Sand Dollar Beach Day!

  I was adventurous! Well, I was adventurous, for me.  I have a slightly neurotic fear of finding parking, and will refuse to go exploring based solely on the anxiety caused by not knowing where I can park.  So this was huge for me.  I wanted to go to Sand Dollar Beach-  A place that my GPS does not recognize and I only knew of a general area for.  But Marian, Callie and Rylee were ready to try something new, so we did.  I was quite pleased with myself.

Sand Dollar Beach is a few miles before Sea Glass Beach.  So I set the GPS to Sea Glass Beach, and once we were a few kilometers away, I turned towards the ocean and took the narrow coastal road until I found a place with beach access, that also had a place to pull off and park.  It ended up being so much easier than my anxiety-riddled concerns told me it would be.

We parked right next to this little memorial.  It was all in Japanese, so I have no idea what it was, but it was cool.

The girls were all about exploring the beach and checking out all the cool nooks and crannies.   

And they had a blast posing for pictures.  All kinds of pictures and poses. 

We did make it down to the beach and there were millions of sand dollars.  Mostly they were just mucky brown circles in the mud, but once you knew what to look for they were everywhere!

But mostly broken.

Is this not a beautiful beach?!  It was gorgeous!   

I kind of like these kids.  A lot. 

 They went wading and let me tell you, the felt bottom boots are the best thing ever invented! I am so glad we invested in them.  They are amazing.  Just in case you were wondering.

More pictures and posing by my little darlings.

 I love that they like each other enough to have fun doing this.

They are silly little goobers and I adore them. 

 Ah, this was so you could see what the sand dollars looked like in the water.  Can you see the whitish blob in the middle?  That's a sand dollar.  Most were orange or brown from sitting in th emuck.  Most were old and gross.

Yeah, they had to climb up EVERYTHING!  They had a very good time. 

Rylee's Pretty pose for me. 

Marian had to be different!

And Callie needed a picture as well. 

I thought we were done and heading home, but nope.  They found this culvert and had to explore and play some more.

This is the haul we brought home.  This doesn't count the ones we left behind.  Not too shabby.  Now I need to check Pintrest for ideas on what to do with them!

Random Stuff

The girls were playing outside and Levi was feeling neglected, so he stole a Barbie doll and ran off with it and made them chase him. He had a delightful time playing keep away.

 The girls are slightly obsessed with balloons.  They like to fill them with water and sometimes they throw them at each other.

Sometimes the balloons with faces get names and get to play games.  It is weird and vastly amusing. 

I went to eat somewhere new with my friend Julie.  There are millions of tiny, random, hole-in-the-wall places to eat and this was one of those.  I had this amazingly delicious steak with mashed potatoes and bleu cheese and peppercorns and balsamic.  Not what I normally would choose, but I'm glad I did.

Marian's ends were getting a little scraggly so I told her it was time for a trim.  This is how long her hair was.  Don't worry.  It still looks just about the same! 

 I don't know why this is sideways.  It is some awesome fabric I saw at a new fabric store I went to with my friend Amy.  It was cute, but weird fabric. 

And this was one of the panels.  Bizarre, isn't it?!

Elementary School STEM Night

 I know, I titled it the Elementary School's STEM Night.  And it was.  But they had invited High Schoolers to participate, and Joshua had volunteered to assist.  He and his friend Lizzie did a presentation on Dry Ice.

There may have been some shenanigans between audiences......

Delaney's class made slime.  I was not a fan, but the kids loved it.  A lot. 

 Rylee enjoyed this booth that had used straws to make whistles.

And the outdoors bubble area was quite popular. 

Delaney had a marvelous time and I was quite impressed with this bubble she managed to create. 

 It got bigger and bigger and bigger.... and then it popped.

Girls Camp

 Girls Camp was held over Spring Break.  I think it was a great idea, because they were camping and the weather is not so brutal in April.  They pitched their tents at Torii Beach and had a great time.  Marian went out on Wednesday since she is a 4th year this year.  Callie went out Thursday morning.  And they came home on Saturday.  They were sad that it was a short camp, but I was really grateful they had such a wonderful experience and enjoyed it so much.

The Aquarium

Rylee really really really wanted to go to the Aquarium.  Everyone else but her (and me) had been, and everyone talks about it.  It is suppose to be the biggest or something.  But it is kind of a big deal and I had promised Rylee that we would be sure to do it.  I waited till Friday of Spring Break because it was suppose to rain and I figured it would be a good time to do the Aquarium.

