Sunsets in Kauai

Aloha!  I can't believe our glorious vacation in paradise is already coming to an end.  Back to work tomorrow...boo hoo.  We had a great time celebrating our 10 year anniversary {a few weeks early}!  To cap off our week, I'm gonna share a couple pics of the sunsets in Kauai - one from the north side and the other from the south.  Both are just gorgeous...enjoy!

Sunset at the St. Regis in Princeville

Sunset at Brennecke's Beach in Poipu

And here are a couple pics of me and my handsome hubby...

Here we are on our first day, in our hotel room at Princeville.  We honeymooned here 10 years ago and we had another awesome stay. I'm blessed with having such a wonderful husband! :)

And here we are on our last night at Brennecke's on the Beach in Poipu....we had a wonderful vacation!  Thank you Kauai :)

See you guys back on the mainland!

a day at the {botanical gardens}

Aloha friends!  Today I'm sharing a few snaps of our trip to the McBryde Botanical Gardens, which is in Kauai's Lawai valley.  Some fun facts we just learned was that they just completed filming Pirates of the Carribean a week ago in parts of the garden, so we just missed seeing Johnny Depp {bummer!}.  Sidenote - we did have a star sighting though - we saw Pierce Brosnan on the beach when we were up in Princeville!  Ok - back to our trip to the gardens...it was beautiful and lush as you can imagine. Here's a look at the beach that they may have filmed in the movie:

And lastly, I put together a little collage of the exotic plants we saw in the gardens.  if you click on the picture below, you'll get to see a larger view.  Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by today!

sun and {fun!}

Hello there blog peeps!  How are you?  I have to say I am enjoying every minute of my vacation so far.  Kauai is just amazing as always.  Definitely my favorite place to recharge my batteries!  I've got a card share for you, believe it or not.  I brought this card with me from home with the intent of writing our note of thanks to the owners of our fun beach cottage you'll see at the end of this post.  Isn't this the cutest little surfer bear?  In the background is the view of the beach from our front porch.  It's truly a breathtaking view!

Today, I thought I'd share some pictures of our hike to the Hanakapiai Falls, which is part of the Kalalau Trail, located where the road ends in Hanalei.  We've done this hike now 4 times out of our 6 times here in Kauai.  And every time, the hike is a little different.  A huge part of it is due to the weather conditions, but this time, it was both weather conditions and some trail modifications.  It was also probably the most treacherous yet, since it rained on us a lot and the ground was really muddy and slushy.  You won't be able to tell so much in the pictures, because most of the time we took our camera out was when the rain stopped and the sun came up!  Anyway, here's a little snapshot of our hiking journey.

This picture was taken on our way to the hike, right off the road in Hanalei.  The rainbow ends in some taro fields!

Here I am - we've just started the hike and already, you can see the muddy path in the background.  Imagine this for 8 miles. The view was to die for though, so it made every bit worth it!

Did I tell you that there was quite a bit of uphill on this hike?  The elevation changes were pretty dramatic at some parts.  How cute is my hubby though?  Heehee.  He was a trooper carrying that backpack filled with water and snacks.

Here's one of the many gorgeous vistas that kept us going.  The cliffs in the background are part of the Napali Coast.

We even got to see kayakers in the ocean!  Their brightly colored kayaks looked so pretty against the gorgeous blue ocean.

Ahhh!  How gorgeous is this beach?  This pristine stretch of sand and beach is the Hanakapiai Beach, 2 miles into our hike.  Since we got an early start, there weren't too many people that had made it here yet.  It was quite a treat for us!

Here's a quick peek at the big payoff...the waterfall at the end of the hike! This is the Hanakapiai Falls.  We were probably a quarter mile away.  So pretty!  We took some flip videos at the falls, so hopefully, I can share them with you when I get back (after editing and all that good stuff!)

This picture was taken on our way back...the little peek a boo view is of the pristine beach.  Isn't this so amazing?  I really love this hike!  It's worth all the soreness I'm still feeling in my legs!

And lastly, here's a pic of our adorable beach cottage - our home in Poipu for the remainder of the week.

That's all for now.  Hope you enjoyed the photos!  Time for me to go and run before heading to the water.  Have a fantastic day!

Greetings from Kauai!

Hello there blog friends! Hope your weekend is off to a great start! I have to say mine has been fantastic so far. We woke up to a gorgeous view, I went for a run and saw a couple of rainbows (and yes, it did rain on me on and off on my four mile run!) and now I'm sitting on the beach. Yet it's only a little past 8:30 am. How about that for a productive day so far? Gonna lounge on the beach for a bit now.



View of the beach from our hotel.



Looking out to Hanalei.



Lastly, here's one of the rainbows I saw on my run this morning. It was gorgeous!

Have a great day!

Day trip to Waimea Canyon

Yesterday we went up to Waimea Canyon, which is basically the Grand Canyon of Kauai. It's pretty cool! Here's a quick look: Isn't this canyon amazing?
Here's a view from the Kalalau Lookout - we were fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of it before it got enveloped in fog and clouds! This is the bird's eye view of the trail hike we did earlier in the week.
We capped off the day with a luau. Since it was a little rainy yesterday, they had the luau indoors...oh well! It was still a great show.

That's all for now...time for me to head down to the beach! Aloha!

Highlights from the Kalalau Trail

Hi peeps! Today, I thought I'd do a quick share of some pics from our hike we did on Monday. Michael and I have done this hike the 4 out of 5 times we've been to Kauai and it always has a way of kicking our butts, but the view throughout is amazing. It's the start of the Kalalau trail that takes you to a beach, and then to a waterfall, which comes out to an 8 mile out-and-back route. The one time we didn't do it was on our last trip a couple years ago, where we did a different hike with my bro, which was slightly tougher (as in, there was a point where I thought we were gonna fall off the cliff!) and longer, but had equally breathtaking views of the NaPali coast. In either case, as hard as the hikes were, the payoff was definitely worth it! Here's a picture of Michael and I - still looking fresh and energized after probably .25 miles into our hike!
Since most of the hike wraps around the NaPali coast, the hike is super scenic. Here we are with Michael's sister, Erin and boyfriend Kyle.
We made it to the beach! This is 2 miles into the hike!
What a pretty little beach, huh!
After 2 more miles, this is the breathtaking waterfall we reach.
Michael and my father-in-law had fun swimming and exploring under the falls. Erin and Kyle made it into the water, too.
After 8 miles and 7 hrs later, here are my in-laws at the finish. Triumphant!

That's all for today - hope you all have a great one!

Aloha from Kauai!

Hi all! Greetings from Kauai! We're on a family vacation with my hubby's family. We arrived yesterday afternoon, and it's been fantastic so far! It's a beautiful day here, with some intermittent clouds, as you can see from the photo above, which I took while I was on a walk this morning with my mother-in-law. This is the spot where we saw a couple of turtles, though I don't think I got them in this picture. We all got up so early today, due to the 3 hr time difference, that we headed out to the beach...at 7 am. It's only a little after 11 here, but it feels like we've done a lot already.

Anyway, I wanted to let you all know that I will probably be posting a little erratically this week (but how can you blame me?...this is hardly a place to be sitting in front of your computer!) I'll do my best to post photos here and there. Probably not too many cards this week, but maybe I'll have a day of retrospectives from the past...we'll see. Hope you enjoy your day...you can bet I'll be enjoying mine ;)

Mahalo!