Hurricane Lane
We were very fortunate: While Lane dumped record-breaking
rainfall on the Big Island, it completely fizzled out before it reached us! We did all the prepping we could, then just waited through several dreary, drizzly, windy days. I was especially relieved because Daddy went out of town right before it was predicted to hit us. The girls were a little disappointed--we didn't even get a solid downpour, and Bug had been curious to see what hurricane force winds looked like.

Since it was too yucky to play outside and everything was closed down, we decided to treat them like snow days. Which in our house means baked goods and extra movie watching! Bug decided to take on the baking. We had some delicious chocolate chip oatmeal cookie bars with minimal parental involvement!

"I Love Schnitting!"
Lion has been longing for a crafting hobby, but nothing the rest of the family practices particularly interested her. About a week ago I found her meticulously cutting pieces of paper into teeny tiny bits. For some reason she found this highly satisfying. It reminded me of a German papercraft I'd seen at a festival once. A little Googling and YouTubing and Lion decided she'd found her new hobby! Scherenschnitte! I gave her a spare pair of embroidery scissors, since the her kid scissors didn't handle the intricate maneuvering very well. Since then, she's made a blizzards worth of snowflakes, a few hearts, a castle and princesses, and several landscapes. She's also requested "one of those pencil knives" (X-acto knife), so she can more easily cut the inside shapes.

The girls also dubbed the waste "schnotte," resulting in much hilarity.

Ooooo! Dead Things!
Our homeschooling neighbor, Miss S, was recently inspired to order half a dozen owl pellets for our kids to dissect. (We then got quite excited about all the very reasonably priced dead things we could order to dissect, which our other neighbor found hilarious.) It was a great project. The pellets even came with bone charts, so we could figure out what exactly these owls had eaten--several shrews, mice, and a mole. Bug was definitely our most enthusiastic dissecter and brought home a baggie with several skulls and a leg bone or two.

We're staying busy! Here's more of the fun we've been up to:

Bug made a new friend! She'd been trying for several days to pet
this neighborhood cat, and she finally succeeded. We don't know its
name, so she's been calling it Shiro (after the paladin of the black
cat in Voltron).

Monkey and Bug got a slack line for their birthday!
Daddy set it up between a couple of trees next to our house,
and the girls did great--Monkey and Bug can each
take half a dozen steps before falling off!

Lion tried too, but her knee had been bothering her after the hike,
so she didn't keep it up for long.

More new foods! But not fruits this time--breads! Mmmmm...
We found guava sweet bread (above) at the grocery store,
but the malasadas (the Portuguese donuts pictured below)
we got fresh out the food truck's fryer!

All the neighborhood kids have been very excited about
this project--a cardboard box pulley for getting things up the tree.
What they have not figured out is what sort of things they actually
need in the tree!

Pu'u Pia Trail
We did another hike this past weekend! This was a short (2.4 miles round trip) and less well-known hike up through a jungly forest to a summit with views of nearby mountains, Waikiki, and the ocean. This was also our first hike in the rain here in Hawaii. It started raining as we were driving to the trailhead, but we didn't let it stop us! In fact, I think it added to the fun. Bug commented that our surroundings were "like a fairyland based on mud!" From there the girls spent a lot of the hike discussing this whole fantasy world populated by Mudkins, who live near the "mudderfalls" that run down the trail and have tiny leaf boats. So much fun!

So many tree roots!

Bug was very excited to see the crab claw flowers she'd read abut in her field guide!

Look at the lovely mudderfall!

Everyone's least favorite part of the trail:
Pretty as they are uluhe ferns are not fun to walk through!

We found a forest of walking sticks!
(I did not succeed in figuring out what they were actually called.)

We made it to the summit!

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.

We've had so many adventures to post about! Here's my attempt at catching up on what we've been up to.

Everybody loves a morning spent at the bouldering gym!

Running an errand downtown led to eating lunch at Ala Moana Mall,
which also means watching a few minutes of a free hula show (above)
and spending time on an awesome climbing structure (below).

Oh no! The pool is closed!
(Word on the street is somebody had a nose bleed the day before.)
Our pool playdate didn't go as planned, but the kids still had fun
in the sprinklers and on the playground while the moms chatted.

This time our weekly free concert happened at an oceanfront park,
and we got a couple other neighborhood families to join us.

Monkey's favorite part of the oceanfront concert was
walking (and dancing) on the seawall.

