Kauai Day 1

The much-anticipated day finally came, and we flew off to our Hawaiian vacation! This was what Utah looked like on our way to the airport. We were excited to leave it. :)

Grandma Ham dropped us off at the airport Tuesday afternoon, and we flew to San Diego for the night. The plane was pretty small, with two seats on each side of it. The kids were amazed by it all and had a lot of questions about everything. They enjoyed looking out the window, watching movies on their kindles, and getting served a drink and a treat.


We took a shuttle to our hotel and had dinner delivered to our room by DoorDash. We were starving, and Miguel's tasted delicious! I assumed that the shuttle between the airport and our airport hotel was one that ran continuously, but it turned out that you had to reserve a spot. The first shuttle with available seats on Wednesday was at 5:30 am, and our flight left at 6:20 am. That made me nervous, and I didn't sleep well that night worrying about making it on time. Luckily everything worked out, and we made it to the airport, through security, and to our gate just in time to walk right on the plane.

We did stop at the counter and ask about our seat assignments. Only two of our seats were together, and we asked if there was anything they could do to put us together. She was able to move one seat around, so two more were together. I sat with Damon, Tessa and Rockwell sat together, and Paul was on his own. That also worried me, but luckily Rockwell and Tessa sat by the nicest lady. They both talked about how nice she was when we got off the plane, and she made sure to come over and say bye to them both. I was shocked that they didn't put kids by their parents, especially on a 6 1/2 hour flight, but luckily that was the only flight that we were separated for.
Damon would ask for Sprite and I would ask for orange juice every time the drink cart came by, and then we would mix them for a yummy mixed drink. He thought that was fun.

They did not serve a meal on the plane. I had packed some breakfast bags, but we were all starving when we landed in Kauai. We took a shuttle over to pick up our rental car. We had ordered a minivan, but the lady convinced us to upgrade to an SUV. We were happy we had done that days later as we watched minivans bottoming out in various parking lots. Some roads and parking lots are not well taken care of and have huge holes throughout them. The first SUV we got in was crawling with ants, and by the time we pulled out of the lot Tessa was in tears and I was already quite sick of smooshing ants. We turned around and asked to switch cars. We inspected a few and decided on this one. It was a pain, but we were so glad we switched. It would have been really annoying to deal with those ants for a week.

We had a few hours before our check-in time at our first resort, so we decided to start driving in the direction of Waimea Canyon and stop at the first restaurant we saw. There's a Pizza Hut about 5 minutes away from the airport, so we pulled in and everyone ordered the buffet. We all went in there hangry, but we left feeling full, much happier, and liking each other a little better. :) Ha!

We drove to the canyon and enjoyed the sun, warmth, and beauty along the way. Kauai is beautiful everywhere you look! It's called the Garden Island because of the rainfall it gets and how green that makes everything. We loved this view out of our windshield, instead of the snow we left in Utah. :)

It was raining in the canyon, so we just looked at the view for a few minutes and then got back in the car.

There was a couple there, and we helped each other out and took each other's pictures. The way the lady was talking while she took ours, I was expecting a very frame-worth picture. She went on and on about how beautiful and perfect it was while she was snapping them. When we got in the car we looked at the pictures, and this was what they all looked like. :) I guess she wasn't talking about the kids. Ha!

There were certain spots on the island (near the canyon) where it was raining every time we drove through them. There were also rainbows in those spots, which were beautiful.


As we were heading from the canyon in the direction of our resort, we noticed a sign on the side of the road that said Salt Pond Beach Park. My cousin-in-law Jen's parents live on Kauai and so she goes to visit there regularly. She put on Instagram that Salt Pond is her favorite place on earth, so I definitely wanted to check it out. We followed the signs to the beach, and fell in love instantly! The sun was shining there, the sand was perfectly soft, there were hardly any people, and it was just gorgeous.




We didn't have any beach towels yet, so we told the kids they could just put their feet in the water. They of course got soaked up to their shoulders, but we had so much fun we didn't care. We just had them change into dry clothes when we left. :)


After we played for a while, we drove to our resort, Plantation Hale, in Kapa'a.

It had been a long day, and we slept well that night!