Kauai, Hawaii

If you have never been to Hawaii, go...now. Seriously, Hawaii was so amazing in every way. And, if you go, go to Kauai and stay in the North end of the island. When we flew into Lihue, the main town on Kauai, we weren't that impressed. Lots of traffic, tourist spots, and crappy restaurants. But, the farther North you drove (we stayed in Hanalei, about 40 minutes from the airport) the greener, quieter, and more peaceful it got. We couldn't have picked a better spot, or a more relaxing place to stay. Take a look at the pictures of the Surfboard House, and read Jason's review on Yelp (hint, hint he's Jason H). We were literally 1 block back from Hanalei Bay and a 10 minute walk to downtown Hanalei where we got coffee at Java Kai and ate at Baracuda and The Dolphin (ate there twice we loved it so much). We also bought fresh wahoo fish one night from The Dolphin's fresh fish market and grilled it on our lenai. We kept a nice balance between "doing" and just "being" on this trip and I took about 300 photos along the way. Here are some of the highlights....

Hiking the Kalalau Trail:


From the trail, a view down the Napali Coast. Only accessible by boat or foot; no roads.


Catamaran. We looked into taking a catamaran tour down Napali Coastline, but they were all like 5 hours, included crappy lunch and deep sea scuba diving -- no thank you.


It was so lush and green. It looked like a jungle; not surprising that this is where they filmed Jurassic Park. I half expected a T-Rex to come out of the clearing.


2 miles in the trail goes to Hanakapiai beach.


We found a cave!


Wild roosters are everywhere! They escaped from farms after a hurricane in the 90's and nobody bothered to round them up.


Oldest missionary church on Kauai


Farmer's Market findings on Saturday. I ate my weight in pineapple -- delicious!


Hanalei dock


Watching the sunset...


Kauai lighthouse. First lighthouse in Kauai to guide ships picking up sugar cane that went to California for processing.


Secret Beach and lava pools


Jason in a lava pool


Our sweet ride -- thanks to Richard!


Surfers in Hanalei Bay. We didn't bother with surf lessons while we were there, but it was fun enough to watch people who really know what they were doing.


Walking through sugar cane to the Kipu Falls


Kipu Falls


Waimau Falls


Flowers, flowers, and more flowers...














Our last night at dinner before we took the red-eye home


Seen enough pictures yet? Ok, just a couple more...

Jason working the grill


Pineapple!


We did a lot of this too...


Believe it or not there are other photos that I haven't downloaded from our smaller camera and my phone. We went sea kayaking one day and took the smaller camera. I'll post those pictures soon.

We're already planning our next trip to Hawaii - 5 yr., 10 yr., 30 yr. anniversary? I'll guess we'll just have to see. At least we have our memories and hundreds of photos to make it last.

xoxo

Snowing, Sewing, & Some More Pictures

One of the drawbacks to living on top of a mountain is springtime snow. Although we have seen glimpses of spring weather and flowers just beginning to reach their necks out of the thawing soil, today we were hit with about 10in. of snow. Of course Jason is out of town, which left me to operate the snow blower / shovel solo this morning...I'm sure I'll be feeling that for days. Luckily I have a therapeutic yoga class on the books for tomorrow morning.

Trapped inside for most of the day, I've got time to post some more pictures to the blog. The first 2 pictures are of projects I completed with my new sewing machine. My first project was an easy one; new kitchen towels out of a tablecloth I found on clearance at World Market:


Second I made a pillow for my bedroom. I already had the pillow form, but wanted a new cover. I'm pretty happy with the result:



My next project is a new shower curtain and pillows for the living room.

Last weekend (in direct comparison to this weekend) was beautiful; high 50's and sunny. We enjoyed the warmer weather with a hike on Sandy Canyon trail about 8 miles from our house. Here are some pictures I snapped:

San Francisco Peaks.




Jason running up...


King of the Mountain!


Aspen Trees. We want to come back in the fall when these are a bright yellow color.


Butterfly!


