Jan notices that Bree likes to dance, and proposes that she try taking another dance class. (It’s been years since she last took any kind of dance class.) Bree thinks this is an interesting idea. “Yes!”, she says, jumping up and down. “That’s a good idea! Because! I have a lot! Of energy!”
Liya is accepted by the high school of her choice to join the class of 2021! She’ll be going to the same high school as Anya. We’re thrilled.
Tomorrow we’re leaving on a Christmas vacation. So that we don’t have to bring big presents with us on the plane, we do a small family gift exchange after dinner. Anya gets a guitar, and Bree gets a pair of little robots called Dash and Dot. Liya and Bree each get a whale pillow from Japan. There were already two in the house, but they love them so much, they both wanted another. Now we have enough soft, plush whales for a little pod.
Later in the evening, Lyn comes over to spend the night. She’s joining us on the trip, and we’ll all leave together for the airport tomorrow morning.
We fly to the Hawaiian island of Kauai for a family Christmas. The six Seattleites (five of us plus Lyn) will be joined by Skye, Jared, and Lief from Salem, OR, and Chris and Julie from San Francisco. We meet up with Skye, Jared, and Leif at Lihue Airport. We have to wait a very long time for our rental cars to be ready, but at least we can watch the airport’s many roosters walk around the parking lot. (Kauai has zillions of feral chickens.)
We drive up to the small town of Hanalei on the North Shore. The town’s known for its laid-back vibe — and for its frequent rain. We’ve rented a house that can fit all 11 of us, and happily it’s close to both the beach and the main strip of shops and restaurants in town.
We walk to the main strip for dinner. It starts to rain. (It rains a lot in Hanalei, and will rain on and off for our entire stay.) We have dinner at an okay place called Tropical Taco. Afterwards, we buy groceries at the Big Save market. Walking home, the brown paper bags get wet, and are falling apart just as we walk back into the house.
All those roosters we saw around town yesterday wake up very early in the morning. We’re all woken up early — maybe 4:00 am? — by endless rooster calls.
We spend the morning at the beach. It rains on and off, but happily even the rain is warm. We do some more food shopping, then stop at Hanalei Bread Company for coffee.
We attend a Christmas Eve candlelight service at the cute Waiʻoli Huiʻia Church in Hanalei. The service is completely packed, so we’re going to have to sit in an overflow area outside. At the last minute, an usher finds room for Jan and the girls — sitting behind the choir in the last row of the choir loft! The service includes Christmas carols with some verses sung in Hawaiian. Jan and Liya both like the sound of the world “malamalama” (bright, radiant) in the Hawaiian lyrics to “Silent Night”. There’s also a Christmas hula offering.
We’re woken up on Christmas morning by the strangled cries of the roosters again. We do a Secret Santa gift exchange. Although everyone’s brought a gift for someone else, there’s wide disagreement on how the actual exchange should work. It’s fun to guess who gave what to whom.
In the afternoon, we go to the beach. Jan, Angela, Anya, Liya, and Chris throw the frisbee around. For dinner, we grill veggie and meat skewers. After dinner, unfortunately, Anya comes down with a fever.
Chris, Bree, Liya, Skye, Jared, and Jan hike the Kalalau Trail to Hanakapiʻai Beach. It’s a very popular trail, known for having views of the ocean, gnarly roots and rocks, and a lot of mud. We try to set out during a forecasted sunbreak, but it nevertheless rains for first half of the hike. Bree begins to get grumpy, but then pulls herself together and enjoys the rest of the hike.
Because the trail is so challenging, it takes us 2 hours to hike just 2 miles to get close to Hanakapiʻai Beach. The trail comes to a swollen river with a number of warning signs that wading through can be dangerous. We have lunch at the river’s edge. After lunch, Chris and Jared scramble across rocks on our side of the river down to the beach. They come back and say it’s doable, so we all make our way slowly down to the beach. This involves negotiating some boulders, big puddles, and a lot of vegetation.
The sun comes out, and we hang out on the beach for a bit.
Chris leads the way back up the river to the trail.