One of their favorite indoor activities lately has been making modeling
clay creations. Here Lion and Monkey show off their flower teacups.
(My phone now has dozens of photos of tiny clay things,
but this is the only one with cute grinning faces to go with them!)

We're actually finding time to do academic lessons too! (Those just aren't as exciting to write about/take photos of.) Some of the highlights: Bug is beginning 5th grade math, Monkey is plugging along finishing up 4th grade math, and Lion is taking some time to focus on memorizing math facts including multiplication and division before diving into the rest of the 3rd grade skills. Lion has just begun 3rd grade grammar and the writing lessons book that Monkey and Bug are about three-quarters of the way through (it's appropriate for 3rd-5th graders). We're about halfway through both our Ancient History Story of the World book (we just read about the early Greeks), and our Story of Science book (we're finishing up the section on the history of chemistry). Everybody loves to read! We're currently taking turns reading aloud the Series of Unfortunate Events (a trio of siblings who have each others backs through the worst of circumstances plus some great vocabulary--yes, please!). The girls each read a ton independently too. Bug and Lion are currently blazing their way through a couple of historical fiction series. Bug is reading the Dear America books, and Lion is making her way through the Magic Treehouse novels and reference books. Monkey on the other hand prefers to immerse herself in a magical world and is reading brick-sized fantasy books--currently the Bliss Bakery Trilogy.

Life is good!

Enjoying the HI life poolside!

Spontaneous Pool Date
I love that we're in a stage of life and a geographic location, where a friend can text "Hey, wanna go to the pool?" and 20 minutes later there we are!

Everybody loves jumping in, diving for rings, and experimenting with the many floaty things we end up with: kick boards, noodles, boogie boards, and floaty disks.

Diamond Head Hike
We completed Honolulu's iconic hike this weekend! It's short (1.6 miles round trip) and has gorgeous views, but involves a lot of steps. Totally worth it--especially when you celebrate the accomplishment with fresh pineapple smoothies at the bottom.

This is the way up
(but it's not actually all steps).

This is the view of Diamond Head Crater

From the other side of the Head you can see downtown Honolulu.

They were very excited about drinking smoothie out of a real pineapple!

Beach Day!
We decided to join some friends for another morning at Kailua Beach. An early morning start means we get to beat the crowds, spend a few hours, and still make it home for lunch. On this trip our friend J got mildly stung by a jellyfish, so they spent a little more time in the sand than they did last time. But they all got back in the water again at least once before we left.

Foster Botanical Garden

We've been going to this garden every Thursday evening this summer for free concerts, but this week I actually took some pictures! The girls showed me some of their favorite plants (I'm usually busy chatting with the grown ups, while the kiddos explore.) Daddy had to work late and couldn't come, but we had a great crowd of neighborhood and church friends to sit with and share food (almost 30 people--mostly kids!). The music was a local couple who plays bluegrass. Bug and Auntie L were both excited about the fiddle player.

Yes, that sign says "Watch out for falling
cannonballs." Take it seriously.

That sign is under this huge tree. If you look closely you
can see the cannonball-sized seeds hanging in it.

"Look, Mom! I could use it like an umbrella!"

Check out this tree's roots!

Bug Did It!
Bug accomplished some big things this week! She's officially done with fourth grade math (ironically enough, going to school in the fall slowed down her academic progress). She also finally finished the scarf she's been knitting! She's excited to have the lovely completed project, and only a little disappointed that she won't have the opportunity to wear it for at least a few years.

Library Fun
The girls finished the summer reading program weeks ago, and finally got to collect their final prizes--kites! It's almost always breezy here, so they've had fun getting their kites airborne in the green spaces near our house (no photo yet, I'll snap one eventually). In the photo below they're wearing their first level prize shirts, so they could get grab bag prizes (a bracelet, collapsible binoculars, and a puzzle box). That day the library was also getting patrons to paint rocks--one each for the library's new rock garden and one each to take home to hide in the neighborhood. They loved painting, hiding, and finding rocks in VA, so they're pretty excited that it's a thing here too!

Splash Pad with FriendsThe girls are a little old for this splash pad, but we went with a couple other families one morning and had a blast!

If you can't find Monkey, look up!
The abundance of climbable trees might be
her favorite thing about Hawaii.

Bug and Lion are waiting patiently for snacks
with our friends L and Baby P.