And a beach, of course.....

On late afternoon we headed to the nearby Kadena Beach Marina.  No trip to Okinawa is complete without a visit or two to the beach.

Sunset was starting as we played on the beach....

This was a flashback to Hong Kong days.  These ladies were practicing for the upcoming Dragon Boat races!!  They held them in June in Hong Kong as well.

Seriously, one of the peak life events has to be playing in the ocean and on the beach with a child--especially one of your own children or grandchildren.  My mom loved the ocean and I love it, too, so it was so great to be there with Niki and play in the sand and splash each other in the water. It reminded me of some many afternoons spent on the beach in Hong Kong with my kids and my friends.

The only thing which could have made this better would have been having the rest of my grandchildren (and of course the big people they are connected with) to have been there with us.

the sail boats in the marina

Tosha is still unable to get into the water with her ongoing mastitis stuff, but she was a good sport and spent the time with Cooper and finding shells.  She is an amazing shell hunter and her house has some beautiful displays of shells she discovered.

Someone else had found this crab and brought it over to show it to Niki.  Tosha is always the brave one and decided she needed to hold it so we could document how big it was.  Then she took it over to another family with four kids who also loved it before we released it back to the sand.

Our selfie......

 The sunset is now complete.....