Back in Washington

Our 10pm flight from Lihue arrived into Seattle at 10:30 the next morning. My brother and sis-in-law, Rob and Jenesse, had been watching our kids for most of the time we were out of town. Somehow I was so enthralled with seeing my kiddos again that I failed to even get a pic of our day together in Seattle before they flew home to UT! Sorry guys. Here they are... we'll pretend they were with us in Seattle at the time...

We spent a chunk of our day together at the Pacific Science Center... a super-fun place, especially for the kids. Here's Adam and me in the butterfly atrium:) SO glad to have my buddy back after 5 days!!

Jack and Sadie, chillin in the stroller

Adam and I in a flight simulator. Like I said, I was a little preoccupied to be paying attention to what I was and wasn't taking pictures of. Needless to say, it was SO good to be back home and a parent again. Thanks again SO much Rob and Jenesse! Let's do it again!!

Cramming in the last of the fun

Monday was our last day, with our flight taking off at 10pm from Lihue. We really wanted to make the most of it and decided to do a little more driving around since we enjoyed it so much the day before. But of course we needed to hit this little beach hut for breakfast first. Our third and last time. 

Guy and his "loco moco" - he'd been tempted to order that thing since the first time we ate there. It was a hamburger patty on top of a bed of rice, topped with a bunch of gravy and a fried egg. Uh, yum? ...He said it was ok; I think he was a little disappointed. But what do you expect with those ingredients?

My french toast was pretty good:)

Saying goodbye to our over-the-top hotel. It was pretty amazing. Thank goodness for family hook-ups!

  

We drove as far in one direction as we could until we ran into a dead end. Which ended up being near this really cool cave so we got some more pix.

I got some snacks at this little truck... I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that they were gross... tasted like they'd been made years ago. Oh well;)

Stopped by Hanalei Bay, which was pretty fun. We'd heard people raving about this Bubba's Burgers restaurant. It was good, but we still preferred our little beach hut.

We still had an afternoon to kill and wanted to make the most of it. So we rented a double kayak and had a blast! We paddled up a river, which emptied into the ocean near Hanalei Bay.

We pulled up to the beach and hung out a while. Took a walk down the shore, and up the pier.

10pm flight home = exhausting! We missed the kids like crazy by this point, but were so grateful that they weren't with us for that plane ride! We are already making plans for a whole-family trip... maybe in another 10 years if we're lucky. Anyone with us?!!

Sunday

After those two amazing tours, we were pretty exhausted and ready for a relaxing Sunday. We went to church in Lihue, where we were welcomed by a really neat ward. Afterwards, we came home to the "goober" sandwich fixings that we'd bought the day before. I've never had it before, but "Goober" is where they combine peanut butter and jelly in the same jar... actually it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be;) Anyway, we packed up our stuff so we could take a nice long drive up Waimea Canyon because we'd heard that you simply can't miss the opportunity to check it out.

  

On our way out, we checked out the impressive coi pond that our hotel had. 

Every stop that we made up the canyon was more incredible than the last. Trust me, I really narrowed down the pictures. It's hard to choose when the scenery was this amazing.

We think we're so funny.

This is one of the wettest spots on earth. We hiked down it for a while, but didn't have the time or shoes to go very far. We'd planned on going back again but just ran out of time. Some locals we ran into said this hike was a great one.

It was amazing to see these views from the other side... because the day before we were just taking pictures of them from the water on our catamaran tour!

We were lucky to catch the view while we still could, as the fog started to roll in

I'm telling ya, a convertible is seriously the way to go. We splurged and got one for a couple of days that we knew we'd be driving a lot. So much fun! Though, not so practical in the rain, as we found out a couple of times:)

For dinner we'd bought a frozen lasagna... turned out decently in our hotel room microwave. Turned out to be a pretty amazing day, and a nice, relaxing evening at the hotel with a movie to top it off!

The time has flown, as we knew it would. Only one day left!