Kauai II

THE BEACH

Giving Jude's legs some taste of the ocean; he liked it ok but preferred the pool.

Swiftly he crammed handfuls of sand into his cute mouth.  It had a kitty litter effect on his diapers that he didn't love.

Jude learned about jealousy on this trip.  He's never been upset by other babies; he loves to be social.  But Violet apparently wears the threat of "as long as she's around no one will ever love me!!!"  No matter who was holding him, if she was within eye shot, he started screaming and lunging for the person holding her.  It made us laugh because he'd never rejected me before this, he's never been a competitive one, and we could see the wheels turning in his little head. "I must be the only baby, it must be ME!!!"

Living.

Family Pictures.  More on these below.  But there was this little section roped off to the right because it apparently had been at one time the plot of land for a temple that was destroyed.  So stay away and KAPU.

Note to self: Next time, if you want to take family pictures on vacation, do it at the beginning BEFORE you gorge on food for a week.

Jude was either snuggling for no apparent reason or wriggling to be free from our arms.  About 4 seconds after this picture we set him down and he got ahold of some chicken poop.  Let your imagination run riot as to how we reacted.

Love my baby.  The flights may have been a bit stressful, but once we got there Jude was a DREAM.  I was nervous that, like in Palo Alto in the fall and the Utah part of Christmas, he wouldn't sleep and neither would I.  The island calmed him with pixie dust or something, because he slept 12 hours a night and 2 naps during the day like he does at home.  We couldn't believe it.  This trip got me feeling all gutsy and ready for the big league trips.  

Jeff dunking his face and blowing bubbles had Jude in stitches.  Major father-son time.

I think we'll be at our pool a lot this summer.

The Grand Canyon of Hawaii

Violet and Bryan on our hike -- they were fantastic travel buddies.  We shared a 2 bedroom condo, and it was great to put the babies down and have the common room to hang out in, talk, and watch TV.  We also could babysit for each other so each couple could go get some ice cream, bring food back, soak in the jacuzi, etc.  

We hiked along the Napali Coast, which was amazing.  We wanted to take a boat ride alongside to see it from the other perspective but they were all a 4-6 hour affair, no babies allowed.

Just a baby in nature.

Hammocks!!

The spouting horn

One eventide the 3 of us went to watch the sunset.  It was incredible and I'll never forget sharing it with my 2 best boys.

Jude's first lesson of Economics: Scarcity.  I could just see him thinking, "Wha???  The chickens...they-they-they STOLE my CRACKERS!!!"

Jude loves Amber.

As previously mentioned, we ate out.  A LOT.  We didn't really mean to, it just happened.  So we got fat and friendly.

Caught this.  He is so cute.

I was depressed to lose this uninterrupted family time when we were back.  We enjoyed every minute, and I really mean it!

Amber did all the research beforehand and we got to benefit.  The last morning we went to the hotel next door for the top rated breakfast on the island.  The big crowd pleaser is the (get ready) lemon pineapple souffle pancakes.  Are you kidding me??  Unfortunately with all the eating we'd been doing, and how full we constantly felt, yikes.  They brought out these gigantic plates and they were amazing, but we couldn't quite finish them all.  Jude lived it up, whacking the utensils against the table.  

Giving some kisses

So sad to be going home.  We also were so sad to have overshot the amount of time we'd need to return the rental car, etc., and had tons of free time.  Jude decided to be an extreme hooligan during that time.

When I think of this trip, I sort of have to think of Whitney Houston's death too.  While we'd all watch tv at night or during breakfast, it was ROUND THE CLOCK reporting.  It was so another one of those celebrity free-for-all competitions of "NO ONE is more sad than ME about this!!!  I haven't stopped crying since it happened!" which would be fine if it weren't for the fact that they're saying all these things to get attention and industry credibility.  Clearly if you're heartbroken over Whitney Houston's death, you must have been close to her and therefore wildly talented and successful.  I thought it was horrible and sort of hilarious, the statements musicians of little consequence were making. It's like trying to cry the hardest at Girl's Camp.

He slept really well on the flight home.  Ironically, he remained knocked out for the landing announcements, the landing itself, when the engines turned off, unloading all our stuff, but then he screamed the whole drive home from the San Diego airport.