UnPalau (Kauai)

Poipu is a little slice of warmth on the southernmost peninsula of Kauai.  Doesn't get too rainy, despite being only a few miles from the rainiest spot on earth.  It was our headquarters.  Stoko's first move upon arrival was to strip down.  (Below, we haven't yet stepped foot out the airport.)

We apologize for any neck injuries incurred while viewing this blog.  (The Iphone 4S is neat and all, but it has some default settings that make it hard to rotate the pictures.  Hard for us geezers anyway.  Can't say we haven't tried.  And no, Siri isn't any help with it, either.  Not even Australian Siri. )

 If you are super rich, I'd suggest staying at the Grand Hyatt.  It has an amazing pool area, which most pictures don't do any justice.  Especially sideways pictures.  And  it has toucans.  Or, you can rent a house nearby and just hang out at the Grand Hyatt, which is what we did.

We checked out the grand canyon of Hawaii.

 The kids didn't notice it.  They were too distract by this large pile of dirt.  And the chickens.

Mini-ninjas on the move.  Moment of honesty here.  We got upgraded to first class each way to Hawaii.  But of all the flights, our most enjoyable was when we had the very back row in coach, from Seattle to Anchorage.  First class can be enjoyable.  But last class was best for us.  Here are the mini-ninjas below, enjoying their first class experience (and inspiring dread in the rest of the cabin.  Unfounded, of course.  Our kids being angels, and all.)

Precise chronology is not my bag. 

Baby beach is actually where we did our best hanging out.  It's an ideal spot for everyone.  Babies and toddlers can crawl and toddle.  Grownups and mini-ninjas can boogie board, surf, and SUP.  Pax and Stokes both had breakthrough days on the boogie, surving full body dunkings on several occasions.  One might even say that Genevieve and Elle had breakthrough days on the boogie, too!  

One thing about Kauai... don't be fooled by the short distances.  Short distances, small speed limits, and many cars is a recipe for slow travel.  If we return, we'll pick one place and stay put, mostly.  

We also checked out the West Coast, which would be an awesome place to camp for an extended period of time.  Which we were slightly afraid that we might have to do involuntarily after getting our minivan stuck in a sand dune.  Fortunately, by sacrificing a couple of boogies, we were able to escape.  (All that stuck suby training really came in handy.)

A mountain man could move to Kauai and survive quite easily, and happily.  On poultry alone.  So I guess what I'm saying is we probably would've been fine if we had gotten stuck.

I do wish we would've been filming.  Justin caught some seriously  big waves, and definitely is an amazing surfer.  Unfortunately, being high noon, it was a bit too hot for the kiddos to enjoy and the non-surfing part of the team mostly tried to hide in the shade.  Which was pretty far from the beach.  I don't think we took one photo of Polihale.    

We do have more pictures.  Some of them are awesome.  But we'll spare your neck.