Twin Falls and Nick's

Early morning beach and breakfast buffet.

A windy, rainy day was in the forecast, which didn't bode well for our planned beach and pool day,

so we hiked to Twin Falls instead. 

We tried to drive to Jaws Beach to see the 30 foot waves, but a woman in a Razor told us we should turn around because our Suburban wouldn't make it. 

We were kind of bugged by the know-it-all tone she took, especially since we were in 4-wheel-drive,

and sure enough, at the top of the road we discovered she was charging money to drive people down.

...Or maybe she was doing it out of the goodness of her heart.

It was pouring rain and we didn't want to walk down the path, nor did we want to pay her to drive us, 

so we skipped Jaws and continued to Twin Falls.

We lucked out because although it was pouring when we got out of the car, 

it stopped soon after for most of our hike, only beginning again when we were 

almost back to the car.

We skipped the first falls and went directly to

the second falls where you can play in the water and swim behind the waterfall.

And when I say you can swim behind, some of us chose to stay dry.

Emi is a very good excuse that not all of us can swim at the same time.

But she was not happy to be left behind!

There was a steep, bouldering climb to find the path for the next falls

and I'd originally planned to walk with Emi back to the main trail and let her walk in the grass.

But when everyone left, she was very upset!

Marty carried her up the rocks and made it look so easy it was like watching a mountain goat!

(This is the steep hill on the way back!)

We had a little bit of wandering to find the right path, but after one turnaround, we found it.

The third falls had a big tour group picnicking, so we kept walking to

the fourth falls, which is really better anyway becasue you can go cliff jumping

We stopped at the food trucks for a late lunch, and really had to hurry because we had dinner reservations in a couple of hours. (We ate soo much on this trip!)

Annual Nick's Fish House night and sunset photo.

I took Emi on a walk while we waited for food and when she saw the horse statues,

she pointed and said, "Moo!" She enjoyed "petting" the statues, but was nervous to sit on them.

We named them Ned and Mabel.

She also loved the big Koi fish in the pond.

When we first started this Hawaii trip 10 years ago, I'd try to get the kids to go to bed because it was soooo late Utah time. But they wanted to stay up and watch movies--Thor, Unfortunate Events. Or we'd stay up and play card or dice games. Well now with our New Yorkers and also couple with a baby,

everyone was happy to go to bed early--as soon as we got back from dinner.

Even Nick and Chris would start a movie, but quit half-way through to go to bed.

We're growing up.