The Stowaway

Yesterday afternoon we (along with Lydia and Liz) decided to drive up island to the Azalea Festival in Higashi Village.  We went to this affair last year with my mom and it was a really impressive display of hundreds of azaleas blooming on the hillside overlooking the Pacific ocean on the east side of the island.  Very pretty.  Well, this year has been a little cooler than normal and I think we saw the effects yesterday on the blooms.  What I'm trying to say is that after we drove an hour an a half stuffed into the blue beater, there were only a handfull of blooms a bloomin'.

Love this one of Emmy - she's got attitude!

Love this one of the boys - so sweet!

Yes, I know she needs a haircut...

The motley crew with no azalea blooms...

A lone pretty one!

Never daunted by trivial things like no flowers at a flower festival, we took a leisurely stroll through the green bushes and then piled back into the van.  The east side of the island, especially when you get to the north end, is really beautiful and mostly undeveloped.  Consequently there are beautiful, deserted beaches all along that have always seemed enticing.  So yesterday we found a pull off on the side of the road and headed down a short path to one such beach.

Beautiful beach...

The girls busy collecting treasures.

It was a great beach for collecting shells, rocks, sea glass and other treasures that entertained us probably more than the azaleas did.  After filling our containers we headed back home with another excellent adventure under our belt.

So what about the stowaway???  Well, the story continues today as I'm washing off yesterday's treasures in the kitchen sink.  First Cannon's cup, then Emmy's, then as I'm working on mine, I notice that one of the shells is moving across my kitchen counter!  Yes, Emmy had a stowaway, a little hermit crab, in one of her shells.  Scared the begeezes out of me! 

Note the legs popping up under the shell in the middle.

And I must add, in case there was any ever doubt that I value all living things, I actually put the little guy back in the cup, drove it to the nearest beach and safely returned it to its proper habitat (Cannon had lectured me that it would not live in the ditch behind the house because it was the wrong water type and it would not have access to its favorite food!)

Fly, be free little hermit crab!