As the rain puddles dry out, the trail becomes even slipperier. Bree slips and gets a bit muddy.
Here we’re getting close to the end, and get a view of Keʻe Beach.
We finally make it back to the trailhead, and get back to Hanalei around 3:30. We’re all happy to shower the mud off our shoes and ourselves.
Today is Skye’s birthday, so we have a little birthday celebration for her during dinner.
Jan, Chris, and Jared take a surfing lesson. Hanalei Bay is famous for being a good place for beginners to learn: the waves are small, the water’s warm and shallow, and you don’t have to paddle out too far.
We sign in at the office of Hanalei Surfing Adventures, where we wait for a bit before being loaded into the back of an old army jeep. A slightly addled old surfer dude gives us a bizarre introductory surfing lesson from behind the jeep. He spouts a blend of mysticism, surfing instruction, and lots of nonsense. We’re beginning to get concerned that this is all the instruction we’re going to get.
Happily, once we’re shuttled over to the beach, we meet our actual instructor, a tall, young surfer named Yam (“yahm”). Yam turns out to be a solid instructor, and after a bit of instruction on the beach, has us paddle out to the break.
All three of us put in a credible morning of surfing. Yam makes it fairly easy: he stands in the water, holding one of our boards at a time, waiting for the right moment, and then giving the board a push at just the right moment to catch a wave. We all manage to stand up on our first wave, and then spend the next 1½ hours paddling out, waiting, then riding back in. By the end of the session, all three of us have managed to catch a wave without assistance.
In the evening, we have dinner at Kauai Ono, a farm-to-table restaurant that runs course menus under an outdoor tent twice a week. It’s a great meal, with ample representation of Hawaiian ingredients and dishes.
Jan, Liya, Bree, Skye, and Jared visit the Limahuli Botanical Garden and Preserve, a garden trying to recreate what a working agricultural valley might have looked like in pre-contact Hawaiian times. A trail leads through farm terraces growing taro and other plants, along a river, through a forest, and back down through landscaping. There are many native plants to see, along with plants introduced by Polynesians.
A lovely orange hibiscus
Angela and Anya take a surfing lesson too. They request Yam, the same instructor the men had earlier in the week. As before, he does a good job getting them up and riding waves.
Anya enjoys her lesson.
That’s a long surfboard! The bigger the board, the more stable it is — so the surfing company starts people out on giant 12’ boards. Yam says, “This is the longest board you will ever ride.”
Angela, Yam, and Anya
While Angela and Anya are surfing, the rest of us spend time on the beach. Leif, now 2½ years old, has fun playing in the sand.
We play an enjoyable 18 holes at Kauai Mini Golf, a miniature golf course that plays through a botanical garden. There are some fun holes, like one in which you have to make your ball jump a small stream. Liya manages to get not one, but two, hole-in-ones!
In the evening, we have a final dinner all together at a restaurant called Postcards. Chris and Julie have to return home tomorrow.
In the evening, we walk down to the beach. There are groups of people up and down the beach celebrating New Year’s Eve with bonfires and fireworks. There are also some stars out, and a beautiful crescent moon below Venus. Earlier in the day, Angela had purchased some sparklers for us to light, along with a little Roman Candle sort of thing. It’s fun to set them off. After a while, though, it starts to drizzle, so we scamper back to the house.
Hawaiian girl
Jan, Angela, Anya, Skye, and Jared go paddleboarding up the river from Hanalei Bay. It’s a beautiful day — the first completely sunny day we’ve had all week. The river is calm and slow, so it’s easy going. After paddling upstream for 45 minutes, we turn back, and paddle all the way to the bay. There are green herons and egrets to see, and near the river’s mouth, Jared manages to catch sight of a sea turtle. Paddling in the tiny ocean waves is fun but harder than it looks.
The river is lined with yellow hibiscus trees dropping blossoms into the river. Anya scoops these up and amasses a large flower collection.
After we’re finished, we have lunch at a food truck, then have shave ice at a great place that makes its own syrups from local fruit.