Unlike many summers, we were actually home for Father's Day this year. We love to celebrate the wonderful dads in our lives! When we got home from church, Evelyn and Oliver revealed a message/card for Russ using a science experiment we'd done for VBS that morning (it was pretty cool using turmeric and alcohol).
Then the kids presented Russ with his gifts, a cooler backpack and a hammock chair.
Happy Father's Day to the best dad a kid could ask for!
We were planning to host a family get-together that evening and Evelyn wanted to make special peanut butter trifles for dessert. They turned out delicious!
It was a great evening spent with family.
We're so blessed to have these wonderful fathers and grandfathers in our lives! And we are blessed that they live so close we can see them anytime we want. This is such a gift and I hope my kids never take it for granted.
We thank God for these wonderful men we get to call "Dad" and "Grandpa"!
My mom invited Evie and I on a fun "Girls Day" to Fort Scott on Saturday. She'd been wanting to see a few things there, and this weekend they were also having a Lavender Patch event so it was a great time to go.
I'd never been to a lavender farm before, so this was very interesting! The owner shared some of the history of their farm and then taught us how to "harvest" the lavender using scissors.
We harvested several different varieties for our bouquet and it turned out very pretty.
We cooled off with some lavender lemonade and lavender ice cream, both were delicious!
We finished up our time at the Lavender Patch by painting some original masterpieces at their craft table.
Next we headed to the Visitors Center where we got tickets for the Trolley Tour. We learned all about the history of Fort Scott and drove by lots of their beautiful old homes.
He took us to the military cemetery. . .
. . . and showed us some of the amazing murals around town.
It was a really fun tour and we learned a lot!
Next, we let Evie choose lunch and she decided on the Nu Grille, where we had some home-cooked chicken fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and hot rolls.
After filling our bellies (OVER-filled them, actually), we learned some more at the Miliken Center for Unsung Heroes. Russ and I had visited here a few years ago on one of our post-tax day getaways, but I knew Mom and Evie would enjoy it, too.
This time we had a very knowledgeable young man give us a tour and tell us all about the history of Irena Sendler, the woman whose story inspired this entire museum.
We'd had a great day already, but still had one more important stop to make, the actual Fort!
We watched the 20-minute movie about the Fort and toured the grounds.
Thankfully, Evie didn't end up in the slammer.
On our way out of town, we had to stop at one last mural because it was just so pretty!
What a fun day spent with my mom and youngest daughter! I love that my mom is always up for an adventure and this sure was a fun Summer Girls Day!
A few days after returning from Hawaii, we had another important trip to take, a trip to Manhattan for Calvin's freshman orientation at K-State! It was a good day. We met with lots of different people, including his advisor/Dean of Industrial Engineering, Dr. Kramer.
After lunch we timed how long it takes to walk to his fraternity house, and it ended up being just about 10 minutes. Not bad at all.
Even though it wasn't open, it was still fun to see the place in person. It's very nice from the outside, complete with a fancy basketball court!
He's enrolled in his classes for fall and got his K-State ID.
I guess we officially have a K-State Wildcat in the house now!
I'm going to soak up these next couple of months with my oldest. I know August 11 will be here WAY too soon!
We woke up for our final full day and enjoyed some of that delicious coffee grown at our Tiny Home Guardwell Farm.
Then we took off for the beach. We decided to make our final day a "favorite beaches" day. We started at Kukio, which was recommended by our Tiny Home host, Kris. This is another one of those "public beach on private property" places so we had to get a pass from the guard shack.
This was a really unique beach in a cove with lots of cool lava rock formations nearby. Because it was in a cove, the water was way calmer than most of the beaches we'd visited on our trip.
We did some snorkeling and were so excited to swim with a sea turtle for awhile!
Next we headed to "A Bay", recommended by my friend Megan at work. She said this is her absolute favorite, and I could see why! The color of the water was so pretty and the sand was so fine here. We'd packed our lunch and decided this was as good a place as any for our picnic.
We also did some snorkeling and body boarding at this one. It was nice that Kris had the boards as well as beach chairs and a beach cooler to take for our all-day beach adventure!
One of the coolest parts of the whole vacation was when we spotted this guy on the sand right where we were swimming! How cool is that?!?
He was only out of the water for a couple of minutes and then he turned and went swimming again. I can't believe we saw two sea turtles that day, one while snorkeling and one on the beach!!
After leaving A Bay, we headed back to the kids' favorite beach of all: Hapuna. They wanted to get some good body boarding in, and they succeeded! They caught wave after wave after wave. It was so much fun!
We got some good fruit at the farmer's market and fresh fish from the store for our final dinner. Calvin found a crazy big avocado. It was seriously about the size of 4 regular ones and made for some high-quality guac.
They couldn't decide which kind of fish they wanted, so got both Ahi and Ono. After grilling, it looked like we had steak and chicken, but it was all fresh fish. It was SO delicious.
We went for a leisurely after-dinner stroll to see some more of the property.
Oliver re-lived his 5th grade music days when he quasi-learned how to play a ukelele.
A we got a couple of pics on the bridge.
Then we walked back to our Tiny Home to once again marvel at God's beautiful sunset on our LAST night!
We always love a good sunset and we were sure spoiled during this vacation! As we often do on our family trips, we used the final night to "rank" some of our favorites including beaches, meals, days and Airbnbs. This ranking took awhile! Ultimately the Grand Champions were Hapuna, the Food Truck, Sunday, and the Jungalow. It was all a close race, though, and made for some tough competition.
During our ranking-fest, we snacked on some some lychee fruit. They were so sweet and tasty, but the kids couldn't quite get over the texture.
We packed up early to return our car and catch our 7:00 a.m. flight from the Kona airport. It was a completely 100% full flight and we had "C" boarding passes (even though we'd checked in the second we could) so I was really nervous about getting to sit with Evie. Thankfully, one of the airport employees saw what was going on and let just Evie and I board with the young children/families so we had seats together.
We laid over in Vegas again and our final stretch had lots more empty seats -- the kids really got to spread out, which was nice!
And with that, our Hawaiian vacation came to an end! It was a truly wonderful week marveling at God's amazing creation and making memories to treasure for a lifetime. And once again, it would not have been possible if not for our AMAZING moms who gave Miss Vi another grandma-staycation while we were gone. She loved her time with Grandmas and Aunt Joy and we loved being able to Facetime her each day, knowing she was having a blast. We are so blessed, and SO THANKFUL.
"Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever." Psalm 136:1
