The day that the boys had to be returned came all too quickly. I felt like we had to cram weeks worth of time into that last day. I really wasn’t ready for it. But we had a good last week. On the 4th of July, we went to the water park with the cousins and watched an amazing fireworks show at Schofield Barracks. Then on the last day before their return, we decided to go fly a kite. We drove to Ala Moana beach park where we had a quick peanut butter and jelly lunch before we busted out our dragon kite. We flew it around the park in perfect weather. The boys had a great time flying the kite and chasing it’s shadow. We got it up there for a good amount of time. Gavin really got quite good at it.
As fun as it was, the boys quickly started to get worn out and were itching to go across the street to the beach. Mary hung out with Leif and I spend most of the beach time with Gavin. I hadn’t felt like I had got to spend enough time with just him this summer. But this was a great day for that. We spent some good quality time together finding coral and shells. We swam and splashed and had a lot of fun. Leif floated around in his tube and played in the sand. Mary spent some time with Leif in the water and then relaxed on the towel watching Leif play. The sun was hot and the weather was perfect.
When it got to be close to dinner time, we packed up our things and went back to the car. It wasn’t hard to get the kids out of the water. We just told them we were going to go to Dave & Busters, which we did. It took a while for the waiters to seat us due to their disorganization, but once we were seated, they were friendly and helpful. We all got ourselves a delicious meal, which the kids devoured instantly, and a couple of power play cards. We took the cards, along with some leftover ones from a previous trip and spent the next 1 1/2 hours playing games. Mary found herself sucked in to the coin drop games. Gavin hit an impossible 450 ticket bonus. Leif ran around like the king of games and played anything we would let him.
At the end of the game playing, Gavin had enough tickets to get himself a hat, and Leif had enough to pick up a little toy bicycle. We all went away happy. We also went away tired. Leif tried so hard to stay awake in the car. He made it most of the way too. He didn’t make it though. He fell asleep very hard a few minutes from the house. Gavin still insisted on being read his book by granny. Leif didn’t twitch a muscle as I slipped him into bed. It’s no surprise that after a day like that, we all slept quite well. The kids got kite flying, swimming at the beach, games, and toys. And I got a full day of quality time with my boys. What more can you ask for in a last day of summer with your kids?
