A day at White Beach

Heaven on earth, for my toddler, is defined as follows: a warm afternoon spent anywhere with sand, rocks, fish, a playground (or several), and water she is allowed to play with. Lucky for her, we happened to find just such a place: White Beach. On the Pacific side of the island and owned by the Navy, this place is pretty perfect, and not just for Avery.

We spent the afternoon enjoying ourselves here last weekend while my brother was visiting. The tide was out far enough that we were able to walk across the sand bar to get to the small islands just off shore (at high tide, kayaking to them is also popular).

Except for a few friendly marine animals, we had the islands to ourselves for most of the afternoon.

The boys tried to spear us some dinner, but with the tide being out only small, pretty reef fish remained. I'm pretty sure they had fun trying, though.

Meanwhile, I let the toddler roam around freely and explore to her heart's content.

She loves rocks and shells of all kinds, so all the interesting coral pieces on the beach tickled her fancy. However nothing was quite as exciting as the moving "rocks." At one point, she held her hands out to offered me some "ocks! ocks!" and when I opened mine up, she dropped five hermit crabs into my palms!

Then she discovered the tidepools. Avery thinks tidepools are awesome because:

1) The fish are trapped and can't swim away from her 

and

2) She can splash around without getting knocked over by the waves

I found her some teeny tiny ones without anything poisonous and let her "spash! spash!"

Definitely a perfect afternoon.