Sweet Arrival

Hayden & Megan's little bundle of joy arrived while we were in Hawaii. 

 Finally!

Introducing Kallie Mae Cooper. She arrived August 24.

 This makes five grandchildren. Two grand daughters!

We could hardly wait to meet her. We really excited for them.

Aloha

I hate when a vacation comes to an end but this was super hard to leave:

 The view

 The resort

 Kauai

 So here we are flying over Waikiki.

Aloha for now! Read the next post for our special news from our trip.

Day 8 The Hike

Our last day in Hawaii. We had a big day planned though trying to fit it all in. We wanted to go back to the North Shore at the end of the road and hike to to the Napoli Coast.  We didn't get up super early to make sure to get a parking spot so we were a little nervous. We stopped and got some ice Cream first just to keep our strength up for the hike! Luckily we snagged a spot not too too far away.

 The hike was beautiful no doubt about it.

 It did surprise how crowded it was. There were people coming and going like crazy. Lots of young kids too which was surprising because it was a pretty strenuous hike,  I saw dolphins at this spot and it was the perfect excuse for a rest.

 The trail got crazy at times. Steep very steep! And windy on the bluffs.

 But the views were amazing.

 We stopped here on the way back to get a chocolate drink. Really different but yummy. It was called Cold chocolate.

 And then I started to have some regrets about not getting any sea glass at glass beach. So we hopped back in the beach and went all the way over there. I'm so glad we did.

 We got there at the perfect time of day as the sun was going down.

 The surf was really rough too.

 Just time for one last selfie.

You'll never guess where we had our last dinner.

Duke's. And we each got a tshirt too!

It's going to be painful to leave.

Day 7 Tubing

I saved this excursion for the later part of our trip because I figured it would be a fun day. I had no idea it would actually be this fun. We had to be there at 8:30 which by now this was bright and early for us. We'd really slipped into vacation mode because the time change was hard.

 There was quite a drive out there after we all met together for our instruction and getting fitted with gear. The helmets were stinky but later on we were mighty glad we had them. Everyone had to have water shoes and heavy duty gloves and lights on their helmets.

The tubing was done on an old sugar cane plantation. They had Chinese workers that dug the tunnels out all by hand using picks, shovels and sledge hammers. There are 5 tunnels all together and they are really quite long. It was quite an engineering feat to do that 100 years ago. They converted the irrigation ditches into a fun tubing experience. Most of the time it was like a relaxing float but we did get going pretty fast a couple of times. The tunnels were a little brutal whipping around in the dark. That's where the lights and gloves and helmets came in super handy because our heads bumped into the rock walls frequently as we zipped along through those tunnels. 

One of the things that made it challenging was the tubes kept spinning around and around and there's really not much you could do about it. Each tunnel and section of the ditch was different. It was beautiful.The tubes are made from a heavy duty material so they could survive rubbing up against the rock. You had to make sure you didn't rub up against them or you would get a terrible rash like on a fiberglass surf board.

 There was one drop and that was super fun too.

Mendis and I spent most of the time on opposite ends of the pack because of all the spinning and tubes coming and going.

After the fifth and final tunnel they turned us loose on the lazy river portion to float down

together if we wanted.

We had a quick lunch of sandwiches and chips and then we were done. Way too soon. It was really fun. Our guide gave us some food suggestions on the drive back that we followed up on right away.

 He recommended this shave ice place. It was all organic so Mendis didn't love the pale colors and "weak" flavor etc.

 This was called a lava flow.

After that we walked through town and did some shopping. We found a wind chime set we liked and some earrings for the girls and of course magnets.

 Loved seeing all the ukuleles in the music shop window.

 We found another beach and sat there for awhile and watched some sand crabs running around.

 That evening we watched a tiki lighting ceremony at sunset at the resort.

For dinner we went to Street Burger another recommendation from our guide and this one as fantastic. We got to sit at the chef's counter which was a real treat. We loved watching them cook. What a well oiled machine. Dinner and a show. Another great day in paradise!

Day 6

Just a relaxing day today hanging around the resort. We read and hung out. Just kinda did our own thing for awhile today. Dinner?

You'll never guess...Dukes! We walked around and got some exercise after dinner and really checked the place out.

Day 5 Still Going Strong

We did so much today it's hard to keep track of it all. After the helicopter we decided to head back out in the Jeep. There were a few more things to visit and revisit.

 We went to this lovely shopping center in Puo'ipu which was south of our resort for lunch.

We got some made to order sandwiches and one of us had a little snooze while we waited for our order. After lunch we hopped back in the Jeep and explored.

This beach area was so pretty with the red dirt and blue water down by Hanapepe.

We walked around the botanical gardens. We were going to take a tour but we had a long wait and they were crazy expensive so we walked around the free area and called it good.

The gardens were lovely for sure. They don't call it the garden Island for nothing.

I had seen this place called the Glass Beach on Pinterest I really wanted to check out. The beach was down by an industrial area. There were little pieces of sea glass everywhere. Pretty much the whole beach was itty bitty pieces of glass. There had been a dump with lots of glass bottles that got ground down in the surf to make this lovely beach. The article said you weren't allowed to remove any of the glass but while we were there we saw lots and lots of people taking some.

We watched for awhile and then rain just seemed to get worse. So we headed up the road to a cookie company Mendis had seen.

GOOD CALL!!

 We picked out some cookies to bring back to our office people and the family and then we both picked out some pie to enjoy while we watched the rain come down outside. It really got going and there were plenty of intersections and areas flooded out on our way back to the hotel.

 We thought we'd stop at the grocery store and get a few more things like water and snacks. We decided it would be a great afternoon for hot chocolate on our balcony during the rain.

It really was a great idea. I even popped some popcorn and we just watched the storm. We didn't feel like driving again in the rain and running to the Jeep etc so we brought some Panda Express back with us when we went shopping earlier.