What's a vacation?

Brian and I have a problem. We don't know how to relax. We had a conversation recently where we jokingly questioned whether our mutual intensity was a benifit to our realtionship. We were kind of worn out and exhausted after our season at Rocky and so we decided we wanted a vacation. My stipulations were that it had to be 1)warm and 2)beachy (after wearing my puffy in every week of every month of the year I wanted at least a short stint of being down rigtht hot). We decided on Hawaii b/c it met my request and we could also visit Brian's dad in Oahu. Here's the breakdown in photos:

The first couple are just scenery shots:

We went kayaking with Brian's dad out to a sandbar. It was beautiful!

After two days in Oahu, we flew to Kauai. It's a much smaller island and has a totally different feel. It is very polynesian and called the "garden island" b/c it is a straight up jungle. Seriously. Complete with thousands of feral chickens and goats. I really loved it.

We wanted to hike the Na Pali coast (several movies were filmed here including South Pacific). 22 miles of up and downs (5,000ft one way-- the same as hiking out of the Grand Canyon), but in 100% humidity. It was actually tons of fun. The trail follows the cliffs and you're in and out of the jungle, crossing streams, lots of waterfalls, jungle vegetation, turquoise water crashing below, the smell of rotting guavas all around, torrential rains, red mud and beautiful beaches.

The beginning.

Brian show-casing beads of sweat. I was soaked too. I haven't sweat like that since I was trying to mow lawns in North Carolina in July. Wow.

The trees and plants were incredible! They were all huge and looked like something you'd find in a Dr. Suess book.

Part of the trail.

This is a photo of Kalalau beach-- our destination. It was honestly the most beautiful beach I have ever seen! On the cliff side there was a really tall waterfall (which you'll see in a few photos) and towering cliffs above the beach. So cool. We camped right on the beach in the photo below:

we've arrived!

So the next morning when we woke up, Bry and I were walking along the shoreline and found this coconut that had washed up on the shore. It had an adress label with illegible scrawl and on the bottom was a hole that had been glued shut. We were determined to open it-- expecting to find goodies from a new Japanese pen-pal or something. Scroll down to find out the real contents.

Yeah, so we finally got it open and realized that they were creamated remains! YIKES! Brian freaked out and chucked it back into the ocean. Ha!

We also found this amazing fresh-water cave right on the beach. I'm imitating Ariel.

We snorkeled several times and saw the COOLEST fish! They were all so brightly colored. This was the least colorful of all the fish I saw, but the only one I could photograph b/c it had died on the sand. I still think it's quite pretty. I even got to see sea turtles swimming while I snorkeled.

This is our shower. Pretty sweet, ey? Someone even carved a soap dish holder in the rock. It was 30 seconds from the beach where we camped and so tall you could see it from anywhere!

After we got off the Na Pali coast, we headed to Queen's bath. It is a lava bench with these amazing pools that you can swim and snorkel in. The surf was really big and the waves were crashing over the pools, but Brian was brave and jumped in while everyone else just watched! Eventually me and several others jumped in too. It was one of our favorite parts! You can see the Napali coast in the background of this photo.

This is the pool behind me. It was also full of tropical fish so we borrowed someone's snorkel mask to check them out for a bit.

Brian and I attempted to surf with the locals. Brian acutally did pretty good-- but the waves were pretty darn big and intimidating! I tried several times, but couldn't get up. I think my board was a little short.

We hiked to the bottom of this 170ft. waterfall. It was soo cool. Plus we were the only ones down there. For the Full House fans out there, this is the waterfall that Jesse "jumps" off of when the family goes to Hawaii on vacation. They say locals jump off to prove their man-hood, but Brian wussed out (just kidding. I would never let him do that).

Feel free to make fun of this last picture. Haha!