I didn't finish this post yesterday, so it's actually Sunday here. I'm off to yoga and errands before Jason comes home from NYC at 3:00 this afternoon. I'm making a homemade pesto shrimp pizza for dinner and rhubarb crumble...yummm!

Fay Canyon

As I mentioned in the last post, Jason got me an awesome new camera for my birthday. I've read (most of) the manual, but I am much more of a hands on learner. I can read about it all day long, but until I actually play with it, it won't stick. So, along with the great weather we have been having, the camera is motivating me to get out hiking. We went to Sedona last weekend, ate at Simon's Hot Dogs in the Oak Creek Brewery (yummm) and hiked the Fay Canyon Trail. Here are some of the photos I snapped:



Still obsessed with these desert tree branches...


Inside the canyon:


Boulders at the bottom of the canyon:


Doesn't this look like the Thundercats logo?


I thought this looked like a gothic version of Mid-Summer Night's Dream:


Resting a while:


Jason's turn with the camera:


Working on my close up shot. I discovered the manual focus...I was giddy!








Just breathtaking:


I like how you can see the clouds coming over the mountain in the top left:


I also have a few pictures from a hike we took in Flagstaff this weekend, but I haven't even downloaded those pictures yet -- hopefully I'll have time next weekend.
We are looking forward to our trip to Hawaii (2.5 weeks of work and we are on our way!!)

xoxo - Helen & Jason

3rd Anniversary and 30th Birthday

This week is fun every year, celebrating our wedding anniversary on March 15th and my birthday on March 18th; this year I turned 30 - thanks for all the birthday love! My parents came into town on St. Patty's Day, and we celebrated with a traditional Ploughman's platter, homemade Irish soda bread and Guinness. I took my birthday off of work, and we went shopping, drank champagne at lunch and went out to Tinderbox for my birthday dinner; hands down the best restaurant in Flagstaff -- so yummy! With mum at dinner:


On March 19th we had a few friends over to the house for a birthday celebration.
Birthday set-up and yummy spread:





My mom made me this collage with pictures from the past 30 years -- amazing!


Some wonderful friends joined in the fun:







Our cutest party guests:





With the birthday kitty:


Jason got me a new Panasonic camera for my birthday...it is fantastic! I had really enjoyed taking pictures over the past year, especially on our many hikes. I am going to be able to take some really cool pictures with this new camera...once I learn how to use it that is! I used it to take some pictures at my birthday party, but I'm not that good at it yet. Luckily, my brother-in-law also got me a guide book about photography, so I can read up before our trip to Hawaii in April.

I will post about a recent hike to Sedona soon too. I took the new camera, and got a lot of great shots.

xoxo - Helen

Late Arrival of Winter

We finally got winter here in Flagstaff. Two days of snow, totaling about 10-12 inches. We are waiting to hear about NAU's status for tomorrow.

On a sunnier note, I planted some bulbs that bloomed. Here is a hyacinth in the living room, we also had some really yummy smelling paper whites.


I am sorry I have been such a slacker with the blog lately. Must be something about this time of year because I think I took a similar 3-week blogging hiatus around January into February 2010. A lot has been going on around here. I accepted a new position as NAU as a Coordinator for Career and Academic Advising. I coordinate programs for new student and first year advising and enrollment. I will be supervising a few other advisors as well and taking on a few more projects...and many more meetings(not my favorite part). My first 2 weeks on the job were great, but as you can imagine, I've been working overtime to get myself organized, thus this poor blog was neglected for a few weeks. Jason traveled to Las Vegas and Miami, and he is going to San Diego on Tuesday. He is taking on a new project at work and may be moving to a new office building.

A couple of weeks back a friend of ours had a curling (yes like the Olympic event) party. He constructed a curling lane in his backyard. A friend snapped this picture of us outside watching the action. We were all huddled around the fire to keep warm.


Happy late Valentines Day! We cooked dinner together for Feb.14th and Jason had flowers sent to my office:) I got him a bag of 20 different dark chocolate bars (no easy feat for someone who can't eat tree nuts. Do you know how many dark chocolate bars have nuts?!) Here is a sampling:


We'll catch you up on more soon!