As the GoPro became more popular I became more of a skeptic. But because travel is such a big part of our lives (and after becoming envious of others' GoPro pictures) we caved and became owners of the popular camera. There is no doubt that I am in love with every aspect of the camera. The fact that the actual size of the camera is so small and portable makes it a very durable and easy to bring camera to bring anywhere, whether it's on a big trip or just to the beach, it's ready to go. The case we have for the camera is waterproof (saltwater included), protective from sand, and very protective from drops, falls, and kicks-which is very important with how clumsy I am. We also have the selfie stick so we can capture killer photos- I never thought we'd be the selfie stick couple, but I now embrace it. Laugh at us and our selfie poll all you want we have awesome pictures, haha!
Our Kauai weekend getaway two weeks ago was so wonderful. Right after work Friday we were picked up and headed to the airport on the first flight to the Garden Isle. A shuttle dropped us off from the airport to our hotel, the Marriott Kauai Resort, which was about a five minute ride. Our first impression of the hotel was jaw dropping. You are taken to a steep escalator that allows you to look up to the huge cathedral ceilings with artwork all around as you make your descent down. The lobby is located downstairs and sits next to an enormous Koi pond and beautiful garden with wild growing fruits, flowers and beautiful plants. During our stay we enjoyed this garden so much because regardless of how many people were on property or around the pool, we always were by ourselves in this garden. Each night we played uno, drank a glass of wine and just talked privately. To get an idea of how large this area was it took us about ten minutes to walk the outside of the entire area. The garden space was a large square which four atriums with beautiful art, statues, and sitting areas. Our first night there we were in awe of how enormous the artwork was! The entire property was so quiet-it wasn't hard at all to find a private place to relax or to hear the waves and they hit shore. The Kauai Marriott also boosts the title the biggest pool in all of Hawaii. The pool itself was amazing and also homed FIVE swim up hot tubs- a dream come true. We both agreed that this was the largest resort/hotel either of us ever visited. The hotel's beach is privately located between two mountains providing a beautiful view from ocean side resting.
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Birds of Paradise!
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| "busy highway" |
Our first meal on the island was at Duke's. The same restaurant is on Oahu but we had never been, so it was great to try something new. About midway during our meal as the live musician was playing Bob Marley in the background, we had a kitten visitor visit our table. It was an awesome setting with the live music and drinks all while being steps away from the water. We enjoyed a few tropical drinks including; tropical itch, rum punch, and my favorite, the lava flow (lava flow and strawberry). Seeing the hotel at night all lite up and beautiful was so neat. We strolled around for a few hours until finally crashing sound asleep in our room.
Every day at 9:00am right outside the lobby they fed the Koi. It doesn't sound very exciting-but it sure is. When the first handful of food is throw in the water the hundreds of Koi splash, jump and all race to be the first to eat. Mark loves Koi so he especially enjoyed seeing them every day. We fed the fish both mornings we were at the resort-fun! There were a ton of different species of plants, tons and tons of huge colorful Koi, beautiful birds, and even a few nene- which is the state bird of Hawaii! Saturday we spent most of the day swimming/lounging by the pool. The pool was even bigger than it looked online, so we really enjoyed being able to swim without running into a bunch of people. I especially loved being waited on at the pool- since I have to take care of tourists every day- it felt even better being on the other end! We both indulged in a few Mai Tais- and my favorite; the chunky monkey. Banana+chocolate+run+coconut= heaven! We opted to not rent a car because our sole purpose was to stay at the resort and relax-something we both have a hard time doing when we are somewhere new! Around the resort there are two little malls with some restaurants, shopping and Hawaiian gifts. We didn't do a ton of shopping but it was fun to window shop. We spent the rest of the evening playing some card games and later that night we went to our fancy dinner and watched the sunset. It was a perfect relaxing Kauai evening.
We left Kauai Sunday evening so we had the whole day to hang out and do some more resting. It was an awesome vacation-and really our only "relaxing vacation" just the two of us since our honeymoon. As we left the resort we had the same shuttle driver we had from Friday evening. He was such an awesome guy born and raised on Kauai. He gave us plenty of marriage advice coming from his 40+ years married to his wife. We really found him helpful and loved that he even asked us advice from our nine years together with one another. It was a rejuvenating weekend individually for us, but also for our marriage. We left feeling even closer than when we arrived. We're trying to plan a trip back in July to really see everything we missed. In our next blog we'll talk about our experience at the lantern floating festival we took part in on Memorial day.
XOXO,
Jen & Mark
