Finally, it's vacation time!

I've been looking forward to this vacation since before we actually booked it! So glad to be on vacation. I can feel the stress melting away :)

When we got into Kauai, it was starting to get dark here so we didn't take many pictures because we couldn't see anything. Ryan and I did attempt to take some pictures of ourselves as we waited for the rental car shuttle.

Here's my attempt...

(Ryan is telling me 'move it more your way.')

Here is Ryan's attempt...

After this, we stopped - ha!

We are staying at The Cliffs resort in Princeville. We rented a condo here through homeaway.com. I'd recommend homeaway.com to anyone who is traveling. You can find places to stay that are very affordable. Our condo is nice, and it's better than staying in a one-room hotel room. We have one bedroom, a living room, dining room, kitchen, two bathrooms and two balconies. I'll eventually post on our digs here.

Since it was dark for the entire drive to the resort, yesterday morning when we woke up, it was truly like waking up in paradise. Ahhh, so relaxing. Here are some views from our back balcony as the sun was coming up.

It is so gorgeous here. The whole island is like one big garden!

Part of the reason why Ryan and I like renting places off of homeaway.com is because most of the places have kitchens. Although we are on are vacation and I'm not wanting to cook at the time, let's be realistic, it's super expensive to eat out three meals a day and then times that by 7 days....yikes! We spent yesterday morning running errands (aka trying to find our way around this island and buying groceries.)

The view of the ocean from the resort.

Topical view as we are leaving the resort.

While we were out and about, we stopped at a little whole-in-the-wall for breakfast/lunch.

The Tip Top Motel and Bakery.

They were apparently in the middle of repairing/painting the wall behind Ryan.

Even though it was a little whole-in-the-wall, it was a really busy place and we ended up having to wait for a table. The food was also really good! {I think it helped that we were both starving hungry!}

After we got back from getting groceries, I was tired and ready for a nap but Ryan and I were ready to hit the beach :) We decided to go to the beach closest to our resort but not before slathering up in SPF 50 {otherwise I'd fry to a crisp}!

Beautiful drive to the beach.

Almost to the beach.

Wyllie beach was the first beach we stopped at. This was a small little beach but it was nice because there weren't a lot of people there. We laid our towels out. I stared at the ocean, enjoyed the warmth of the sunshine, listened to Ryan snore (hehehe) and then I fell asleep. I could sleep on the beach everyday.

After I woke up from a nap, there were a lot more people on the beach and Ryan and I decided to head to another beach. 'Anini Beach is essentially the same beach as Wyllie but they are seperated by a fresh water stream {which was rather cold by the way}. There was a lot more activity on 'Anini Beach but the beach was beautiful none-the-less.

Wind surfer

We went to the none busy part of the beach.

Kilauea Lighthouse

This Stop Sign has seen better days.

 After the beach, we went back to our condo, freshened up a bit, read a little about the island to decide what we wanted to do the next day and then decided to go out to dinner. It looked like it might rain but never ended up raining. The sun coming through the clouds was gorgeous!

We stopped in Hanalei for dinner. Here is the view we got to enjoy during dinner!

Ryan and I ordered some fruity drinks for dinner. It ended up being a bust! They were not good at all! Ha - oh well. There is always next time.

Ryan and I are looking forward to more beach time today! Will post again soon :)

Ashley