WEEK ONE

we're here. in kauai. sitting on our couch in our new condo looking at sleeping giant and reminiscing about our action packed first week here.

lets start from the beginning.

after a busy and stressful month of may we boarded the plane in san diego and ten hours later arrived at our new home, kauai. our friends evan and olivia picked us up from the small humid airport, welcoming us with homemade leis. our first request was to jump straight in the water. we hoped in the back of the pickup, snacked on some lychee and headed to the beach. it was a little after eight at night when we took our first jump into the warm hawaiian ocean. we then found ourselves sneaking into the kauai beach resort's hot tub. the whole time pinching ourselves that this was our new home and our new life.

the next day we allowed ourselves complete freedom. no thought of responsibility crossed our mind. we woke up in the wailua homesteads to evan so graciously cooking us eggs and potatoes followed by a ride to our new condo. our condo is at the north end of kapaa, a cute, little, furnished, two bedroom place over looking sleeping giant. once we threw our two hundred pounds of luggage onto our living room floor we headed for the north shore, evan, jason, brittany and ourselves. we had many stops along the way including: swimming in a water cave with breathtakingly cold water, snorkeling with turtles at tunnels, getting a start on our hawaiian tan, jumping into roadside ponds, enjoying an evening brew overlooking the kilauea lighthouse and making new friends. we finished off the night by eating pizza and salad in the homesteads with some of our new friends.

wednesday we woke up in our new apartment and headed the the local coffee shop, small town. evan meet us for some kona coffee and fresh coconut bran muffins. the rest of the day we ran errands: costco, walmart, local post office, bank, etc. when we were done with a few hours of responsibility we sat on the road side, picked plumerias and learned how to make leis to lei evan's 13 year old twin brothers with. after picking the brothers up from the airport we headed to kipu falls to swing off of a tarzanesque rope swing. after chowing down on some more pizza we ended the day with an evening hike up sleeping giant. from the top we could see the entire island and once again pinched ourselves that we were looking down on our new home.

thursday was the day of the big hike to hanakapiai falls. two miles in to the most beautiful beach along the napali coast, two miles more to the giant waterfall, then a four mile trek back. yeah, that's eight miles on day three of our life here. no big deal. that night, just the two of us, made our first dinner in our new home and recovered from the long but incredible day.

olivia had referred us to a little bbq place that was about to open up in town, and said they were looking for poeple. friday after walking half a mile into town we smiled and shook hands with our new manager. after filling out our new employee packet at small town coffee, olivia picked us up and took us home to pack for our first camping trip. evan, the brothers and the megans headed to the west side. we camped in the sand, under the stars at polihale (please google image this). the following morning we jumped in the water for our first, of many, surf sesh's. although there wasn't much swell we rode our first hawaiian waves. after packing up we met up with olivia and brittany to spend a few hours on the beach, do some road side mango picking and jump off a 30 foot cliff at shipwrecks, in poipu. we ended the day with some pasta and wii.

today was our first day of rest. its consisted of church, sushi and meeting up with the manager at chicken in a barrel (our new job). sorry there are no pictures... ber brought the wrong charger so we don't have a camera. dummy. this just means we have to do all these amazing adventures again.

with 87 bug bites, 2 mountains hiked, 1 beach camped and lots of sore muscles and bruises we have finally had a chance to sit down and start blogging.

with aloha,

megan and megan