Cruise: Taihiti

Posted on January 2, 2019 by sandersnm

Our last stop on our cruise was Tahiti, the largest island in French Polynesia. We had one full day there and took full advantage of it. We started the day by having a lovely breakfast in our room, wandering around Papeete and visiting the market, then renting a car to drive around part of the island. Once we picked up the car, we headed North to start our trip around Tahiti Nui (we only had time to drive around the larger part of the island).

Lovely view for breakfast.

First visit to the market.

After stopping at a black sand beach and waterfall, we continued our rainy drive by a bright colored church and stopped at a botanical garden. Unfortunately the botanical garden seemed pretty desolate. However, we did see a Galapagos turtle but we were somewhat concerned since no one seemed to be there.

Our final stop on our tour of the island was the Maraa grotto. It was pouring down rain but well worth the stop. We met the cutest kitten and wished we could have taken her home with us!

Sweetest thing.

Such a cool photo of them walking away.

After a decent amount of time at the caves, we drove back to Papeete to return the car and explore more. We walked around the city, visited the market for lunch and souvenirs, and eventually made our way back to the ship to eat dinner and pack our bags for an early morning departure.

Loved the pearls everywhere.

Cruise: Honolulu, Hilo, & Days at Sea

Posted on December 27, 2018 by sandersnm

Josh and I spent the first two and a half weeks of November on the most phenomenal vacation of our lives. We took a cruise that left from Honolulu and stopped in various places in French Polynesia ending in Tahiti.

We started in Honolulu on November 1st with a beautiful sunset and champagne followed by a steak dinner and cruising through the first night to Hilo.

Enjoying champagne on the ship!

Diamond Head

Enjoying more champagne and an incredible sunset.

Leaving Honolulu!

Safety first.

Carmel popcorn ice cream…as good as it looks!

We woke up on Friday to a gorgeous sunrise from our balcony. We enjoyed some delicious coffee and the view of The Big Island as we made our way to Hilo. We spent the day wandering Hilo with our friends who happened to be in Hilo for the weekend.

Beautiful sunrise

Our fancy coffee we had every single morning!

Rainbow Falls

Finally got to try mochi from Two Ladies Kitchen!

Josh trying out the SUP board with peddles.

Double rainbow leaving Hilo.

After leaving Hilo, we spent the next four days at sea heading toward the Marquesas Islands. Our days were filled with the gym, lots of delicious food and drinks, a fantastic massage, lounging by the pool, and reading. I think it was the most relaxed we’ve been in our lives!

Forcing Josh to drink a Piña Colada with me.

Dover sole with lemon caper sauce.

Josh’s chorizo scallops.

Fancy apple tart dessert. Just as delicious as it looks!

Enjoying after dinner drinks in the lounge.

Maui: Trip 3 – Days 1 & 2

Posted on October 10, 2018 by sandersnm

For Labor Day, Josh and I went to Maui to meet up with my friend Danielle and her fiancé Brick. We started our trip by making it to the hotel just in time for an incredible sunset. After we changed and got ready for dinner, we went into Lahaina to eat at Lahaina Grill. A beautiful sunset and delicious dinner were a great way to start our long weekend!

Blue Corn Panko Crusted Chile Relleno: filled with tiger prawns, diver scallops, monterey jack cheese on roasted sweet corn relish, avocado, crème fraîche, roasted tomato-ancho chile salsa

Opakapaka Fish Special: parmesan panko crusted over risotto, grilled shrimp, and beurre blanc

On Saturday, we got up and had coffee on our lanai and met Danielle and Brick to hike Waihe’e Ridge Trail.

We had about an hour drive to the Northwest side of Maui before making it to the start of the trail. It was an absolutely gorgeous day to hike and our views were stunning. At one point, we had waterfalls on both sides of us.

We made it to the top!

After our hike, we drove around West Maui. We stopped for some banana bread and to take in the incredible views.

After quite a lovely morning and early afternoon, we went back to our hotels to rest and get ready for dinner at Mama’s Fish House.

If you ask Josh and I what the best meal of our lives is we both say “Mama’s Fish House”. Needless to say, we were pretty excited to go back and it lived up to our memories!

Cheers!

Tomato Soup

Maui Venison seared with roasted spices and honey lime sauce

Papa’s Sashimi: Ono: with lime, green chili oil, papaya and Maui pink sea salt. Ahi with ponzu, watermelon radish, red shiso and Kukui nut. Kanpachi with Maui onion-fig jam and Molokai black sea salt.

Poi

Opakapaka sauteed with Hamakua mushrooms, white wine and capers

Ono, Ahi and Kanpachi in Panang Curry with Macadamia nuts, banana, sambal and mango chutney

After dinner, we drove back to our hotels and called it a night!

