A Recap of Kauai

Here you are, my friends: a photographic recap of our time on Kaua'i. What an island!

Katherine and Sarah stayed with us for four days. We'd rented a two bedroom condo. It was gorgeous, and suited us just about perfectly. We hung out together on our lanai...

from which we thoroughly enjoyed the mountain view. (Can you make out that waterfall?) We could see the ocean from the front door and various other places in the condo.

We spent our days at the beach, where Sarah learned to surf. You go, girl!

Kathleen, however, preferred the pool. I mean, the kid lives on Oahu. A beach is a beach is a beach, as far as she's concerned. But, a pool? Now there's something to get worked up about! (Wait until she finds out about motels on the mainland...)

Sarah was our go-to babysitter. She and the girls hung out at the condo together one evening so that the grown-ups could enjoy a relaxing dinner at a "real" restaurant. (That was the evening I discovered my love for ceviche. Mmmm... ceviche!) Another night Katherine and Sarah both stayed with the girls so that Mama and Daddy could have a date night! Although we'd talked about a fancy dinner, we opted instead for the uber-casual. We hiked to Queen's Bath for a swim (man, I wish I'd had my camera for that!), and then drove to Ke'e Beach to watch the sunset. Ke'e Beach is the very end of the road on Kaua'i's North Shore. Beyond it is the Na Pali coast, which can be seen only by boat or by helicopter or, for the very adventurous, by hiking through it. We settled for the view from the beach.

And the sunset didn't disappoint, either!

We enjoyed every minute we had with Sarah and Katherine; we just didn't have enough! We're so glad they managed to visit us before we left Hawaii.

Once Sarah and Katherine had departed, we tried to keep busy. We found it was the best way to distract Kathleen, who would intermittently cry, "But I want my Sarah!"

So we headed back to the beach.

We discovered we have not one, but two little mermaids!

We visited the Kileaua lighthouse, which Kathleen insisted on calling hers. She was a little put out when other tourists wanted to go inside it, too.

I was particularly excited about stopping at the lighthouse because we got another stamp in the girls' National Park Passports. In case you didn't know about the passport program (and I didn't until a few months ago), you can buy a little passport book at almost any National Park bookstore. Then, when you visit almost any National Park, you get a stamp in the book, recording your visit to the park! I think it'll be fun for the girls to look back one day and see all the places they traveled when they were so little. They now have stamps from Oahu (the USS Arizona Memorial) and Kaua'i (Kileaua Point National Wildlife Refuge). Sadly, we didn't have the passports when we visited the Big Island, so we missed out on the stamp for Volcanoes National Park. I'm sure we'll more than make up for that when we start hitting National Parks on the mainland...

Anyway, enough about that. While we were at the lighthouse we did some bird watching. Kathleen loved the binoculars.

What would vacation on Kaua'i be without shave ice? Fortunately, we'll never have to know...

Otherwise, we just goofed around and played away the time, enjoying each other's company.

And now we're home, still waiting for orders. We know we'll be moving soon; we just don't know when!