Kauai Zipline Adventure

I think Kauai may be my favorite island in Hawaii. It is so beautiful! I love that you can stop at almost any beach you pass and have it all to yourself! It makes it so romantic!

We decided to spend our first day in Kauai at Princeville's Zipline Adventure! http://www.adventureskauai.com/zipline.html (Some of you may remember seeing it on The Bachelor a few seasons back with Andy Baldwin.) It was so fun! We got to go on 8 ziplines over beautiful valleys and streams!
Jason and Tara ready to go!

Jason Rickards

Jen

Tara

Tara and Jason

Jeff and Jason

Tara
Jason

Jason

Tara

Tara

About halfway through, we got to cross this really cool suspension bridge! The picture doesn't do it justice! It was really high!

Jason and Tara
For lunch, we hiked down to this amazing little area! There was a small waterfall that fed into a private deep water swimming pool!
We had lunch and played in the water! It was one of those "We are in Hawaii!" moments.

Jason and Jeff Jason Rickards

Tara

For dinner that night, we went to Duke's. Once again, the picture doesn't do this scene justice. The ocean was right behind us! These sweet ladies sang The Hawaiian Wedding Song to us because we were celebrating our anniversary. (Yes, our anniversary was almost 2 weeks before, but we booked our cruise because it was our anniversary, so we had a good time with it! On the ship, they gave us a little cake and would send us coupons for the spa!)

One of the best things about this trip was having our own personal photographer! Jen was amazing with the camera! She caught us having a little moment on the beach...Jason and Tara (cute huh?)
Jen and Jeff

I love Hawaii!!!

Hawaii- Kona

After such a busy day in Hilo, we were looking forward to relaxing on the beach in Kona. We did some more snorkeling and soaked up some sun!

Jason and Jeff with our snorkeling gear

Where we snorkeled

When we were done, we wandered through some shops and bought some island fruit from this flea market...
Jen, Jason, Jeff, Tara with our tropical fruit!

When we were taking pictures with our cruise ship in the background, it was pretty obvious we were tourists. A local guy told us that there was a live web cam that pointed right at the lawn we were on. He told us the website, so we could call home and our kids could see us in real time! It was so fun to call them and know that they could see us, but it made us all a little homesick. I am so grateful to my parents for watching the kids while we were gone! It is so nice to know that they are happy and loved while we are away!

We headed back to the ship to get ready for our night. We had a balcony room that I loved! I being able to open the door and hear the ocean and feel the breeze through our room!
Jason on our balcony looking up rental cars for the next day

We tried to get some pictures of all of us before the sun set, but we never could get out of our rooms on time! :-) This is as close as we got...

Jason and Tara

Jeff and JasonJen and Jeff Tara and Jason

After dinner, Jeff wasn't feeling well, so Jen, Jason and I, goofed off around the ship without him. We played darts in the saloon...

And went to the much talked about "White Hot Party"! The crew members said it was fun. We were skeptical because the average age passenger was 50! They said everyone should wear white and some of the crew member do a dance and it's a big party. We didn't have anything else to do, so we went.
Tara and Jason on the dance floor

It was fun to get out and dance! Jen noticed this girls who could seriously move her booty like nothing we have ever seen! It was like it had a mind of its own! Have you seen Cameron Diaz do her little booty dance? It was kind of like that! Crazy! I had to ask her how she did it!
She thought it was pretty funny and tried to teach me!

"Am I doing it right?!"

We laughed pretty hard! We missed Jeff. We thought about trying to wake him up, but the next day was our big zip line day and we wanted him to be up for it.

The Big Island of Hawaii- Hilo

We spent Tuesday on the Big Island of Hawaii on the Hilo side. When we came before, we were totally in awe of the volcanoes and the hardened lava that was everywhere. We were excited to go back and show Jen and Jeff!

JenHere is one of the active volcanoes.
Tara and Jason

Jason, Tara and Jeff in front of the Lava Tube Entrance
Jeff and Jason inside a tunnel made by lava flow

Jason and Tara at a look out point with some crazy looking lava behind us!

This sign made me laugh! There were so many signs that I thought about doing a funny post with all of the signs, but I wasn't feeling very creative! Maybe Jen will do it... Anyway, this was one of the many signs just before the area where the road was closed because there was so much lava that covered it!

Jeff and Jason

Way in the back you can see a big gas plume. That is where there is still active lava flowing into the ocean. All of the rock that you see is hardened lava. Pretty cool huh? We took a million pictures of us walking around on it and a few close ups of what it looks like close up. I will try to get all the pictures up on picasa soon. I have our first few days up already but I ran out of space!

After we left Volcanoe National Park, we went looking for The Boiling Pots. One of the crew members on the ship told us about this really cool waterfall with lots of little pools around it that you can swim in. We found this one first. It was beautiful, but there wasn't anyway to get down to it.

Just a few miles up the road, we found it.

There wasn't a marked trail, but we thought we saw a path that was kind of worn...Somehow we ended up here... but we saw pictures of him swimming in it! There had to be a way to get to it...
Jen

Time was running out. We had to return our rental car and get back on the ship. We were bummed we didn't get to swim under the waterfall. As we came back, we realized we could have made it if we crossed the river!!! AHG! If only we had more time! I guess we will just have to come back... Jason, Tara, Jen, Jeff

That night, we got all cleaned up and had dinner in one of the specialty restaurants on the ship. The desserts were SO good! I think we had one of everything on the menu!
After dinner , our ship cruised past the point where the lava flows into the ocean. It was so cool to see it glowing at night! It was so hard to get a good picture of it because the ship was moving, but you get the idea. Can you believe all of that was just one day?! Seriously, it was an awesome trip and that is only half way through!