It was an hour and 20 minute drive.  820 (I think) yen each way on the Expressway. You drive to the very end of the Expressway and then take surface roads the next 45 minutes. The drive was pretty because it took us all around the perimeter of the island and we had gorgeous ocean views.  But it sure felt like a long drive.

On our adventure!

The ocean is so pretty!  It really was amazing to drive right down the coast.

Even more amazing to have random pull out places to stop and wander down to the water.  This was as close as we could get, but it was close enough for waves to wash over and get our feet wet if we weren't careful.

My "I was there" selfie. 

These were the super-fun nets at the Aquarium. Delaney is in the red and Rylee in the blue.

They took off and had a blast running all over these nets. It was a fairly extensive area to play and they enjoyed it.

Delaney dashed all over and had a great time. 

They played till it started to rain and the nets were shut down and closed off. 

This giant aquarium that it is famous for with the giant tiger sharks.  I admit that it was impressive.

Learning cool facts about sharks.

Rylee doesn't want to be left out.

My silly pickles hamming it up.

And posing by the whale tail.  They were not impressed with the Aquarium, but I am glad we went.

White Beach, keeping it real

On Thursday, the Marian and Callie were off at Girls Camp, and I was down to just two girls to entertain. I felt that this required an adventure and had a few ideas in mind.  However..... we got the must-have felt-bottom booties that are suppose to be better than the regular cheap water shoes.  They are suppose to protect the coral and your feet a lot better.  So we obtained these marvels and Delaney was insistent that we needed to go somewhere that we could utilize these.  She really wanted to go to White Beach, because it had these fabulous rock island formations that you could walk out to during low tide.  (White beach is 45 minutes to an hour away depending on if traffic is merely bad or horrendous.  Lots of surface streets and lights.)

I timed it to arrive there about 2 hours before low tide and Rylee and Delaney were excited.  Unfortunately, they walk across the sand, and then sat down to put their (sandy) feet into their boots.  Which meant a painful sandy-footed walk through the water to the island.  Delaney complained. And complained some more.  Then there was water sloshing in her boots and she was mad. It was a 15 minute trek through the water to the rocky island and she whined for the entire time.   As soon as we got to some land Delaney shucked the boots and threw them down.  Since she was walking on sharp coral, I was a little concerned that things would get worse.  The Lord does love His children, because she managed to stalk carefully around without cutting up the bottoms of her feet, complaining all the way.

Complaining is bad enough.  But when you offer suggestions and are met each time with shouted reasons why that is a terrible idea, it gets really old really fast.  I may or may not have finally shouted at her to sit down and rinse her feet and boots in the big tide pool sandpit them back on.  She did so and things quieted down.  She still was not going to be happy and was not going to have a good time. But Rylee and I enjoyed roaming the islands and looking at things and shell hunting.  We saw long-armed starfish and hermit crabs and fast little fish.We collected pretty shells and had a good time.

We walked back to the beach and Dlenaey removed the offensive boots in favor of her flip flops and promptly lost one in the shifting (rocky) sand in the ocean.  She was furious and utterly refused to leave with only one shoe.  We looked and looked.  Finally I suggested maybe we should say a prayer. So we sat down and said a prayer that we cold find her missing flop flop.  Delaney sulked.

I walked to the place she lost it and started walking down in the water, sliding my feet in the loose gravely sand.  2 minutes later, the errant shoe popped up.   Delaney was slightly appeased.  We changed clothes and headed home, with a stop at Lawson't for drinks and yummy corn dogs.  Delaney may not have had fun, but I sure enjoyed the day!

I did not want to carry my phone across the water, so I have no pictures of the island adventure part, so I'm a little sad about that, because it really was great.  I need to get one of those waterproof phone envelopes!

The water was a bit chilly to start and it went from 2 inches to 2 feet pretty quickly right there.  Rylee and Delaney are adjusting to the water here.  And you can see the island cluster we were heading for behind them. 

Not a very good close up.  Sometimes I miss having a good camera, but the phone is SO handy for everything, I never use the old camera anymore.

It was even prettier than the picture.  The girls are in their way out and yelling at me to put down the camera and join them. 

But first.... a selfie!! 

Back on the beach after our hike over and around the rock islands. 

Rylee is photobombing Delaney, who is about to melt down because she lost her sandal in the water.  

 A picture with Rylee.

Absolutely grumpy about losing her shoe, and shouting that she is not leaving it behind. 

 Rylee was happy to chill in the water.

Delaney was still mad about the shoe situation, even though she had it back at this point.  I thinks she is now mad that she has no reason to be mad.