everything else =)

Some other stories from our trip that didn't really have photos to go with them:

• Monday we were doing some snorkeling and Hans pops up out of the water, looks at me, and flashes his left hand my direction saying "You're going to hate me..." His ring finger is bare. Again. That would be wedding ring number three. "Why were you even wearing it???" I asked. He just said it didn't feel loose and he thought it would be fine. Grrrr. We're not-too-hopefully glancing around the water near us and discussing purchasing ring #4 when we hear some guy 5 feet away shouting "Anyone lose a wedding ring?" I have no idea how that guy managed to find Hans' ring in the ocean, but I do know that Hans might be one of the luckiest people I've ever met 
• One day, we were at Poipu beach with Karl and Christina. The preggos were beached and not moving while the boys did some snorkeling, until they ran over to tell us they'd found a big sea turtle! We ran out there with them thinking we were going to miss the big guy, but nope! He hung around and snorkeled with us for probably close to an hour. And he was massive! Probably close to the size of me. And completely unconcerned by the people hovering right around him, but trying not to disturb him. So cool. We also saw turtles, two of them, on two more occasions. I think it was the same two turtles that we saw on two different days. In any event, it was pretty sweet to swim with da turtles.
• We had this blue guidebook for Kauai that recommended checking out a site called the Queen's Bath. I thought it was just a pull off on the side of the road and we'd stop for 15 minutes, check it out, and move on. What I didn't know was that it involved a pretty decent hike over some lava formations to get to it. We were so not prepared in our flipflops to be climbing over all these rocks. But when we finally got there, we found this very secluded little pool, carved out of some huge lava rocks that has just a little outlet to the ocean - so it feeds in water and fish at high tide and makes a neat little swimming hole when the tide goes out.

Lots of sunsets! We kept looking for the "green flash" but never saw it.

To get to the Tunnels beach, we had to park a ways away and trek along the beach. That part of the beach was fairly difficult to walk on... with each step, your feet sink down several inches and you just kind of slog along. So you look down a lot, to make sure you're putting your feet in the right place (I found that putting my feet in the footprints Hans had just made meant I didn't sink down as much...) But since you're looking down, it's not very difficult to nearly run into monk seals. Apparently, they feed until they're stuffed and then haul themselves onto the beach to rest. So this little guy may look injured or something, but he just has a full belly and wants to lounge on the beach :)

Hans thought the roots and vines covering the side of these cliffs were pretty neat.

Doesn't this kind of look like someone cut us out and pasted us on this background?

Queen's bath pool

Chickens!!! I had heard that Kauai has chickens and roosters everywhere, but I had no idea just how many that meant. They are EVERYWHERE! You can hear them all the time. They roam restaurants, hotels, beaches.... seriously. Everywhere. When we were hiking in Waimea Canyon, we knew we were getting close to the hike entrance when we could hear crowing again. Never seen so many chickens. Don't understand it.

A bump picture! I was both surprised and glad that I could still fit into my normal bathing suits... I think if we went a couple weeks later, that wouldn't have been true, but they worked just fine. 

We had our last dinner at the Grand Hyatt... you can't beat their view!

The whole restaurant has this Japanese theme going and there are koi ponds and waterfalls and torches everywhere. It was really beautiful

Hans was very excited about his steak.

Another bump picture! This will have to suffice for my 22 week picture since I didn't get to do a chalkboard while we were gone.

It's hard to take pictures of yourselves - you end up with tiki-torch devil horns.

This place Kalaheo Cafe was probably the best food we had on the trip. They didn't have a great location or ambiance, but the food was way better than anything else we had and way more affordable. The cobbler made baby and I both very happy.

Kauai has it's own ice cream factory (think their version of Blue Bell). It was within walking distance to our condo and we ate there almost every night for dessert. This was on our last night, as we headed to the airport. We were very sad to leave!