Nimitz Beach Cottage

View from the the lanai

Every year on the first day of public school the girls and I celebrate our freedom as homeschoolers by doing something that's just fun and out of the ordinary. This year that first day of public school coincided with the end of a really busy couple of months for Daddy at work, and we decided to go big! We rented a cottage on a private beach for four nights, and we had a fantastic time. It was just the right mix of adventure and relaxation that we needed. That photo above might be my favorite Kodak moment of the week: after several hours of playing hard, then grabbing lunch, the girls decided to get big glasses of juice and just sit and chat and chill on the beach for awhile.

Of course, it wouldn't feel like a real vacation without daily ice cream treats, dinner and movie nights, and time to read books and play games!

We also had a few fun wildlife sightings: a mongoose, feral chickens, a brown booby (a diving seabird), and a sea turtle.

We had hoped to get the girls into a surfing class, but they were all booked for the week (with hurricane influenced waves coming in that might have been for the best!). Daddy was able to rent a board every day we were there and got in some practice, while the girls mastered their boogie boarding skills closer to the shore. Monkey decided she still preferred body surfing, but Bug and Lion caught some really good rides! All three girls are now utterly fearless in the water, and looking forward to catching surfing lessons some other time.

So sandy! Thank goodness for an outdoor shower!

No beach trip is complete without burying someone in the sand.

We even found a pretty shell!
(While the beaches are gorgeous, finding seashells in HI is rare.)

Bug and I spent some quality time reading our books in lounge chairs
on the lanai during the worst heat of the day. 

In case you didn't know, the island is littered with WWII-era
pillboxes (coastal guard stations). Many of them now serve as
a concrete canvases for local art/graffiti. We found two on
Nimitz Beach that the girls had fun exploring.