On September 19, Jordan, Baby, and I flew out of Seattle to Kauai with my parents. We met by brother and his family and spent 10 amazing days in the Garden Island. I hadn't been to Hawaii since I was 14, and I hadn't been to Kauai since I was 11, so it was a much needed reunion. Jordan had NEVER been to Hawaii before, so it was an even more needed introduction. Here is our trip by the numbers. Some of these numbers are exact, others are estimates.
Number of hours spent in the air from Seattle to Kauai: 5 1/2
Number of minutes into the plane ride before Baby Jo fell asleep: 3
Number of times I thought, "Oh, cool! Kauai has wild chickens!": 1
Number of times I thought, "Oh my gosh, I HATE these stupid wild chickens!": 1000
Number of degrees it was in our AC-free condo: 78
Number of degrees it FELT like: 130
Number of dollars we saved by making our baby sleep in a suitcase instead of shipping a Pack n' Play: 50 (worth it).
Number of beaches we visited: 7 (I think). They were all beautiful. Some were perfect for boogie boarding, some were awesome for snorkeling, and some were great for good ol' swimming. I never got sick of going to the beach.
Number of Sea Turtles I saw: 5. I got to see three while snorkeling, and two while boogie boarding. Well, correction: while Jordan and Troy were boogie boarding and I was hanging out on the beach after what felt like inhaling 5 gallons of sea water from crashing on my board.
Number of monk seals we got to see: 3. They were all so cute and so laaaaazy!
Number of nights Baby Jo slept great: 0. Poor guy. He never seemed to be able to adjust to the Hawaii time zone....until the last day. Awesome.
Number of times we got overpriced Hawaiian Shave Ice: 3.
Number of times I thought the expensive shave ice was worth it: 1. The best place was JoJo's. I should've known.
Number of cool things I saw while snorkeling: countless. We saw a dead reef shark (eek), several eels, a flounder, the aforementioned turtles, and amazing fish. I think snorkeling was my favorite thing to do in the water.
Number of miles it took to travel up Waimea Canyon: 18. It was an all day trip to travel up to the top and back down again, but it was worth it. It was such an incredible sight. Plus, it is a big tourist place so there was many people around taking pictures. Jordan had the pleasure of eavesdropping on several German tourists' conversations and finding a way to talk to them. He can never help himself! :)
Number of days it rained: 6. The rain in Kauai was crazy. The weather would go something like this: Beautiful, sunny, perfect, DOWN POUR, sunny, sunny, nice, TYPHOON, sunny. This would be all within an hour. Luckily, the rain never lasted too long and it was pretty warm, so it worked out well.
Number of Hula dancers we saw: 4. We caught a short performance different dancers would perform as a sneak peek into their longer luau. While we were watching the girls shake their hips at lightening speed, Jordan leaned in and whispered to me, "Hey, you should learn to dance like that." Homeboy got island fever. Sorry, buddy. You married a white girl with even whiter hips.
Number of times we plan to go back to Hawaii with a baby: 0.
Don't get me wrong- we had a fabulous time and we had tons of help from our family. Still, we learned that vacationing with a baby is just DIFFERENT. This was our first family trip with Baby Jo (aside from me traveling to visit family sans Jordan) and it was definitely an adjustment. However, aside from his crappy sleeping, Baby Jo did a pretty awesome job on the trip. He loved to be in the water and seemed to love the taste of salt water even more. He didn't seem to mind getting sand all over him and did really well on the plan rides. He was such a happy trooper.
The numbers don't lie. It was an incredible trip. I'm ready to go back in a heartbeat!
ALOHA!
