First full day in Kauai

We woke up in the middle of the night last night freezing! I guess the windows were a little much. So they got shut. But they weren't shut enough to keep out the noise of the roosters. There are a lot of feral chickens all over Kauai, including the plantation. Kind of funny to see them running around everywhere. But kind of annoying when you're trying to sleep to the sounds of the ocean.

My dad made some yummy omelets for breakfast this morning. Then we headed out to the Salt Pond Beach. We arrived to find a big group of locals in the water. It is Sunday, so I thought baptism. We never found out. And some of them actually ended up swimming laps. Maybe it was just a swim club of some sort.

This is our favorite beach (so far at least). It had enough waves to entertain Mallory, but not knock her over. It also had a fun area with tide pools to explore.

Here's Mallory out in the water on Uncle Brian's shoulders.


The tide pools were swimming with life. Yes, I know cheesy. :) We found lots of sea urchins. A little boy also caught a crab.

I guess all the sand play wore Edee out, because she ended up falling asleep on me again today. Too bad we didn't have the comfy lounge chair this time. While she was napping, Mallory and Steve built a sand castle.


After Edee's nap, we headed to find a little beach called the Glass Sand Beach. It has eroded glass instead of sand, because of an off shore dumping site. It wasn't as neat as I thought it sounded. And my pictures really didn't turn out great. Maybe someone else got a better shot of it.

Then we headed to lunch at a little local place called Grind's Cafe. It was very much a local joint. We had a yummy lunch and then headed back to the mansion.

Mallory and Papa went to the swimming pool, while Edee tried to nap. Her nap was unsuccessful, so I walked over to the pool to get them. On the way back I took this picture of our house with the banyan tree.


Instead of naps, we visited the Waimea Canyon. The first lookout point was called Waimea Canyon Lookout. Clever, right? But very beautiful. Edee wouldn't sleep at the mansion, but she fell asleep in the car. So she slept through this first lookout point.

My mom stayed in the car with her. Then my dad relieved her. Pretty nice that I managed to get out of sitting in the car! :)

This was the 2nd lookout point we stopped at. I think we were at the Puu Hina Hina Lookout. (Is that right!?!) Edee woke up for this stop.



These last 2 canyon pictures were taken from the Kalalau Lookout. We did not dress Edee warm enough for the elevation. So she got to wrap up in Daddy's shirt.




We arrived back at the mansion just in time to see the sunset. Amazing!