Yes I still have a pulse!

I know I know it has been awhile. I have a pretty good excuse........I have been lazy. Ok so it is not that great of an excuse, but at least I am being honest. Actually we have had company (again) for the last 3 weeks and Ben and I took full advantage of having grandma here and went on a fabulous romantic trip to Kauai. So I have lots to catch you guys up on. First of all Kauai was beautiful. Our favorite part of the island we live on (Oahu) is the North Shore because it is so laid back and has a great small town beach atmosphere. Well Kauai is a whole island of the North Shore. There are no malls, no big chain restaurants, no crazy traffic jams.....just beautiful mountains, green country side, blue waters, and lots of rain forest. We left home early Saturday morning and in 20 minutes landed in Kauai. I had surprised Ben by having a red mustang convertible waiting for us when we arrived. It was a bit cloudy the first day so we got in the car with the top down and took a drive around the island just to take it all in. At 2 we checked into our condo with a complimentary mai tai!! It was like they read our minds! Then we hung out by the pool to catch some rays, and a little snooze. We went to a great restaurant for dinner. It was expensive but very tasty! Finished the night off with a long walk along the beach and a drink at the Hyatt's piano bar. We were up bright and early the next morning (6:30am) because we had a boat tour booked at 7:15am. This I must say was the highlight of the trip. My highlight anyway, I bet you can guess what Ben's was. So anyway I say boat trip but that is using the term lightly. It was actually a 60 foot hard bottom raft. The sides were inflatable and you actually sat on the sides of the raft. There was a rope running along the top for you to hold onto (for dear life) There was also another rope along the floor for you to stick your feet under, and this was basically what was holding you in. We then rode into the wild oceans North Shore waves (15-30 foot swells) and jumped the waves at 30-40 miles per hour. Can you say air time. We got ten minutes into our 5 hour tour and one of the girls on board was hysterically crying to get off the boat. This was also the girl who bragged all the way there that she was a big and crazy party
girl. I kind of got a chuckle out of that. So anyway we turned back and brought her back to the dock. When we got the 6 people got off the boat and said this was too much for them as well. So there was us and one other couple left. Now that we got rid of all the sissies we got back out there for some real adventure. At one point we had to stop the boat and floated in 60 feet of water the was so blue and clear that we could see right down to the bottom. If that was
not enough add 50-80 dolphins swimming all around us. Close enough that we could reach out and touch them. Every where we looked we could see dolphins swimming. It was amazing. We stopped and took in this beauty for about 20 minutes before we ventured on. As the sun was rising over the mountains we jumped in for a swim. The rays coming over the mountain and hitting the water were absolutely breath taking. Then we drove on for another hour and stopped for some snorkeling and lunch in a little bay. We finished off by going on some extra big waves to see how much air time we could get. It was a great adventure for any thrill seeker. If you ever have the chance I would highly recommend it. The only complaint is me fingers were cramped from hanging on so hard and my arms felt like they had been pulled out of their sockets, but in a good
way. We got back around noon and headed to a beach that is owned by the military and you must be military to go to it. This was three miles of white sand beach with some good sized waves to play in. There was us and two other couples on the entire beach. $ hours and a good sunburn later we headed back home, hitting a good burger joint on the way. We went to the beach near our condo to watch the sunset, had a drink at the bar and the hit the hot tub with a six pack wear we remained for the next 2 hours. The next day we were up early again for an appointment we had. You see they have these deals where you go check out a time share and they give you discounts on all the activities. It was kind of a gamble for Ben and I because we are kind of gullible and it does not take much to convince us to spend money. I will admit we were intrigued but stuck to our will power and said no thanks. However they then bring you to another room for a "last chance offer" which we did not pass up. Basically what you do is join the club for 2 years and they wine and dine you and show you how impressive it is, then at the end of two years if you decide to join the money you spent goes towards your purchase, and if not you still got a really good deal. They run it on a points system and basically a nights stay at a condo is so many points and we have two years to spend 6000 points. We should be able to take about 4 trips with these points in the next couple of years, and stay at 5 star resorts which would normally cost $400plus a night for less then $100 a night. So we figured if we are going to be traveling anyway, then we might as well try this out. So we bought the 6000 points and went on our merry way to enjoy the rest of our trip. From there we had lunch and grabbed a surf board for our surf lessons. Now I know why surfers are so buff. It is so much work and allot harder then it looks. My arms felt t like they were going to fall off from all the paddling. For the first hour the instructor would push you into a wave and you just had to stand up and ride it. I did fairly ok at this but then the last hour we were on our own to try and catch a wave. So I soon learned that the hard part was not the standing up and surfing, but trying to actually catch a wave. It is very hard to get up enough speed to get in front of the wave, and then worry about standing up. I only got up once after I was left to do it on my own. After our surf lesson we hit a much needed happy hour and it was back to the hot tub to soak our weary muscles. I am telling you I needed a vacation from our vacation. Every muscle in our bodies was aching. The last day we went zipping! This is where they drive you to the top of a mountainous rain forest in the middle of no where and you attach yourself to a cable by a pulley and zip 800-900 feet at a time in a zig zag pattern down to the bottom. It was fun. Not thrilling really, but the scenery was amazing! That night we came back home and loaded up on hugs from the kids because we were going through some serious withdrawals. Isn't it funny how you get away from the kids to have some alone time and all you talk about is the kids and how much you miss them. So that is what we have been doing lately. Now we are trying to recover our weary old bodies and get back to normal.