The Fancy Smancy hotel

Since we didn't have a rental car we spent the day exploring the hotel. It was really hard choosing which pictures to post....especially since I averaged taking over 300 pictures each day. So I thought it best to use pictures that summerize my day best.

Since I am on Utah time I woke up at 6am....that would be 9 in UT. It was a cloudy morning but I was still able to enjoy the sunrise from the balcony. Since I was still missing my kids a bit after breakfast I called to talk to Ella (since Ashlyn was at school) and the first thing she asks is 'have you seen Lilo and Stitch yet?' You know....those cartoon characters live in Hawaii. That made me smile. After that we start exploring the hotel. Besides all of the different vegitation around us we spotted a ton of different spiders. The neatest one was this one that makes an 'x' on it's web. It almost seemed as if it was hiding behind the x. I tried finding the name of it, but had no luck.

Kind of a scary looking guy, isn't it?

Next we make our way down to the beach. And we find that there is a Hawaiian Monk Seal basking in the sun. These guys are on the endangered species list. It is against the law to approach or disturb them. There is a group of volunteers on the Island of Kauai that are very dedicated to protecting these animals. They rope off the area of the beach that the seal is on to protect it and then the volunteer seems to stand guard to make sure no one gets too close. Experts believe that there are only 16-30 that live on Kauai.....we were lucky enough to see 2 of them on the same day and same time on the beach at the hotel.

After having a photo shoot with the Monk seal, we head to one of the 3 pools. This pool is more of a lagoon. It has sand and it gradually gets deeper. There is also an anchor and rocks on the bottom in the deepest parts of it. Unfortunately for me, the water was in the 70's and that is a little too chilly for me so I opted to do what the seal was doing and bask in the sun after I got my toes wet.

Then we all spoiled ourselves even more and got some of those fancy drinks to enjoy.

(Gail and Dee...Weston's parents)

After a while we decide to take a look at the other pools. The next one is more like a regular pool.... a really fancy regular pool. It has a little island in the middle of it that has a hot tub on it. I think that it is kinda mean....you swim through the cold water to get to the hot tub and once you are all warm and want to get out you have to go back through the cold water to get to your towel.

There was one more pool that was up above this other one. It had a better hot tub up there and there was a waterslide that led down to the lower pool. It was also more of a lazy river that had little caves and waterfalls.

Later that day, when we grew tired of lounging at the pool. We decided to explore the coast a little bit. That is our hotel off in the distance on the right. I am glad that I brought a couple of sweat shirts because I am finding that it is a little chilly here.....especially with the wind blowing. Oh and I wore a flower in my hair everyday. This one I snatched from the breakfast table. I thought 'hey, I am in Hawaii so why not wear a flower in my hair like the natives used to and sometime still do.'

I just love the black lava rock that is all over the coast. And how bright green the ocean plants seemed to be. I don't know what those black things are, but they are kinda cool looking. And while we were exploring we saw a bunch of whales off the coast.

Some info on Kauai. It is the oldest and greenest and lushest of all the Hawaiian Islands. I have also heard that it is the least tourist-y and least commericalized of the Islands. Mt. Wai'ale'ale is the wetest spot on earth. It gets 400+ inches of rain a year. There arn't any roads that go all the way around the island. The shore on the west side of the island is mainly cliffs. There are a couple of beaches on that side that are only accessible by air or boat. The Hawaiians say that the volcano is pow. That means that it doesn't work anymore, that it is done. There are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian language. 5 vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and 7 consonants (h, k, l, m, n, p and w).

And we stayed down in Poi'pu which is pretty much the most souther tip of the Island.