25th Anniversary Hawaii Trip // Last Day // Souvenir Shopping and Late Night Travels

 All of us were awaken very early with weather alerts going off on our phones.  This was the message that we received:

Thankfully our house sat on high enough ground that we knew that we wouldn't be affected so we all were able to go back to sleep for a while before getting up for breakfast.  Then since we would have free time for the day until our flights began to leave, we loaded up into the vans and drove over to a local town that had a place called "The Warehouse" and we all took some time to do some window shopping.  It was a neat little place with a lot of cute things, but a little pricey for my type of souvenir shopping.  LOL

Aren't these just the cutest little baby surfer clothes though?

I offered to buy the girls this book about Hawaiian Lifeguards...

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In all honesty, most of us didn't want to do very much shopping and we all decided just to go back to the house so that we could eat lunch and then use our last hours together to talk with each other and just enjoy our last hours together.  Many of us took showers.  I took a nap beside the pool.  Several of the wives finished their books.  The guys played an intense game and then the loser had to jump into the freezing cold pool.  I think we watched a little basketball on tv, which was the first time that the tv was on all week.  And then we spent the last few moments down by the ocean where we took in one of our favorite views.

Noel and I had the same flights as three of the other couples so all of us would load up into the vans and head over to the airport.  Our flight would leave the island at 9:15.  After we left, the ones that remained at the house would send us a couple pictures of the sunset.  We missed out on a pretty amazing one that night.

And then they sent this picture from the back wall.  It's like it was our one last look...

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The Lihue airport is pretty small with only ten gates so once we got there and checked in, we didn't have very far to walk to cover one end of the airport to another.  We tried to walk back and forth as much as we could however, since we knew that we'd be on that red-eye flight to Las Vegas for over five hours.  

Did you know that service animals often get their own bathrooms at these airports?   Unfortunately for them, this one didn't offer a lot of privacy but in Las Vegas, I saw an animal bathroom that actually had individual stalls with fire hydrants included.  LOL

It would probably be the most turbulent flight of our entire trip and neither Noel or I got any sleep at all on that part of the trip.  It as already a long flight and then due to the turbulence, we had to stay seated and the flight crew had to also stay seated.   And even though we were suppose to have more leg room on this flight, it was just impossible to get comfortable.  We finally arrived in Las Vegas around 2:30 their time and then we sat for about two hours more before making our final connection to Indy.  At the Las Vegas airport, we were at least entertained and kept awake with a lot more people coming through the airport and some even stopped to play the slot machines.

Las Vegas is also where I saw Lilly King, the American gold medalist swimmer who swam competitively at Indiana University and is one of the best breaststrokers of all time.  She was standing behind us in the boarding line and would fly with us on the same flight to Indy.   Don't worry, despite the fact that I tried to nonchalantly take pictures of her to show the girls, I didn't actually approach her or embarrass myself in any way around her.  LOL  

Final view of Vegas with the mountains in the background.

As soon as I got on the plane and tucked my carry-on below my feet, I closed my eyes and I think I was out before we even took off.  After being up for over 20 hours, I managed to sleep for the entire 3.5 flight and I woke up just as we started our descent into Indy.  Imagine my dismay when I heard the pilot say that it was 27 degrees in Indianapolis on Sunday and snow was falling.

Welcome back to Indiana!!

We had left our coats in our car, which was back at the hotel, so it was downright cold when we left the airport.  'Thankful for heated shuttle buses and our friends who drove us to our car rather than making us wait for the hotel to pick us up.

The view from our back porch when we arrived home.  This came after a week of temps in the high 60's back home in IN and all of the snow had already melted.  This was all brand new snow that had come overnight as we made our way back home.  'Definitely a different back porch view than what we had experienced during our week in Hawaii.

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Hawaii was beautiful and it was such a wonderful blessing to us to have a full week to just rest and to enjoy a little time away.  I really needed that downtime and I am so grateful to Brent and Karen for opening up their home and blessing us in that way.  We pray that they will be blessed abundantly in return.

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But as soon as we pulled in the driveway and walked into the house, I realized what an immense blessing it also was to walk in to a home, my beautiful home (that was still standing after nine days away BTW) and to see all four of my beautiful healthy children sitting together.  Morgan and Marissa had come home for the weekend to hang out with the younger two and I'm glad that they waited around long enough for Noel and I to get back home so that we could see them.  We shared our freeze-dried jolly ranchers with them, (they weren't impressed) and we shared a couple of stories of our trip.   

