June 8-15 we celebrated our first everyone together family vacation since Ty left on his mission in January 2002. We planned right then that we would return to Hawaii after Robbie returned from his mission. That happened in November and June was the day we were all out of school and could get away. I found a home online to rent and very early Monday the 8th we drove to Salt Lake City International for our 7 am flight. We arrived in Lihue, Kauai just after 2 pm, bought groceries and headed to Princeville and our week long vacation. It was everything I had hoped it would be and more! Kauai is gorgeous and Princeville was a perfect landing spot. Our home was large and beautifully furnished both inside as well as the garage. The garage was stocked with 4 full size bikes for exploring the neighborhood, 4 boogie boards to share for wave riding, 3 surf boards for the high adventure guys, 7 beach chairs for the relaxing on the beach types, 8 snorkel sets to see the underwater world and several sand mats. It even had a resident gecko which happily stayed in the garage. I later learned that his job is to eat the bugs. We crammed more activity into 7 days than I could have imagined possible. We snorkeled, scuba dived, boogie boarded, jumped off rocks, saw waterfalls, went to church, hiked and spent lots and lots of time exploring the island and relaxing at home and at the beach. My job was to photograph the high adventure activities and keep everyone fed. I had forgotten how much my family can eat when they are all together! Especially when they are running around having fun and burning calories! We all slept really well in the tropical, sea level climate. I think we were just exhausted when we finally stopped for the night. It was a great trip! I really enjoyed being together will all the boys and Amanda as well as Grandma Abrams and Leland. Everyone was so easy to be around and explore with. I don't know when we'll be able to accomplish somehting like this again so I'm grateful for the hundreds of pictures we took and the great memories they invoke! I've posted just a few of my favorite pictures here to give you a taste of what we did. Mahalo!!
