Cincinnati

Our Family, originally uploaded by andi_thats_me.

No summer is complete without a trip home to Cincinnati.

We usually do the same old things ... Casey goes to her cousin's house and I roam the city for a few weeks each year.

This year Casey got to go to residential summer camp for the very first time and had a blast. Paige got to go too, and fun was had by all.

We also got to attend the yearly Peter's party, which is always fun. This year it was more of a reunion of close friends and family and we had a great time.

We also got to see Aunt Joy, who moved from California to be with Grampa, and we started remodeling his house. You wouldn't believe it if you saw it.

Be sure to check the rest of our Cincinnati photos on Flickr!

Virginia & Washington D.C.

So believe it or not, I have relatives on my mom's side of the family too! After years of saying we're going to get together, a few of us actually did.

Kent & Joanne (my mom's brother) have a timeshare in Massanutten, VA so I flew into D.C. to visit them, his son Chris (who I met for the first time this year), Chris' fiancé Kristin (not pictured), and my cousin Rob, who lives in Wisconsin.

We spent a couple of days there eating wonderful food, playing Putt-Putt, and tubing down a lazy river. Then we went back to Kent's house in Virginia and spent an evening sight-seeing in Washington D.C.

I got to see The White House too!

It was a short trip, but great to be able to see everyone again (and for the first time). Hopefully we'll be able to do something like this again, with an even bigger turnout!

We're going on a cru-uise

Ok, so we have to wait until 2008, but we're going on a cruise!

For our first time at sea, I figured a 5 night cruise would suffice, so we're taking the Royal Caribbean Navigator to Cozumel and Belize, with a couple of days at sea. According to Cruise Critic, it's one of the best family friendly ships there are, so I figured Casey would dig that.

We'll start out in Fort Lauderdale and spend the night at the Sheraton again (this is where we stayed in 2006 when we visited Danny and Teri after they disembarked). Then we hit the boat and do, well, I don't even know what yet! Good thing that I have a whole lotta months to plan this!

In the meantime we'll be going to Cincinnati, Virginia, San Francisco, and most likely Chicago again. It's gonna be a busy year!

Chicago for Memorial Day

Anchor at Navy Pier, originally uploaded by andi_thats_me.

After school let out for the year (yay!) Casey and I packed up and headed to Chicago to visit Cassidy, Melissa, and Katie. Full blog to follow, but until then, check out our pics on Flickr!

Genius Children

The Travel Trailer

My accountant called with good news yesterday: I don't owe nearly what I thought I was going to in taxes. After a short w00t! one would think that I'd be calling my stock broker. Did I? Nope! I called Aloha RV and bought myself a travel trailer. We'll be going to the lake a lot more this summer. Here are a few pics of it that I pilfered from the Aloha RV web site ...

My room

Bunk Beds for Casey

One big slide-out

You can't tell from this, but it's 31' long

This is the way I like to rough it :)
 
 

All good things must come to an end

How time flies when you're in paradise. It's been a week since we got here, and now it's time to go home. Jennie's flight left at 1:30 (although she tried real hard to miss it), and Casey and my flight at 10:30pm. Both of our flights were red eyes and suck beyond imagination. Still it's a small price to pay for the week we just had.

We had to check out of our ocean front room at 10:00 am, and borrowed a "linger longer" room until 6. From 6-10 we were officially homeless, so we wandered around, ate, drank, and took pictures as we waited for the dreaded time when we had to leave for the airport. For your viewing pleasure, here are some miscellaneous pictures of our last day and the resort ...

There are 700 more pictures on our Walgreens Photo Gallery if you're really bored.

Otherwise, th-th-that's all folks!

Our Greatest Adventure Yet

Saturday was our last full day on the island, so we decided to get out there and really explore all that Kauai has to offer.

We somehow managed to secure three spots on the Kipu Falls Ziplining Safari thanks to whoever canceled at the last minute. So at 8:15 we checked in at their office in the Nawiliwili Small Boat Harbor, loaded our stuff into dry bags, and off we went to enjoy nature.

Our first excursion of the day was a 2 mile kayak trip up a jungle stream. It was remarkably fun and easy, and our nervousness was squelched as soon as we found our left, right, left, right groove.

Jennie got paired up with a solo traveler. Casey and I were a team, and even though we worked well together, we were the last boat in the group. One of the tour guides, Spot, hung back with us the whole hour and fed us compliments and encouraging sentiments along the way.

Next we tied our kayaks and met up with Gary - a rather dry Howlie local who narrated our hike through the jungle. He pointed out a lot of the plants and flowers and explained how the native Hawaiians used them in their daily lives.

He led us to a small waterfall with a natural pool and rope swing. We all had an opportunity to take a dip, but only a few of us did. Jennie, Casey, and myself chose to stay dry and loaded up on the bug spray instead.

After our hike ended we hopped on a covered wagon, pulled by a tractor, and got a tour of the Kipu Ranch. They took us to a porta-potty, too, which I was ever so grateful for. We snacked on macadamia nut cookies and chatted with the rest of the people in our group. Surprisingly half of them live in Hawaii. They're not taking their home for granted, that's for sure.

Our ride dropped us off at another trail, and we hiked some more. This time we ended at Kamapua'a Falls where we had a picnic lunch and the opportunity to zipline across the stream.

Being the wuss that I am, I passed. But Jennie and Casey buckled up like it was nothing and off they went. Unfortunately as soon as Devon opened the gates for them it started to pour down rain. It didn't matter to them, though. Check it out ...





