Kauai, 2014

Our annual trip to Kauai was awesome as always, with the added bonus of another little human joining our crew, little Miss Leila Bird! We have now frequented the island so much that we had an extremely relaxed trip with a routine very much in place. We stayed pretty central to the North Shore,  rotating between Hanalei Bay, Ke'e, and Kalihiwai, with one day of hiking to Opea'a Falls. This year it was especially cool how Dahlia truly experienced Kauai and I just feel so incredibly lucky for her to be only 5 and be reveling at the beautiful color of the turquoise water, bubbling over about the schools of fish she saw snorkeling, the excitement she showed about the waterfalls and giant leaves in the forests, the chilled attitude of a passing rain storm while playing on the beach and the subsequent search for rainbows, the thrill of jumping off Hanalei Pier, and the gusto with which she took control of the paddle board. We are so lucky to be able to give her these experiences already (thanks Titos!!!). Milo enjoys Hawaii too, of course but he still mostly goes with the flow and doesn't have too much opinion on which beach we go to and why. As long as there's calm seas, buckets, holes to be dug, pbj's and chips to eat, he's happy. Our favorite line of his while we were in Hawaii was, "Are we in Hawaii?" or "Is that Hawaii?" or "I want to go to Hawaii!" We're here, buddy!!! It's here, right here! we kept telling him.

Nuclear Fam at the gardens at Postcards in Hanalei, where we went twice this year. Once for date night with the Juniors and once with everybody for a successful meal where everybody stayed in their seats and loved their food and no meltdowns were had.

Gorgeous girl on beach, Hanalei Bay

Gettin' crazy with Tita in Hanalei

Hike to Opea'a Falls. Like last year, Dahlia held my hand the entire hike (only 2 miles). Muddy, mosquitos, and a small waterfall as the reward. We picked a short and relatively easy hike to minimize the whining that has been happening on family hikes but when we were done Dahlia said, "What? That's it? I want to go longer!"

Check out those guns! She rocks. She really does. 

Leila liked the waterfalls too, sweaty and all. 

Leila and Milo are starting to "play" together now. It is amazing to watch.

Tito and his signature spot, under the umbrella, drink in hand. We got Tito to maximize his beach time this year. Some days he told us he was good for one hour on the beach and he'd stay for five and get in the water once or twice each time. 

The Englebachs overlapped with us while we were there and we met up at Ke'e Beach for a fun day.

Matching TieDyes (aka "matchy-matchy" per Milo) and matching faces on the littlest ones with their pretty Tita.

Ocean adventures!

More adventures! They went so far out on the paddle board I couldn't see them and just had to hold my breath and not think about it until they returned. When they came back, Dahlia reported the most beautiful turquoise water she'd ever seen. 

And more adventures! Learning to boogie board.

Dahlia was obsessed with jumping off this pier. We didn't want her to do it at first because it's always full of locals drinking and being crazy. Not to mention she's little and the pier is big. But this particular day she'd proven herself with the paddle boarding already so we let her take her Daddy and Tio there. The fun lasted for a while. She said she was scared but she knew she had to do it because she knew it would be fun. We've been arguing how tall the jump was, my estimate is 8 feet, Matt thinks 10. Then she was like a thrill junkie and she couldn't stop talking about going back another day. So we went on our last day and locals were trying to scare us away by having 200 pound guys jump in front of her. She didn't care. We did though. It worked and we left but Dahlia had her fun.