who go us to the destination? Am I only focused on getting there or the road that leads up to getting there??? Come on, admit it, no one likes the twists, the turns, the bumps, but isn’t that part of getting to the destination? What if we changed our focus and learned to ride through the obstacles? Whether together or by yourself, you have to come to a point at some time where you choose to kick and scream and pout at the obstacles or embrace it. I am not saying your shouldn’t sometimes question the obstacles…for instance, I received an email this morning from a friend of mine who is stuck in a destination that she doesn’t want to be at, physically. She would prefer to be closer to home, to family, but God moved them some years ago and has proceeded not to move them back just yet. I, personally, think she has done her time and have pleaded to God to grant their hearts desires to return closer to home. With that being said, God may not be finished with them in that place yet…she knows that, she is wise beyond her years, but it’s still hard to swallow.
So, in light of all that, I have been pondering my own response while on this journey to the bumps, bruises, twists and turns of life…I need to be better about it, my husband needs to be better at it, we, as a couple, need to be better about it. It’s a long journey, and the ultimate destination with the Lord is better than any small destination of church or city or anything else.

It just blows my mind what can happen in a week. A week ago last Wednesday I called a realtor lady whom we met at a Home Buying Seminar. She was nice and I clicked with her, so I figured she might be able to help us locate a home. We have been looking for a while, so I just needed some help finding what I wasn’t seeing. By Sunday we were out looking, by Wednesday we had narrowed it down to a neighborhood and Friday my mom came to look at the two we had chosen. I was okay with the houses. Did you hear? I was just okay. I have settled in my mind that we couldn’t go any bigger or any more money, so I was okay with it being a small cute house in a nice neighborhood…and then we said, well, can we just go by these two other houses in two different neighborhoods in a different school zone? They are a little more money, but we want to see them. Voila. We see them on Friday with my mom and gracious alive, she and I love them and Jeremy loves it too! Dinner, tried to sleep, and by 6:00 PM today we made an offer. DID YOU HEAR ME? We made an offer on a house!!!!! Now, this is not really a time of celebrating, it’s just a time of waiting. pure torture, I say. hee hee.

In dealing with all that, it gave me a new found perspective on this contract and covenant thing. We hear and preach so much of marriage being a covenant, much like the one Christ made with his Bride, the Church and it was so hard bringing the word contract back in my realm of thinking. When we sign those lines, it is a contract. We want certain things, a price, closing costs, warranties, etc., and the other party wants money. We are thinking of paint colors and furniture and this is a big deal.

My marriage is just as equally a big deal! I didn’t sign but one piece of paper, the marriage license, to marry Jeremy. Aside from the words and promises I made to Him, before God and everybody, there is no “contract” of sorts. It’s a covenant relationship. It’s vital. It’s important. It cannot be broken. So, in the midst of all this, remind yourself this week that your marriage is not a contract, it’s a convenant.