We left the ziplining to go on yet another hike. Spot stayed there to help the other groups, so we snapped this picture of him on our way out. He was a lot of fun, and is planning to open his own snorkel tour company, so if you're ever in Kauai, look him up.

Hang Loose Spot!

So where was I? Oh yeah, back to hiking. This time our trail led us to Kipu Falls, a mother of a waterfall. People were swimming, cliffdiving, and jumping off the rope swing.

Casey had fallen at the picnic area and scratched her knee up pretty good, so we couldn't get in the water here, which made us very sad. But it finally stopped raining, so we got to hang out by the waterfall and watch all of the fools try to break their necks before heading back to the tractor for another Kipu Ranch tour.


We saw wild boar

And cows

And of course ...

CHICKENS!

Our tractor, after almost tipping over a hillside, dropped us off at our last hike of the day, then a motorized canoe carried our tired bodies back to Nawiliwili Harbor and the Outfitter's office.


We were gone for 7.5 hours when it was all over and were dirtier than we have ever been in our adult lives. OH what a day!

Poipu and Poi

Friday was supposed to be another resort day, but this time, our resort was in Poipu.

The Marriott has a time share resort on Poipu Beach and offered me 20,000 points to sit through a presentation. I figured I had nothing to lose, so we headed south for the day. First, though, we stopped at the post office to mail Cassidy's coconut :)

The Waiohai Marriott was no where near as nice as the Beach Club at which we were staying, so turning down their $40,000 2 bedroom condo (for 1 week a year!) was an easy task for me. But we got to spend a little time on Poipu Beach, and Casey and Jennie got to hang at the pool while I sat through all the reasons why the Marriott has the best timeshare program in the world.

When it started to rain we headed back to the resort to get ready for dinner - a Luau at Smith's Garden. We got all dressed up in the Hawaiin garb we bought at Hilo Hatties and were excited about our upcoming taste of Hawaii. It stopped raining the very minute we pulled into the parking lot, so we got to take a tour of their gardens while comfortably seated in their tram.

After that we watched the Imu Ceremony, where they unearthed the pig, and the owner (Mr. Smith) gave us a little tutorial on the Hawaiian cooking method called Kalua.

Next we enjoyed the open bar, and then the feast. They had a great spread and we sampled a little bit of everything - including the poi. I don't think Jennie liked it very much. What do you think?

Cheers!
After dinner we moved over to the Pele Amphitheater for the Rhythm of Aloha Show. It was FABULOUS. Unfortunately none of my pictures do it justice so you'll just have to take our word for it. But they celebrated every culture that has contributed to Kauai people, including, of course, the traditional Hawaiin Hula.

Oh, and lest we forget ... we also saw ...


CHICKENS!

The Hat That Wouldn't Die

Today we had reservations on the Blue Dolphin Sunset Tour of the Napali Coast. It was another beautiful day on the island, so we headed south a few hours before our scheduled checkin time of 2:00.

Our first stop of the day was a roadside lunch truck that served garlic shrimp & rice plates. We were a little leery, but ordered anyway. We were glad we did. For $20 we left full and satisfied. Our cheapest meal on the island yet!

Our next stop was the National Tropical Botanical Gardens. We thought this would be a relaxing way to kill a couple of hours. We were wrong. The gardens themselves were only accessible by tram on a guided 2.5 hour tour. We did see lots and lots (and lots) of spiders around the Visitor's Center, though. When we found out that they could jump six feet we decided to head on out.

So we decided to visit the Spouting Horn. There were some cute little shops all around the park, so we picked up a few souvenirs for those of you that we like (if you don't get a gift, you'll know you're not one of them :) ... then walked over to the viewing area to see what all the fuss is about. The waves were pretty calm so it wasn't as big as much as it usually was, but still we saw some neat sprays ...



Oh, and we also saw ...

CHICKENS!

Our day was starting to get away from us, so we thought we should start making our way to Port Allen. We passed Koloa Landing and the Shrimp Truck and realized eating there might not have been the best idea. Both Casey and Jennie were having gastrointestinal difficulties by now. I must have a rock gut. I was fine (whew!)

The boat tour was great. We secured a spot on the right side of the boat and enjoyed the calm waters up the coast of Napali. The captain was playing relaxing music and the crew was serving pretzels and soda. When we heard the theme song from Titanic, Jennie just couldn't help herself.

We were kicking back looking at the awesome coastline when the captain informed us that there were spinner dolphins at the bow of the boat. And he wasn't kidding! There were a half a dozen at least, playing as we went in reverse and watched them in awe.

Then a catastrophe occurred.

We couldn't believe it.

No matter how hard we tried.

Jennie's hat flew overboard.

The crew must have really wanted tips that day because the rang the bells, stopped the boat, then went back to retrieve it!

It took a few passes before the crew chick, Meredith, was able to hook it and reel it in, but our hat eventually came back to us, from the deep blue pacific ocean. It may be bent and stink of fish now, but it will always have a special place in our hearts.

Now that every hat was accounted for, we continued north, almost to Ke'e beach, where the road ended to the north. We saw waterfalls, and hikers, caves, goats, and deserted villages. This is something we will remember forever.



On the way back we saw whales spouting, and a baby jumping out of the water and breaching over and over again. It's the end of whale season here so we didn't expect to see any left, so we were pleased to experience that. The moments were too fleeting to get pictures of the whales, but we did get a snapshot of us with the sunset (the $40 sweatshirt I bought at the charter office sure came in handy, let me tell you!)


After we docked we drove home and collapsed into bed at 8:00. We only have two days left, so we're off to enjoy the rest of our holiday.

Aloha!