I looked at our calendar and our schedule at work a few weeks ago and realized that Grant, Barb and I all had the same 3 days off one weekend. That called for some planned fun! So...we decided to be adventurous and plan a camping trip (when our favorite B&B in the Keramas was booked). We rented tents, a camp stove and a table and then packed up and met at the port in Nakijin. We decided to take a car (because camping, especially with 4 kids, means a lot of stuff), but didn't want to pay to take 2, so we crammed all our stuff in one car and got on the ferry!
The ferry was huge and almost totally empty! It was so awesome. We had the entire outdoor deck to ourselves. No one threw up (Rowan threw up last time we went to another island on a ferry), the weather was beautiful and the kids had a great time!
PB&J on homemade bread compliments of Dom. We broke up the food assignments and it worked out perfect.
I wish I had a picture of us all on the car. The entire back and half of the middle seat were packed with gear, which means that all 8 of us were crammed into about 3.5 seats. We went totally Japanese island style with kids on laps all over the place. However, we only saw like 2 other cars on the road (this island was pretty tiny). This is one thing that is obviously unique to living here...we would never have dreamed of that driving arrangement in the states. Our first stop was this 500 year old Ryukyu pine tree... It was huge and awesome. They smelled really good too.
We then drove around half the island trying to find the perfect camp spot!
And...we found it! There is one small campground on the island, but we opted to just find our own spot of sand to set up camp (and it didn't disappoint)! Also, these tents were awesome! They were seriously the easiest things ever to set up, just popped up in like 30 seconds. Loved it.
Rowan's first experience with a tent...
And then it was beach time!
I don't know why, but Rowan just kept singing "Happy Birthday Rowan" over and over. It was hilarious. He had this frisbee full of shells that he was pretending was a cake and walked around singing happy birthday!
The beach combing was awesome! We found some shells that look like you would buy.
After playing for awhile, we went for a drive to get a good view for sunset. We found this little beach with perfect sand (so soft!) and gorgeous colors. Rowan and Joey played with sticks while we all enjoyed the sunset colors.
After sunset, we went back to camp and made dinner. We did hot dogs (tofurkey dog for Barb :) and homemade hummus with chips and carrots. And then we made a campfire on the beach, made smores and sat around talking. The boys were mesmerized by the fire.
Rowan had played hard and passed out! No nap that day :) I was a little bit sad that we didn't get to have the excitement of going to bed in the tent, but it was probably for the best since he stayed asleep as we put him into bed so no issues going to sleep.
Both kids actually slept really well. The moon was super bright and acted as a night light. Boden ate once in the night (which is normal for him) but then woke up at 4am (also annoyingly normal :) but it was the perfect excuse to get up and look at the stars. The moon had set which made it much darker so we could see all the stars. It was AMAZING! This picture is totally accurate of just how many stars we could see. Rowan stayed asleep while we stargazed but was in the middle of the tent facing sideways on top of our sleeping bags. He's a crazy sleeper :) Luckily we all got to go back to bed for a couple hours after that.
Rowan woke up first and Grant got up with him. When I opened the tent door in the morning, this is the pictures I snapped. Can't get much better than that!
Then we went for a sunrise beach walk before breakfast. The sunrise was infinitely more colorful than the sunset had been the night before, so gorgeous.
It really wasn't cold, but it wasn't burning up so I decided Boden would get to wear a hoodie :)
For breakfast we made pancakes, sausage and scrambled eggs. It was delicious. Rowan was in heaven getting hot dogs for dinner and pancakes for breakfast.
Barb ended up having to work on Sunday, so we only spent one night on the island (but it turned out to be a blessing because I think we would have gotten rained on if we had stayed). So, we took some time cleaning up our camp and then toured the rest of the island.
Awesome shisas!
Real life photo shoot :)
We ended up on a tiny little island to the south (connected by a bridge) where we did some awesome snorkeling before we had to catch the ferry home. Rowan and Joey played in the tide pools-and then ended up swimming naked in the ocean.
I was a little bit nervous about camping with kids because we hadn't done it before. It was a little bit of work preparing for it, but really not bad, and it was so much fun. I really wish my kids would remember all the fun experiences they are having here, but hopefully pictures will help them remember how good they have it :) Trips like these make me so sad we have less than a year left here. How amazing that we can take a weekend camping trip on this beautiful tropical island!
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