Last few days left! I got up and did a run. It was lovely. I’ve been doing 4 miles and my legs are feeling it. I started wondering if I’m so achy from my new meds but no, I’m running 4 miles a day and walking and hiking, I’m pretty sure it’s that!
We left at 945am to go to Wailua for our tubing adventure. We got there and it was a well run machine. We got our helmets, gloves, and hopped on the bus.
It was really fun. I’m not sure I would do it again but this was the adventure that I booked in JANUARY after going to Kauai three times and having it be completely booked. I was on the ball this time!
But it’s a 20m drive to the stop… We had a lookout point.
We get in REFRESHING (breath-taking? Breathe-inspiring?) DON’T SAY COLD water and my ass is already chilly.
It honestly wasn’t bad but it did take my breathe away a little!
I really enjoyed the floating and just staring a the sky. It was so peaceful. We had two “rapids” which were hilarious. And then there were 5 tunnels that we went through. One of them being fairly low. And the gloves that we got were appreciated because we were slamming into the sides of the rock walls constantly! And they played a little joke halfway through one of them and stopped us all. My Mom got a little nervous. It was funny though.
I paid for the picture gallery but I only got the group photo! They took individual ones at some point and they were not in the list! I emailed them but not sure it went through. But luckily – ha – I befriended a gal on the trip from a Tahiti cruise and she had her phone in a case and took a photo of us. I got busy and forgot to text her until 5 days later and she sent them right away.
My girl!
Look at her FACE. She was so sunburnt from the day before and sprayed her face with sunscreen and it went in her eye.
I have had this happen to me SO many times – I now don’t even put sunscreen on my forehead on the chance it will drip into my eyes and her eyes were burning. She snagged my sunglasses. She felt like she was going to throw up. Luckily J had eye-drops and she used 2 of them. Then used half a bottle of water to flush out her eyes.
We thought she was going to get half-way through and say BYEEE but she powered through and enjoyed it. Poor babe.
The adventure was super fun though – Lights on! Lights off! Butts up!
LOL
Danny is a little adventurous guy. He LOVED it. He wanted to go back the next day. He just barely made the height requirement.
They fed us lunch after and then it was a 20m drive back – in the wind, and wet bathing suits.
It was fun, it was fun. You have to go through some hardships to do the fun stuff, I guess.
We got home around 3:15 and there was a discussion about going to Addy’s birthday party at Craig & Tiana’s house. They changed the party to be a beach party at 4pm and dinner around 530 or 6pm. Of course, G wanted to beach it and go boogie boarding… but the beach we were going to was the same one of the welcome party and there were no waves. So…
Sam and J didn’t want to go. Sam was not feeling well. Totally over it. But I’m not going to say no when G wants to go and it’s a family event. So I just slow played it. It’s not like G is going to come up and say when are we going, haha.
And JJ was not feeling it either – we were all tired. Around 4:30, G finally came up and was like… what are we doing? The rest of us were chilling on the couch. I explained we could go but I also said we would go to the beach the next day and he was fine with it.
We left around 5:15 and headed over to the next family party!
This was SUCH a nice house in Hanalei. It was the perfect house for Evie, she had a lounge chair that everyone could come by, sit at the end, and chat with her.
They got Veuve for Mom, which I also appreciated, haha.
Addy was adorable and so sweet. Ava, Tiana, and Stevi were amazing hosts. It continued to rain (I was so happy it was sunny for our tubing!) but their deck was covered. I wish our deck was covered!
They had sandwiches and pizzas for the kids. I brought my own food.
I mostly chatted with Zach and Nichol, which I love chatting with them. Talked to Brad a bit, which was also nice.
We went home a little bit early – my family did, anyway. But JJ and the crew followed us home 10m later. I kept eating the cookies from the party the day before – SO GOOD – and I think I had a bite of the pie too. Wow.
The next day, I was worried as we were launching the UK version of our website. I had launched Canada 4 months before and we were finally doing a second region. Thank goodness my team is amazing. I woke up to 100 pings but at least it was all working. SO I basically just sent out a success email to all of Leadership and said Congrats. hahaha.
Working on vacation is so fun. Seeing the rest of my emails was not… but either way, I took 30m in the morning to deal with them a bit and then went running!
My runs have been SO SLOW. Probably all the food I had been eating but I did 1.5m and then I ran into JJ. I was listening to such a good podcast too – my podcasts the last few days have been fantastic.
But I would rather walk with my Mama! Ended up being 5 miles that morning!
We went down the path into The One hotel. We were scouting out breakfast spots for the World Cup which was playing at 9am. GG and I were SO down to go to a restaurant and eat and enjoy all the people screaming. Would we watch it at home on the TV? No. But I’m totally in for a party! Sammie was not into it. And she was the only one who bought Fox Sports so she was controlling if we got to watch it on the big screen or not. haha.
