Kauai 2008

We took our first family vacation as a four-some in September, to Kauai. And we lived to tell the tale!

For anyone interested in how we did Kauai with two young kids, here's our itinerary. Pictures to come.

Day 1 - Arrived in Kauai, rented a mediocre Jeep, and drove to our condo at the Waipouli Beach Resort, near Kapa'a. (Found it on VRBO but Outrigger also rents units.) Our unit was a 2-br, 3-ba, ocean-front condo -- larger than our old house. Three of the rooms faced the ocean and we could hear the waves from everywhere in the condo. It was so great! After stocking up on kid food at Safeway, we ate take-out from Lihue Barbecue Inn for dinner and listened to the waves from our lanai.

Day 2 - Visited the northern shore of the island -- Anini Beach, Kilauea, and Hanalei. Had the first (and best) of many shave ices at Shave Ice Paradise in Hanalei. Hung out at the resort's meandering river pool and played in the "mini beach" section with Ronan. (Ronan started to feel poorly on this day.)

Day 3 - Swam at Ke'e Beach at the very end of the road on the north shore. Kilauea pizza for lunch. Scotty's BBQ for dinner (mmm, meat). (Ronan's cough got worse, fever started.)

Day 4 - Sick Day. Took Ronan to the hospital in Lihue where he was given antibiotics and an Albuterol inhaler for bronchitis. Not fun. Dinner: Takeout from Hamura Saimin for the best saimin (noodle soup) and lilikoi (passion fruit) chiffon pie.

Day 5 - Semi-Sick Day. Drove to Waimea Canyon on the west shore to see the "Grand Canyon of Hawaii." Stunning and serene and refreshingly untouristy. Lunch of coconut shrimp and rice at the Shrimp Station in Waimea, followed by shave ice at JoJo's (okay, but not as good as Paradise!).

Day 6 - Checked out of the Waipouli Beach Resort. Drove by Opaeka'a Falls before taking the Fern Grotto River Cruise down the Wailua River. Drove to Poipu on the south shore and checked in to the Grand Hyatt. Perhaps because our rooms weren't ready when we arrived and we had two cranky kids, we were upgraded to adjoining ocean-view rooms. This hotel had a gorgeous pool, a sand lagoon with kayaks, a romantic restaurant called Tidepools, an open-air restaurant that served the most amazing pancakes (Ilima Terrace), and a spa! This first night we had a 5 pm family dinner at Tidepools that was perfect.

Day 7 - Kids are better now! More lounging by the pool. Lunch at Puka Dog (think "gourmet corndogs." Yum.) Skipped the Hyatt Hula (too long) and enjoyed a free hula show at the nearby shopping center. Family dinner at Roy's where the kids took turns having meltdowns (but the food was great).

Day 8 - Walked along the beach, swam in the pool, ate more Puka Dogs, shopped at Crazy Shirts, drank cocktails, enjoyed our last day in Kauai. We had a rowdy dinner at Keoki's Paradise (rowdy because it involved a band playing, Callum lunging for silverware and food and dropping things on the floor, and an over-tired Ronan wanting to run around rather than eat -- but isn't that what family vacations are all about?).

Day 9 - COMING HOME. Easy drive back to the Lihue airport, easy boarding of the first leg of our trip home. Kids were in great spirits. On the half-hour flight from Lihue to Honolulu, I had Callum in my lap, happy as a lark and bouncing the laminated safety information card. I thought to myself, "I really hope he doesn't poke his eye with the corner of that card." And in a split-second, he poked MY eye with the corner of that card. There was pain, loss of sight, panic. I thought I'd go blind in my left eye. When we landed in Honolulu a little while later, I gave an account of the "incident" to a whole host of airport security, medics, and airline representatives, all while clutching my eye ("Yes, my son poked me in the eye. Yes, it happened on the plane. No, he didn't mean to do it, he's 8 months old!") Long story short, we piled into a taxi and went to the ER in Honolulu, waited for 3 hours with a whole bunch of sick people, and found out I had a scratched cornea -- it would heal on its own with antibiotics and my sight would return to normal. Christian was AMAZING through the whole ordeal, watching the kids on his own at the hospital and keeping us all sane. And since we missed our connecting flight home, he booked us a stellar 23rd floor ocean-view room on Waikiki Beach for our "bonus night" in Hawaii. What a happy ending to a very rough day! I couldn't exactly SEE anything very well, but I was thanking everything and everyone for the fact that I wasn't blind. Hallelujah. We celebrated with sushi at Sansei.

Day 10 - My vision was blurry but we still took a long morning walk with the kids along Waikiki Beach, stopping in a few of the ABC Stores for souvenirs and admiring all the fancy boutiques. I had never been to Honolulu before. It was strange circumstances that brought us there, but I have to say we really enjoyed ourselves! When we returned to the airport, we were pretty well-rested and determined to be SAFE on our flight home. :-) No safety information cards. No corners of any kind, for that matter. The flight was uneventful (the kids didn't sleep but that's no surprise) and we landed at SFO around 9 pm. We managed to get a late dinner at In'n'Out before crashing at home...

And it took us about two weeks to recover from this vacaton! :-)