Hawaii - Day 1: Beach Babes and Light House

Day 1, Monday, was our relaxing, site seeing, meet and greet day. After being in the plane all day the day before, we had decided to take it easy today. We started by heading to the beach. We didn't bring the suites; this was more of a play in the sand adventure. We went to Kalihiwai beach (or perhaps just a beach on that road, considering it seemed to be a very private location.) The beach was beautiful, and a river opened up to it right there. The kids loved the sand and instantly were building castles (and asking me why they weren't going to be swimming in the water... oops!)

While I fed Oliver, Brandon took the girls for a walk along the coast. Apparently Noelle got a little too close to the crashing waves, and one knocked her over into the sand and rolled her into the water. It didn't hurt her, but scared her, and COVERED her in sand. Something about Kauai sand: It sticks to you FOREVER! That girl still has sand on her scalp, under her hair. A very nice islander helped Brandon wash her off the best they could in the delta of the river/ocean, then I wrapped her up in the towel (yes, I remembered to bring one) and we took the whole group "home" for lunch and to change.

After lunch we tried to get the girls to nap, but it wasn't happening, so we decided to head out to see the island's lighthouse. Of course, Oliver and Noelle both fell asleep in the car on the way there, so this is the scene I got to see walking up the path to get to the lighthouse:

(isn't that too sweet?)

Once we got to the lighthouse, Oliver was awake... and clearly entertaining himself.

On the way up to, and around the lighthouse there are a lot of beautiful look outs, exotic plants, and beautiful animals. We even saw a seal taking a nap on some rocks below (but it was too far away to get a good picture of).

This is what the lighthouse should look like:

And this is what it looks like under construction. Bummer! O-well, it was still a fun adventure.

They let you borrow binoculars to look out, no charge. Awesome, right?

It was so fun. And it was so beautiful. We truly enjoyed ourselves.

That evening, we went to a meet and greet party for everyone that was attending my mom and Terry's wedding. We had a lot of fun getting acquainted with some of my new family. Terry has two wonderful sons that are roughly my age and a little older, and they are both married to great women. I'm excited to have more brothers/sisters. :)