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Friday, July 17, 2015

Kauai Hawaii - Day 1

Ian, where are we going on vacation?


And it's not just us going on vacation. We're taking along Ian's cousin Aubrey with us!
It's Thursday, so Theresa and I went to work for a half day, got picked up from work and headed to the airport. Ian's been having a really good day and decided to completely skip his afternoon nap. Perhaps he'll fall asleep on the plane...

Our flight left right around 6pm, so we made sure to grab dinner at the airport before we left. Boy this American Airlines terminal food seems overly expensive. Aubrey and I each picked a $16 personal pizza, while Theresa got a $12 sandwich.

Here we are on our 6.5 hour flight to Hawaii! Everyone has a seat including Ian! No lap baby for us!
And you wouldn't be surprised to learn that we're flying to Hawaii for free would you? Getting free flights is one of T's hobbies after all.

Ian kept entertained for a little while watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse but wasn't falling asleep. After being contained to the seat for a couple hours, we started running up and down the aisle. Finally  2 hours before we landed, Ian passed out.

We're in Hawaii! Ian was still quite tired. We retrieved our luggage (no checked bag fees thanks to an AAdvantage credit card), and it was off to the car rental counter.

Can't forget to add this! 1 more state to Ian's map. Checking off Hawaii!

After a rainy drive, we were greeted with flower leis and Kukui nut leis once we arrived at our resort. It's getting late. It's after 10pm Hawaii time, so it's 1am California time, and 4am Michigan time. How is Aubrey still awake?

We'll unpack tomorrow. For now, we're hitting the hay. It would have been nice to have a suite where Ian had his own room, but we made due. T and I bought this blackout fabric before the trip, and I was able to Macgyver a separate room with the closet doors and a few clips. The portable crib is actually small enough to fit in the overhead bin of the airplane, so since Ian had his own ticket, that was considered his bag.

Ian decided a 5am wakeup was in order (8am back home, so that's not too far off the norm), but everyone else was still exhausted. I got up with him and held him and he went right back to sleep. The things we do for kids, right? I held him for 2 hours until everyone woke up, then we were ready to start our day!
Yes that's a rice cooker in the background. It came with us in our checked luggage.

Where are we staying? Only the 2nd best resort on the entire island, the Grand Hyatt Kauai. Can Theresa pick hotels or what?

And how much are we paying to stay here? Surely Theresa was able to get a deal, right? Indeed! The entire stay was booked using credit card points and our out of pocket expense was $0. She's amazing isn't she. She should have a website or something that tells people how she does it, shouldn't she?

The resort is sprawling, but we got an awesome room. It's right beside the pool and it's on the lowest level, so our patio is actually another exit from the room.

And right outside there's even a hammock.

Since we're here for a week, we need provisions. Everyone loaded in the car and headed to the grocery store.

But first, breakfast. The chicken is super fresh here. Ian loved seeing all the wild chickens running around and would yell "Chicken!" It still didn't help any of the chickens want to come closer to him, but he loved yelling it none the less.

Our bellies full on croissan'wiches and hash browns, we ventured onward.

So why are we back in Hawaii and not some other tropical location for our summer vacation? Of course it's a credit card story. As part of a Hawaiian Airlines credit card bonus, she had $50 of credit at the Foodland Grocery chain, which is only in Hawaii. Can't let that $50 go to waste, so better plan a trip to Hawaii to use it.

Oh man. I think in our time here, we ate an entire pineapple every day. And boy were they delicious.

After checking out Foodland, we also ran to Walmart. Yes that's a toaster oven in the cart. Between the hotel supplied mini fridge, hotel supplied microwave, the rice cooker we brought, and this $25 toaster oven, we're going to be eating well on this trip.

They're just called rolls here.

Alright we're set for a month! What's that? We're just here for a week? Maybe we have a little much food then.

After grabbing a Jamba Juice, it was back to the hotel, and it was time to explore.

We walked to the regular beach and stuck our toes in the ocean.

Then we headed back to the room to get some sunblock on.

One really sweet feature of this resort was the huge salt water lagoon. It's separate from the ocean and it's only 6 feet deep max. That way it warms up quickly and is really enjoyable.

Let's go swimming! Ian's ready!

Like the pool floats? Yet another item that came with us in the checked luggage. Instead of getting up early to go throw towels down on some beach chairs, we're bringing the beach chairs with us right into the water! These Kelsyus floating loungers deflate and fold up for easy transport. They even have clips to connect chairs together so no one floats away from the group. We had multiple people ask us where we got them during our stay.


So why did we only bring 3 chairs? Daddy, where are you going to sit?

Well today was a good day, and I'm sure we'll have plenty more great days during our time here!

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