Well, we are one week back from our dreamy sojourn in Hawaii. Multiple honeymoons is the way to go people. We've been fortunate to have traveled quite a bit since we've been married and it has been such a fun way to roll into married life. Mondays come quick and jet lag isn't the greatest, but the memories we have created these first few months will last a lifetime. Besides, the weeks at work are too dull to not take full advantage of the weekends.
Prior to this trip, Mark had never been to HI and I had only been to Oahu. For our trip together, we went with Kauai. In talking to friends, co-workers and family, we realized that everyone has their strong opinions about where to go in Hawaii. Somehow we decided on Kauai. We rented an awesome little condo in a city called Princeville (on the North side). First of all, VRBO.com in Hawaii is absolutely the way to go! Hands down, a great call. I expect that we will most definitely do that again. We had an entire condo to ourselves complete with 2 huge bedrooms & bathrooms, a giant family room, kitchen and patio. In addition to the condo, we had a pool and hot tub area that had several BBQ's. The idea of going back and staying at a huge resort, just doesn't sound near as appealing. We had at least one trip to the hot-tub every day and loved that we were able to make a few trips to Costco to stock our kitchen. Our hosts also provided beach chairs, body boards, beach towels and umbrellas. I've got to say that this welcoming touch was sweet.
Every day of our trip was unique. We tried to balance the adventuring with relaxing. We did just about everything. Our mornings we woke up early (the one time I've ever been OK with jetlag) and would watch Netflix in bed. Some mornings we went to the beach and watched the sunrise. Most mornings we exercised then sat in the hot tub. All of those options were fine by me. I often found myself thinking: 'Why can't life be vacation?'
We currently live in Utah, but by no means would we consider ourselves to be "hikers." Given the circumstances (and surroundings) we made sure to at least do a few hikes. We were nestled right near the NePali coast and our favorite hike was "The End of the Road" hike--which was 4 miles total and spit us out at this amazing rock beach. We finished the hike with about 100 bug bites and mud all over, but it was definitely worth our while!
Mark's passion for photography has been rubbing off on me little by little. His photos are always amazing. Mark grew up surfing and doing a lot of surf photography. Ironically there was a pretty big swell while we were there and some of the waves were pretty massive. We surfed some of the less intimidating waves and had a blast. Somehow even then, we still got somewhat destroyed.
After the sunsets and dinner, by about 8 O'Clock we were pooped and ready to call it a night. Being four hours behind and given that Kauau isn't exactly a place known for it's hoppin' night life, we had some serious (and much needed) chill time each night.
Who knew there was an infestation of chickens in Kauai?? Let's just talk about these wild chickens for a second! Haha these chickens were really hilarious and provided us with non-stop jokes for 8 days straight. We even witnessed a real-life chicken fight. It was pretty epic. They fought like crazy for the love of their lives and I was anxiously filming every second of the Michale Vick re-creation. 
Let's talk a minute about food.. I'm no foodie, I'm actually not picky at all... but all of our food on this trip was ON POINT! Some of our friends gave us some great suggestions and we relied heavily on Yelp review. Our go-to staples were the Acai Bowls from a food truck called "The Wishing Well." I haven't learned to "cook" yet, so we frequent Jamba Juice on a weekly basis. Mark introduced me to the Jamba Juice Acai bowl, but the Acai bowls we had in Hawaii are a whole other story. If there's one thing that I could bring back with me, it would be those little thangs.
I also became obsessed with something called Puka Dogs: a sweet fluffy hot dog and hawaiian sauces contraption that fell from the heavens. Puka dogs. Nuff' said. Let's just say I wasn't mad when the ESL Puka Dog cashier accidentally threw in an extra Puka, then his manager gave it to us for free to save time. Whooooops.
Oh, and I almost forgot. I ate an entire box of chocolate covered macadamias, cus' Hawaii. Go ahead and judge me. It's not my fault that Mark has a nut allergy...I had to.
Some of our favorite activities were: surfing, paddle boarding, snorkeling, driving, eating, beaching and hiking. PADDLE BOARDING on a rainy day, was nothing short of amazing. We saw giant sea turtles swimming right underneath us and a school of fish literally jumping on top of the water. It was literally insane and I felt like Bindi Irwin.
Looking back on our trip, we feel like it was a huge success. Different from the honeymoon, but just as awesome. We loved that we got to be adventurous and at the same time, completely let go form real life for a minute.
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