The Big Island: Trip 4 – Day 3

Posted on November 14, 2017 by sandersnm

Saturday we woke up and had coffee on our lanai before embarking on a long haul to the Hilo side of the island for a packed day. We drove through the middle of the island and stopped at Kaumana caves first.

Exploring the caves.

After exploring the caves, we drove a few minutes down the road to Rainbow Falls. We spent some time enjoying the falls and the banyan trees.

After exploring, we decided it was time for breakfast at Ken’s House of Pancakes. The goal was to eat enough so we could make it through the day to our late dinner after our hike. We definitely achieved that goal!

After breakfast, we drove through the Puna area and stopped at MacKenzie State Park and to watch some turtles.

Such a neat shot.

We finally pulled ourselves away from the turtles so we could meet up for our lava hike at Kalapana Cultural Tours! Josh and I went with this company before and they are so wonderful. The hike was different than a few years ago (as expected) and we started by riding bikes a couple miles down a gravel road and then hiked the remainder of the way to the surface flow. We lucked out as there were quite a few breakouts. After that, we hiked back to the ocean entry to check that out before hopping on our bikes for the ride back.

Walking out through the baby palm trees to the black sand beach.

Such a pretty black sand beach.

Ocean entry

After our hike, we were all pretty hungry and ready to relax. We drove back to Hilo and stopped at Pineapples for dinner before driving back to the other side of the island. It was perfect after our long day — good food, good drinks and open air seating!

After dinner, we drove back and completely crashed after much needed hot showers…very excited to sleep in the next day!

Kauai: Trip 3 – Day 4

Posted on June 24, 2017 by sandersnm

We had one day on Kauai to explore the rest of the island. We decided on breakfast in Hanalei (delicious) and then driving around the rest of the island. Our first stop after breakfast was Kilauea Lighthouse and seeing the bird sanctuary. We then made it to Waimea Canyon where we spent most of our time stopping to see the views. It looks so much like the Grand Canyon! We made it to the top of the Kalalau Valley lookout. It was so weird to think we were down there the day before. Our last stop before dinner was the glass beach. There were tiny bits of sea glass all over the beach. We treated ourselves to dinner at Duke’s in Lihue before catching our flight back to Oahu. Had such an amazing trip!

Kilauea Lighthouse

Cousin love

Josh & Kyle

Waterfall!

Kalalau Valley

Looks like a painting

Glass beach

Our view from dinner!

Kauai: Trip 3 – Day 2

Posted on June 22, 2017 by sandersnm

Day two started out with all of us being just a bit sore (maybe not so much Kyle) but the rest of us were feeling it. We made coffee and breakfast and then set out to explore! Our day consisted of checking out the the rocks at the end of the beach that had all sorts of things growing on them, walking the beach and visiting the caves at the end, lounging around camp (including in our tents when it decided to start raining) and then enjoying another beautiful sunset on the beach after it rained. We finished the evening by enjoying the stars. They were absolutely breathtaking. We also made friends with a black kitten. It took everything I had to not take him home with me. ❤

What a view.

Cousin love

Walking to the caves

Enjoying the shade and coolness of the caves!

Kyle relaxing in the cave

Sibling love

Bailey enjoying the waves

Walking back from exploring the caves

These birds were everywhere and not afraid of us.

Camp!

Enjoying the rain

Rainbow!

Getting water

Such a beautiful waterfall!

Just beautiful

Loved these flowers. They were everywhere.

Love that you can see the rain in the distance.

This cat..I was so upset I couldn’t take him home.

Molokai: Trip 3 – Day 2

Posted on May 1, 2017 by sandersnm

On our first full day on Molokai we woke up to our incredible view of Maui. We sat and enjoyed coffee on our lanai and listened to the ocean. Quite the way to start our day!

Our morning view.

After a our leisurely start, we packed up the car to drive towards Halawa Valley. Our first stop was Our Lady of Seven Sorrows, another Saint Damien church.

Joshing signing the guest book with a gecko friend (above the painting).

Grave of a Marine.

Just love this shot.

It started raining on us, so we got back in the car and continued on our journey! The drive there was breathtaking and as we got closer, it stopped raining and we had a great view of the Halawa Falls.

Halawa Falls

We arrived in Halawa Valley and headed to Kalani’s Farm. We chatted with him for a bit and then we were able to sign waivers and hike to the falls since we had already gone on a tour with him a few years ago. We had the trail to ourselves for almost the entire way. Unfortunately for me, there were a ton of spiders (which I do not remember from the last time) so Josh took the lead and was in charge of knocking down webs. We made it to the river crossing but it was still flowing pretty fast. We decided to play it safe and head back. Sad we didn’t make it to the falls but it was a gorgeous hike.

Starting our hike.

Papayas

Waiting to see if we can find a way to cross.

