kauai family time

our last week has been spent in sunny kauai, hawaii with my entire family except for shareen's husband craig.  it has been two years since the core 6 have been in the same place at the same time.  and what a place... princeville hawaii is stunning.

in addition to sunshine and surf, kauai features heavily forested mountains with copious hiking trails.  the guidebooks emphasize the difficulty of said hikes, but they were no problem for seasoned chilliwackians!

or fit albertans for that matter.  here is my dad's attitude at the top of one of the steepest hikes on the island.

when our family gets together we eat well.  note all the cheese.   mmm...

apparently when you purchase several hundred dollars worth of groceries, safeway will give you a free turkey.  we hadnt planned on thanksgiving dinner, but when in rome...

it was an interesting cultural experience to witness an american thanksgiving.  our accommodations were more condo than resort and as such had a lot of permanent residents.  family came in from all over and were welcomed like it was christmas.  "happy holidays" was thrown around to family and strangers alike and there was hugging and parties all over.  definitely a bigger deal over here.

but of course the big deal for us was the beach.  surf and family and turkey together; a truly wonderful combination.

princeville and hanalei offered a great mix of big surf, little surf and calm snorkelling beaches.  check out these great wave shots of kylie and shareen.

this same beach offered 10 foot walls further out.  dan, lowell and i ventured out for surfing and boogie boarding and got pounded.  we also got dragged out by a riptide, but managed to make it back to the beach under our own steam.  swimming against the tide is a great workout.  the guard towers were always in sight, but it was still just a little bit scary.

speaking of just a little bit scary, ty had his first boogie boarding experience on the kids' side of this same beach.  over the day he got totally comfortable challenging the waves from the shore, then swimming in the surf and finally boogie boarding with daddy.  even salt water blasts to the face didnt deter him.

the waves here had good power.  it was surprisingly easy to catch them even with extra weight on the front.

kauai has a serious chicken population, giving ty lots of practice yelling "cock a NOOOOOO!"

 down time was still full of family fun.

ty got a new harmonica from papa so they could jam.

cousin fraser provided a lot of entertainment as well.  unfortunately a lot of that entertainment involved derivations of knocking fraser over:  shoving fraser, straightarming fraser, tripping fraser... good thing his parents' are tolerant folks who love ty as well.  you can see julie's record of our adventures here.

but the most fun was still had at the beach.  nana and papa are great playmates.

both our boys seem ok with the everpresent sand that comes with a beach vacation.

november is a great month to go to the beach!  many mahalos to mom and dad and kauai.