They talked about their week and upcoming spring break and mid-term exams and I made them their favorite foods for dinner.  Then the two older girls headed back to their school for another week and Noel and I went to bed with tired but grateful hearts.

Aloha Hawaii.  Until next time.

25th Anniversary Hawaii Trip // Day Seven // Polihale State Park and the Coffee Plantation

 Friday was our 7th and final full day in Hawaii as most of us would start our trip home on Saturday.  Once again we woke up early and headed down for a sunrise but once again, there was a large cloud that kept much of the sunrise hidden.  Then we headed back to the house for a quiche breakfast, sweet bread, and yogurt with granola.  Then we had another marriage session before heading off for another day's group adventure.

Our first stop would be back in the town of Waimea where we would visit a brand new coffee shop called Milk and Honey Coffee Co.  The owner of this small business is a believer and our hosts want to try to support her and her business in any way that they can so they try to bring all of their large groups there at least once during the week.  Noel and I aren't coffee drinkers but the ones who bought something all said that it was excellent tasting coffee.

After coffee and a bathroom break, we all loaded back up into the vans and made our way up the westernmost coast to Polihale State Park, a remote park that is also known for the infamous Na Pali Cliffs.  The beach provided us with one of the most remote beach locations and the views were once again unforgettable.  And speaking of unforgettable, the drive there might have been just that.  Wow!  What an adventure.  About five miles of dirt road full of pot holes and bumps.  It took about 30 minutes to get all the way back to the beach because we had to drive so slowly getting there.  But once we got there and got parked, it was definitely a place well worth visiting.

Except for a couple of surfers further up the beach, we had almost the entire place to ourselves so we set up our chairs and ate some lunch.  Then the guys decided that they wanted to get wet so they all went in for a swim.  Most of the times the waves are too high and rough to swim at this beach, but for some reason they were much calmer this day, so Brent said that it would be perfectly safe for us to go in.

I thought that I had taken quite a few pictures of them swimming and being pelted by the waves but for some reason I cannot find them now so I only have these two rather boring ones.  LOL

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After swallowing quite a bit of the salt water, Noel came up to dry off and we decided to wander down the beach.  We were told that it was only another three miles from where we were to the end of the beach and back so we headed off by ourselves.  The sand was actually really deep and soft so it was a lot more challenging to walk in than it looks...our calves were burning by the time we got back.  We were able to see the Na Pali Cliffs to our right and out in the ocean to our left was the "Forbidden Island".  (If you want to know the story behind that Island, you should look it up.  It's fascinating!)

As you can see, it is a pretty secluded beach and a great relaxing way to spend our afternoon.

Noel and I were fascinated with how the sand piled up in one or two spots to create a "cliff" of sand but then the beach would be perfectly flat in other places.  Why didn't the waves come up farther in these areas?

And if you look at them quickly, it was almost like you could see the front of cities on the face...almost like we had used giant sand buckets to form them.

As we came closer to the end of the beach, we saw one lone monk seal lying on the sand.  At first we feared that maybe he was dead and had washed up on the sand, but as we got closer, we realized that he was alive and just sunbathing.

I wanted to get close enough to check him out, but then I stepped back so he didn't feel threatened.  (Do seals even really care if we stand close to them?  I don't know.  He definitely cannot move fast enough on land to hurt me, but I didn't want to cause him any harm)

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After spending some time at the beach, we all loaded back up into the vans and started making the drive back down the bumpy and rutted dirt road back to the main highway.  Then we started to drive south towards our home, but made one final stop at Kauai Coffee, the largest coffee estate in the United States, at least for now.  Sadly, I have to say "for now" because we were told that developers have recently purchased quite a bit of the coffee estate for Island Development and many of the employees would unfortunately lose their jobs in the months to come.  While we were visiting there however, we were encouraged to try as many coffee samples as we wanted and then we could buy our own beans to take home.  Since Noel and I aren't coffee drinkers, we weren't able to support them that way, but we did walk around the plantation grounds on the self-guided tour.

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After an afternoon of adventure and exploration, we all arrived back at the house in time for our final meal as a group and our final evening session before heading out for a late night ice cream treat and then heading off to bed as our final full day in Hawaii came to an end.