where trouble melts like lemon drops...

sisters

Oh how I love watching these two grow up together. There is no end to the imagining and dressing up and pretending and giggling that goes on when they are together (which is of course all the time.)  Their friendship is deep and true and beautiful.

-adorable zinnia print dresses by YiaYia!

one colorful day

When Shawn has a day off, we all have a day off. This is why we home school them! we remind ourselves. And off we go, wherever we want to, leaving the school books behind.

Monday it was the Dole Plantation. We went all out tourist mode buying tickets for the train, the maze, the garden tour, and splurging on a theme-park-priced lunch of kalua pork.  

We rode the open-air Pineapple Express through a cool mist rain shower and pineapple fields.  There were also things like bananas, sugar cane, star fruit,  papaya, mangoes, and coffee. Coffee.

Also the Mindanao Trees. I have no words. Let's all just stare at this wonder for a moment shall we?

The highlight for the kids was the World's Largest Maze. I'm not even kidding. Running through that maze in the blazing sun and getting hot and lost and turned in circles was their Favorite Thing. Donovan fell asleep in his stroller and Kate successfully hunted giant snail shells while the two bigs felt they'd won the day for getting all their maze stamps. Win, win, win, win.

Full Disclosure: I was pretty much done with the maze about ten minutes in but I sure got a kick out of watching them. After that we were all happy to cool off over Dole whips. It's just pineapple ice cream or frozen yogurt or something but it's called a whip so it tastes better.

These new little pineapples were really red. I don't know why. I guess they all are at first? And pineapple plants are super spiky so the job of harvesting these babies cannot be fun.

So after all that touristing we took a drive chasing rainbows in big blue skies for the rest of the day. We stopped here and there to dig our toes in the sand and watch the swelling North Shore waves. We literally drove to the end of the road and then turned around and went home. Happy.

wave watching

(and maybe some people watching too.)

at day's end

Dinner's aftermath is left on the table because we want to catch our golden window. Dishes can wait.

The kids jump on scooters and lead the way to the shore. They are wild and free and hard to keep up with.

A few minutes later we are clambering over rocks to say hello to the ocean.

Hello, Ocean.

Sea turtles play where the waves break while the kids play in tide pools teaming with bitty crabs. They fill buckets and fight over the one red scooper and exclaim over this one and that.

The sun moves lower... lower... coloring the sky with brilliance.

Hello, Sky.

We watch and listen and watch some more and there are no words.

Our hearts are filled with every crashing wave and every changing cloud.

The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalm 19:1

Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves in them. Psalm 69:34

Yes. We will praise him.