I worried about the wisdom of visiting a tropical area in the summer, but we had gorgeous weather: generally sunny, 80’s, and low humidity (except for the passing shower). Always breezy, we rarely had to use the fan. We stayed in a condo in Princeville, giving us easy access to the beaches and groceries. The first thing did was hit Hanalei Bay:
Second thing was buy Puff the Magic Dragon shirts for the boys to match their Papa's. It was really difficult to convince Ivan to get a shirt of a different color:
By the end of our stay, we had settled into a nice routine of Tunnels in the morning, and Hanalei State park in the late afternoon. I would “dance” with Ivan in the water while Igor helped Nikita to swim:
Nikita actually has down the basics of swimming, and it shows when I swim with him at the MIT pool. Goggles really helped him get over his fear of putting his face underwater, especially since doing so enabled him to see the colorful fish at Tunnels.
We did spend one full day driving to Waimea canyon:
But along the way, we also hit Hanalei farmer’s market, Hamura’s Saimin stand for the Special Regular, BBQ, lilikoi (passionfruit) pie, MacArthur beach, and Jojo’s for shave ice. And when we were tired of the beach, we checked out the shops at Hanalei or visited the Limahuli Preserve. But probably what I will remember most about Kauai are swimming with the tropical fish at Tunnels, and eating the tropical fruit we found at the farmers’ markets: local mangoes and pineapple (like sugar!), lychees, passionfruit (regular and Tahitian), soursop, and a jackfruit! People at the market actually took photos of Nikita holding one, but I had to make do with this:
The other thing I worried about with our trip was the flights, but they turned out well. Nikita was all set, watching Code Lyoko and other cartoons on a DVD player. Ivan, however, was super cranky from Seattle to Lihue because he wanted to sleep and it was still light out. And we had to leave the rest of our honey in Lihue, but our 6-hour layover in Seattle on the way back was very relaxing. We had a good lunch at Anthony’s, then hung out at the Alaskan Airlines lounge, which had nicer chairs and free food and drinks. But red-eye flights don’t get easier when you have a 3-year old sleeping in your arms. Nikita was so cute though asking me after the flight whether he had red eyes.
