Kauai - Day Two

After a tiring day of travel, we were looking forward to trying to be on vacation and not stress out too much about Sark at home.  Unfortunately, we were awoken at 5am our time to an update from our vet about Sark that morning.  Still, we were more rested than we had been in 2 days.

We decided we were due for a day at the pool and little else.  We started out by trying the hammock at the pool.  Xander was brave to try it out because Mama always feels like she's gonna fall out of those things.

Dada felt like resting too, so Xander got some Dada love time before everyone went swimming.

One last kiss before swim time!

Our travel day had been so crazy and Xander was so out of it that he slept from the afternoon the day before through the morning, about a 14 hour sleep, so this is why his hair looked so crazy... he needed a bath but we figured he should swim first.

After some fun in the sun, we headed to Dukes for lunch.  This restaurant was close by and a sister restaurant to some others we've liked on other Hawaiian islands before.  This would not be our only visit to Dukes this trip either :)  This time around we tried the cajun mahi mahi sandwich and fish tacos. We also tried the vegetable dip with flatbread because we were pretty dang hungry to start out.  Xander really enjoyed the vegetable dip, so we were thrilled!

Later, we walked to the beach (right across from the restaurant) before heading back to the room for Xander's nap.

As we walked, we started to get closer and closer to the water... the ocean!  This was Xander's first time in Hawaii and first time at the ocean too!  We captured the moment his feet first got touched by the ocean wave, but the look on his face was priceless and not caught in the photo.  You can almost see Mama's face through her hair in the photo and she was mirroring Xander's expression at the time.  He was just so shocked that the water came up to touch his feet and ankles, but not scared, it was so cute!

After we finished our walk, we headed back to the room.  Xander took a nice long nap and we wound up going to a late dinner at Gaylords, a plantation restaurant nearby.  We started by sharing a bloody mary - on paper it sounded great, and the bartender really talked it up like she knew what she was doing, so we expected a lot... and it was the biggest let down of the meal, for sure.  Drinks are not their specialty.  We then tried their Island Caprese - vine ripe tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, avocado, mango, basil, and vanilla bean infused balsamic syrup.  Our server said it was his favorite, and it was pretty good!  We wouldn't let them take the plate when we were finished because the leftover syrup was so good we wanted to soak it all up with bread during the rest of the meal.

We shared two entrees - the sesame seared ono and olive oil poached shutome.  The ono came with steamed rice, lomi lomi tomatoes, tempura avocado and hot chinese mustard butter.  Pretty sure that was our favorite dish of the night.  The tempura avocado was pretty awesome.  The shutome came with a lemon herb risotto and some other stuff that wasn't so good... we decided they should sell the risotto as an entree or side dish because it was SO good!

Day two of our trip - our first official day to relax - was a day well spent!  Best part of the day?  Xander in the ocean, all "two feet" :)