So Mom and I walked back, then we checked out Wyndham. They had an Owners Room and maybe we could have snuck in there but eh. We got back and G was still sleeping anyway. He got up around 10am and I gently suggested he should get ready if he wants beach time. J was on a walk, Sam wasn’t interested, Gregg was snoozing, and JJ, Katie, Justin, and Danny had gone to breakfast at The One. Katie was upset she wasn’t going to have dinner with JJ that night because Gregg’s friend who lived on the island wanted to take them out.
G and I stopped at our favorite place – we went there before, him and I, and we had such a nice chat. We had the same on this day. He got a breakfast sandwich, I got a cappuccino. I’m gonna miss these when I get home… I think because of these he was able to call me when he was upset a few days later. Sigh.
Lovely chat. I need to write college letters to him. Stat.
It rained, and rained, and we had more rain. But G hopped into the water and I just said I would move to the car when it rained.
But JJ and the rest met us at the beach. Danny immediately went boogie boarding with Katie and Justin. It was super cute. G was with them, and Mom was taking photos. She was upset because every time she would try to get G, then Katie would yell to get Danny, and she never ended up getting either of their good waves.
It kept raining. YES it does look sunny here but I swear this was for only 5 minutes. We would run to the car. Finally G came in and was like, I’m good!
I really wanted to try and go hunt down my Fairy Garden. I finally texted Wendy and she said it was the Stone Dam. But when I asked the fam to drive with me on the way to our restaurant, we could not find it! And we had taken 10m so I said, let’s just go. Bummer. I wonder if it would look the same as my memory and picture.
The drive was so long. SO LONG. 1:45m long. But the view was lovely.
Four years ago we went to the same restaurant and the kids fell in love with steak there. It had been my joke that they needed to go to college to pay for steak dinners so we wanted to go back.
Beach House restaurant. It wasn’t as good as I remembered it but it was good. J and I shared steak and scallops, and the kids got the steak. I love sitting and watching the surfers. I was thinking how much I loved our previous vacation houses where I can see the surfers and the ocean so close.
I mean, any view is amazing. Especially the ones I’m not paying for! But… it was nice.
I asked G if he wanted to drive back – he’s been dying to drive! But of course, this was the one time he was like, nah, that was a long drive. So I had one glass of champagne and stopped.
I was glad I was driving. Ugh, the rain. Just like the night of the wedding but it was much longer.
But the dinner was hilarious. We talked about Sam’s upcoming date. She was so upset he was texting her constantly. But she was replying back! So we helped her compose a text that she was busy traveling and wouldn’t text until Thursday. haha. Gotta love the family helping with important decisions like these.
We agreed that we would go get ice cream for our last night but the gal brought us chocolate cake for free so we all had bites. J got decaf coffee.
We took some more photos – G wanted to do a repeat of his photo from 4 years ago – before his high school career! (Before it all went to hell, he said. Sigh.) I’m too lazy now that I realized I took them on HIS phone and I don’t have them right now. I’ll have to add it back in later.
I drove over to Spouting Horn. It was cool to look at.
Then as we hopped in the car it started sprinkling. The rain followed us home.
This drive. Ugh. Pouring rain. Heart stopping moments. Fist clenching. At least it was “only” 1:15m on the way home.
I DESERVED ice cream and it was 8:15 when we pulled in and it was CLOSED. The sign said 9 but Hawaii just does what it wants. Island time. Le sigh.
We had a half bottle of rose champagne in the fridge, more macadamia chocolate pie AND cookies. So… well. Yum. I am grateful that my body is okay with these things right now. Although, I can usually eat what I want on vacation (less stress?) and it catches up with me 2 months later if I continue so I will try to be better once we get home.
Because we had only played one game the entire time, Sam rallied and we ended the night with Skull King. I got 2nd. Totally messed up G – which I was super proud of, haha – and then battled it out and I won! Second… but still. It counted.
The next morning was easy as we were leaving at 10am. I got in another run.
Got all ready… we stopped at a souvenir shop so G could get Kaylie something and I got another cappuccino… I swear. These things are so good. Why am I so addicted now. I’m so AWAKE in the afternoons. The next week is gonna be hard.
The airport was so hot. I knew this airport was hot so I was happy I put my pants and jacket in my bag. The plane had AC and we had our wonderful seats, I’m so spoiled. The ride was easy, we were picked-up, and got home and into bed by midnight. The smoke alarm went off but not everything can be perfect!
My only issue is how did I GAIN 5lbs on this trip but I LOST 2lbs on the National Park trip. Dang. Oh well. It will melt off at some point.
Gotta start planning the next trip. Who am I kidding, that’s basically done. Yayyyyy
