Aloha!

So apparently it's been a REALLY long time since I wrote seeing as my last post is from Christmas tour....and like the beginning of Christmas tour. Oh well.

To catch you all up....Yesterday, Keith and I flew from freezing cold, rainy, windy Nashville, Tennessee to beautiful, sunny, warm, relaxed, amazing, Princeville, Kauai. We are spending 6 days here in a condo with his Mom and his stepdad, Rick. Today was our first real day in Hawaii since we got in late after dark last night. Keith was so sweet and ran to the gift shop as soon as we touched down and bought a lei for me and for his mom. (insert whatever jokes you want to about "getting "lei-ed" at the Hawaii airport here). We got an sweet new Mercury Mountaineer as our rental car and set off from the Lihue airport to the North shore where we are staying. Our condo is amazing! This is a view from our back deck!

view in the morning.....

and as the sun was going down!

Keith's mom and I sporting our leis.....remember....this was after about 15 hours of travel!

We had an amazing first day! We kicked it off with a 9 am tour of Na' Aina Kai Gardens where we saw lots of amazing flowers and really cool bronze statues. We walked through part of the gardens and then rode a little golf cart/train/tractor hybrid around the rest of the property which included several hardwood forests. One of the coolest things we saw there was a "Sensitive plant" that actually curled up when you touched it! The stems were really leafy but when we poked it with a stick, the plant all but disappeared....what a creative defense mechanism! There was also a tree that had roots hanging off the branches. The bigger the tree grew, the heavier the branches got, and eventually they would sag to the ground where the roots would take hold and nourish the tree! I never cease to be amazed at the Lord's creativity! The pictures below are from the garden tour.

Keith and I overlooking part of the hardwood plantation.

a waterfall at the garden.

overlooking the lagoon in the center of the garden.

Joining in the fun of "Frog Legs" one of the many bronze statues throughout the garden.

on the tour vehicle and ready to roll!!

We ate lunch at the Kilauea fish market and ate yummy deserts from the Kilauea Bakery! Then we ventured to the Kilauea Lighthouse where we not only saw the lighthouse but a monk seal napping on a rock and some humpback whales playing in the ocean! This island is SO beautiful!  After that we drove to the end of the island and then took a long stroll on Tunnels Beach.  It was amazing to just wander down the beach with our feet in the sand and the waves lapping at our ankles.  By that time we were all pretty exhausted since our bodies are still adjusting to the time zone change, so we stopped in Hanalei to have a famous Hawaiian shaved ice (ice cream with a snow cone essentially on top) and then headed back to the condo where we are right now relaxing before a light dinner of tapas.  I've posted some pictures from our time at the Kilauea

lighthouse.  

Keith and I in front of the lighthouse sporting our sunglasses.  It's tough being a celebrity. :)

With Keith and his mom overlooking the island off the coast in front of the lighthouse.

If you look in the center of this pic on the rock, there's a monk seal..the 2nd most endangered mammal in the world!

This is the tail of one of the whales that we saw....they were sort of far out....this was the best we could do photo-wise!

Aloha!!!!