Happy Memorial Day!

I just thought I would check in briefly to let everyone know we are still alive! I've decided though if I can't blog about Hawaii, then there is really nothing to blog about! LOL Just kidding!

My next post will be my 100th blog so I am coming up with something witty, and cute and funny, so this post is just filler. It's post 99 and it's just really not that exciting! I don't even have any pictures! So, here is the filler:

We had a very restful holiday weekend which was really nice! We didn't do much Saturday and Sunday (well, Lance worked, so that means I didn't do much!). On Monday we had a BBQ at my parents house then headed to a HORRIBLE Angel game after that. We lost 17-3. Pathetic. We left early which normally never happens. But how much salt in our wounds could we take? We waived our white flags and headed home.

Thank you to all of our men and women serving in our military. You guys rock!
Love,
Suzanne

Honeymoon Finale

Update: We were just at the beach that was named top in the nation!!! AWESOME!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20090522/ap_tr_ge/travel_brief_best_beaches

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It seems like all the TV shows are having their finale's last week and this week (yeah Shaun Johnson!!!) so it only seems fitting that we have our own finale!

Saturday was the last full day on the island for us. We didn't do a whole lot on Saturday, we did do a lot more driving. It was so nice and relaxing!

We did end up driving to Waimea to go to Jo Jo's Shaved ice. It's supposedly the best on the island. We had some other shaved ice earlier in the week that was no where near Jo Jo's. So maybe they are the best!!

After Jo Jo's we decided to head over to the Kaua'i coffee farm. Lance was in heaven there.

Notice the little shot glass in his hand. He was doing coffee shots. They had this whole station set up outside so you could taste all the different coffees. He would have stayed all day if I would have let him!

I even did two shots of coffee myself! hahahaha

For dinner that night we were going back and forth on what we should do for dinner. We decided on sushi, started looking through magazines to see where the best sushi places were. We found a place we decided to take a chance on and headed over. This place was the coolest place ever. I'm so bummed we found it on our last night there because if we would have found it earlier, we would have gone back more than once that's for sure! This place has a conveyer belt that goes around all the tables with all different kinds of sushi flying by you. You just grab the plate of sushi you want and you eat it. It's so much fun.

At first we just watched all the sushi go by trying to decide what we wanted. It didn't' take us too long though. As you can see below, we were stuffed!

Now, before you think we are total piggies, most of these plates only had 1 piece of sushi on it. Sheish! hahahaha

Well, this concludes our honeymoon. We had a wonderful time. Aunt Kathy and Uncle Don we can't thank you enough for letting us stay in your condo! It was absolutely and totally awesome!! And we want to go back. Today. Right this second!

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering how Murphy is doing, she's doing great. She didn't even hide from us when we got home. We aren't calling her Murphy right now though, we are calling her Shadow. She will not leave us alone! If one of us is home, she is stuck to us. Our first night home she slept on my head. Yup, she missed us. And we missed her!

Love,
Suzanne

Honeymoon, almost done I swear....

On Friday of our honeymoon week we finally made it to Scotty's. We ate at Scotty's for the first time when we visited Kaua'i in 2007. They have the best BBQ food on the island! And a killer view.

This was the view from our table. I heart Kaua'i!

After eating at Scotty's we headed over to see some waterfalls and the river that I kayaked when I was here in 1999.

When we were heading back to the condo we stopped at Spouting Horn. When we were there in 2007 Lance kept calling it spitting horn because it was pretty duddy! This time however it was spouting off a storm. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but I took some video of it, so I'll try and upload that later.

That night we went to Tidepools for dinner. Tidepools is very special to us because that's were we got engaged December 30, 2007. We had this great hut with nobody but the family around us and it was just perfect. Perfect for a proposal. When I called to make reservations I knew we couldn't ask for the hut since it was just the two of us this time, so I didn't bother saying anything. When they took us to our table, look where they sat us.

Our table for two was only a few feet away from our hut! And to make things even cooler, the same waiter we had back in 2007 was still there and he was our waiter this time too. How crazy! And he remembered us! He took a picture of us in front of our hut, and he gave us a free desert. This guy rocks!

Tidepools is awesome. It will always be such a special place to us. If you're ever in Kaua'i and you want to taste some of the best food ever, go to Tidepools!

I'll be finishing up our honeymoon tomorrow! See you then!

Love,

Suzanne

Coming Home

We don't want to leave.......we really don't. We would stay longer if we could......but we just can't. We have to come home because it looks as though this one here is having a melt down without us.She has been in the capable hands of Wendy, Rachel and Cat while we were gone, but she just won't be content until Mom and Dad are home. She's done everything from throwing up, hiding for 45 minutes and biting her care taker. Oh the life of a parent of a kitty. I thought we taught her better than that! I hope our human kids don't act that way when we leave them with our 3 favorite baby sitters (yes, I'm talking about you, Wendy, Cat and Rachel!!!!)

This will be my last post until sometime on Monday. We are pretty much flying all day on Sunday. I still have a few more honeymoon posts saved for next week.

We are coming home our little Murphy. We can't wait to give you big kisses......if you come out of the closet. I'm sure you won't be mad at us for too long........maybe! hahaha

Love,
Suzanne

Beautiful Sights

**I posted two posts back to back, so make sure you check out the post from yesterday!*

We are heading into the tail end of our honeymoon so I'm going to do today's blog about Wednesday and Thursday of our trip. We didn't go to the pool on Wednesday (shocking I know!!!) we decided to relax around the condo in the morning and then head over to the Marriott to eat at Dukes for lunch. Dukes has a GREAT view! I could just sit here all day and soak up sun.