GIANT taro leaf

Standing under the taro leaf

When we got back to the farm, Kalani showed us some of his flowers and gave us two different types of bananas…which turned into an incident for Josh. One of Kalani’s ducks saw that we had bananas and she started racing towards Josh (apparently they are her favorite thing). This turned into Josh running from the duck and her flying at him (I was in tears). We went ahead and shared some with her :).

The duck chasing Josh.

I fed her a banana :).

We were ready for lunch after our hike so we stopped at Manae Goods & Grindz for the best chicken katsu I’ve ever had. We ate lunch and then went back to our place to change and prepare for the rest of our afternoon.

Such a narrow road.

Love all of the glass bottles.

Veggie burger

The best chicken katsu

After lunch, we drove to the West side of the island to show Linda around. Our final stop of the day was Papohaku Beach for sunset. Once again we had the beach to ourselves. The waves break really late here so Josh spent most of the time chasing the perfect picture. He did an awesome job (please see his work below 🙂 ).

Linda and I enjoying the waves

Our first full day was packed and we were exhausted. We reluctantly left the beach for our long drive back. We weren’t super hungry due to our late lunch, so we stopped in Kaunakakai for some ice cream for dinner (my type of dinner). Great way to end our day!

Waimano Falls

Posted on March 19, 2017 by sandersnm

One of Krista’s bucket list items was to jump off a waterfall while in Hawaii. We decided to hike to Waimano Falls to accomplish that. This was a first for me (even though I didn’t jump). It was a great hike and I was so happy to try something new!

Found a friend.

Almost to the falls!

Not really flowing, but plenty of people jumping.

The jump!

Don’s jump!

Celebration!

Cardiac Hill

Family Fun at Manoa Falls

Posted on October 25, 2013 by sandersnm

As one of our last activities before Jan and John left, we hiked to Manoa Falls and enjoyed the birds, flowers and waterfall. As someone who usually hikes this pretty fast to get to the endpoint, it was so good to hike with Jan and John. Since they had never hiked it before, they took the time and kept their eyes open for exotic flowers, plants, etc., which made me slow down as well!

Pretty purple flowers on the vines.

Love this photo.

Jan and John in the tree arch.

Kauai: Trip 2 – Day 2

Posted on September 17, 2013 by sandersnm

On Sunday, Josh and I got up super early to hike to Hanakapi’ai Falls. The hike is about eight miles round trip and we wanted to have enough time to come back and shower before we checked out. We were both really excited to be back on the Kalalau trail for the first time since our “first date”. We had MUCH better weather this time…no rain at all! The first two miles of the trail, we had already hiked when we hiked to Kalalau beach last year. The views of the Na Pali coast are stunning even a half mile in.

The start of the trail..the first half mile is all uphill on these boulders.

View of Ke’e beach (where we began the hike).

Beautiful morning.

The first glimpse of the Na Pali coast. Never gets old.

This was a much steeper drop off than it seems in the picture!

Hanakapi’ai Beach. This beach didn’t exist when we hiked last time.

We made it to Hanakapi’ai Beach in about an hour. It was amazing to see the beach as it was completely covered by the ocean in the winter when we hiked last year. It was practically empty when we got there.

We took a picture of this sign on the way back from our hike last time. It marks the number of people who have lost their lives at the beach.

Last time we crossed this river we had a rope tied around our waists holding us together. We also had water up to our chests and there was nothing but rushing river water and open ocean. Terrifying.

So calm.

Looking at the river on the day we hiked, you would think these signs weren’t necessary!

Hanakapi’ai Beach.

After we crossed the river, we veered to the left instead of the right to hike to Hanakapi’ai Falls. The hike itself wasn’t too bad…we crossed the river about three more times on our way to the falls and it took us about an hour and a half to get there. The waterfall itself was absolutely amazing. The most beautiful waterfall we have hiked to yet (and we’ve hiked to A LOT). It was HUGE! Definitely worth waking up early for! We spent about 15 minutes at the falls and then started on our way back. Most people hike there to swim and enjoy the pool, but we didn’t have time to stay that long. Maybe next time!

An old wall at the beginning of the trail.

The valley we were about to hike in.

Giant frogs everywhere!

HUGE bamboo. Tons of different groves of it.

More warning signs.

The first glimpse of the falls.

Amazing.

There was one other person there. He is standing closer to the falls. I took a picture with him in it to show how large the waterfall is.

We found a cat on the trail back. So sweet!

After we finished our hike, we headed back to the hotel to quickly shower and change. We were both starving, so we visited Kauai pasta. It was so delicious, but we were so hungry I completely forgot to take pictures of our amazing food! After stuffing ourselves, we headed north again to visit the Kilauea lighthouse. We visited this last year, but it was under renovation. I wanted to go back and see it now that all the renovations were completed. Surrounding the lighthouse is a bird sanctuary. It’s absolutely stunning with water on all three sides of the lighthouse and beautiful birds flying all around!