After eating at Dukes we headed back over to Poipu to the Hyatt to get massages. Oh.My.Goodness! The Hyatt has one of the best spas I have ever been to! If anyone ever comes to Kaua'i, going to the Hyatt spa is a must! I can't believe I've been here 2 other times and haven't been to this spa. I really wanted to spend all day there! This next picture is when you enter the Hyatt! Beautiful!

We made dinner at the condo Wednesday night but we did go to Keoki's for some Hula Pie! We love Hula Pie!!!

On Thursday we decided to go rent some snorkel gear at Snorkel Bob's and go snorkeling. Dorks!

Look Mon (aka Mom *inside joke*) we took your camera into the water and it worked great! Even better is that it still works after taking it into the water!! ;-)

So, remember that fried skin I was talking about the other day? Well, here it is. Now, let me just state that I put A LOT of sun tan lotion on before getting into the water. And this was not my first day in the sun.

I only spent 30 minutes in the ocean snorkeling. 30 stinking minutes did this. The back of my legs are burned too. So, the lesson I learned was, next time I go snorkeling, I need to wear a shirt! hahaha It's actually not that bad of a burn, unfortunately, I've had worse! It probably would have been worse if I would have spent longer in the water!

After snorkeling we went over to the Poipu Beach Broiler for some happy hour! Luckily no pictures from happy hour. They have $2.50 beers though! That's the place to be!! After happy hour we headed back to the condo to look for some sea turtles!

We saw a bunch of sea turtles!

Well that concludes Wednesday and Thursday! Hope you all our enjoying the honeymoon blogging!

Love,
Suzanne

Oh trade winds where are you???

Has anybody felt our trade winds? Because I'd really like them back! It seems like every other day or so we lose the trade winds and things get HOT here. The sun just burns your skin in like 30 seconds. It really doesn't matter how much sun screen you put on. Don't worry, there will be pictures coming in a few blogs or so of fried skin! I know you all can't wait! hahahaha

Ok, lets see where we are on our vacation. I think I just blogged about Monday, so now we are onto Tuesday. We had breakfast on our patio again then headed off to the pool. I finally have a picture of the pool to show! This is the view from our patio.

After spending a few hours at the pool we decided to head up to Waimea Canyon. It was 86 degrees and hot at sea level and cloudy and 65 degrees on our way up the canyon. Since I've seen it before I know that it has some of the most beautiful breath taking views. Unfortunately, the pictures we took, were of clouds and fog.

We didn't stop at all on the way up because I really just wanted to make it to the top. When Lance and I did the drive in 2007 we weren't able to go all the way to the top because of gas issues aka not having enough gas to continue on! When we got to the top, this is what we saw.

On our way down the mountain we were hoping to get some better pictures when the fog cleared. But, they really weren't as good as we know they could have been if we didn't have the clouds.

We went to Keoki's for dinner that night. But I don't have any pictures from dinner. Take my word for it, it was super yummy!!!!!!

Love,
Suzanne

Another Day in Paradise

The great thing about this vacation so far is that we have nothing planned! If any of you have ever gone on vacation with my family you know that every second of your vacation is planned. EVERY SECOND! Sure, you get to do a lot and see a lot, but you literally go home thinking, I need a vacation from my vacation. I'm not saying I'm not guilty of that too. When I traveled to Europe with my friends, everything was planned. Same with when Lance and I went to New Zealand. But this honeymoon was going to be different. For the last year and a half I have been working my full time job, and then serving every Saturday and Sunday. And during that year and a half happened to do a few other things like plan our wedding and help plan Tracy's. You know, those minor details. So you better believe I was going to make this vacation all about relaxing. And relaxing we have done.

Monday after we got up and had breakfast on our patio looking out at our view we decided to hit the pool. I thought I had a picture of the pool, but I guess I don't. I'll have to take one tomorrow and post it.

After soaking up the sun at the pool, we put the top down on the jeep and headed out for some driving.

I learned very quickly in that jeep that I must pin my bangs back if we were going to have the top down. I didn't have them back when we headed from the airport to the hotel and I was about to scream. Good thing it was a short trip! This time however we were going to be gone for a few hours so I made myself look like Cat and off we went.

To get to different parts of the island, we have to drive through the tunnel of trees, which is so cool! I guess a hurricane in the 90's destroyed this tunnel. But it has grown back and it is really fun to drive through!

Once we were on the main highway, we decided to head over to Princeville. When we were almost there we decided to stop at the lighthouse. This is my third trip to Kaua'i and I have never been.

Now, where we are standing above was the free part of viewing the lighthouse. To get closer, you had to pay $5 a person. Rip off. It's definitely one of those things that we will only do once. You can't even go up or down in the lighthouse. You can only walk into the base of it. They do have some really nice views from out there, but I don't think it was $10 worth!

After leaving the lighthouse we continued onto Princeville then onto Hanalei. We saw some awesome caves. Check out the kid on the bottom left hand side. It will give you some perspective as to how big this cave was!

We also saw one of my favorite churches! I love the look of this church. This is actually where I wanted to get married, but I knew all 160 of our guests would not be able to make it. So we opted for local. But in 25 years, when we renew our vows, we are doing it here! =)

After Hanalei we went to check out some waterfalls on the way back to our condo. This is another stop I've never made in previous visits. And hey, they didn't charge us to check them out!

Well that's all we did on Monday. I think we did enough don't you! =)

Love,

Suzanne