Girls Only

Last month, Emily and I had a "Girls Only" weekend in Waikiki. This was basically a "birds and the bees" discussion time. Emily already knew where babies come from but this weekend we focused on details, emotions, and repercussions of baby making.

I had ordered Passport2Purity as our curriculum for the weekend and I can not recommend it highly enough! It was fabulous! There were five lessons to listen to on DVD as well as a workbook for Emily to fill out as we listened. There was discussion time after each subject and little projects we had to do together to enforce the messages being taught. Although I knew a lot of things I wanted to discuss with her on this subject, the DVD lessons had useful information I wouldn't have thought to include. I was very thankful to have had this program as a guide to make certain all aspects were covered. I do wish I had done this with Emily when she was a little younger. At 13, she already knew a lot of the basic information which was presented. This program can be used for boys or girls; most of the information is applicable to everyone, but there are some areas which are specifically for boys and some areas which are specifically for girls. You just listen to the section indicated.

For our weekend, we stayed at the Hale Koa hotel. I had made our reservations on-line because they were offering a 20% discount for kama'aina (people who live on the island). When I checked in, I handed the clerk my driver's license to prove my residency. He handed it back to me and told me he didn't need to see it, just my military ID. I responded that I thought he needed to see it as proof of residency for the kama'aina 20% discount. He told me, "Oh, I thought you were getting the hotel's thirty-fifth anniversary 35% discount."

"Oh, yeah," I smiled, "that's the one we were getting - the 35% off discount." He then proceeded to upgrade our room from garden view to ocean view for no extra charge!

I then purchased tickets to their magic show which also turned out to have a special discount. Our weekend was starting out fabulously!

I took pictures of Emily on the balcony of our ocean view room.

We could also see the mountains from our balcony. I had my coffee out on the balcony one morning while Emily was still sleeping and it was glorious.

We tried to take a picture of ourselves together on the balcony.

Then we tried again.

After our first P2P session, we strolled down the streets and enjoyed the sights. There are always vendors, performers, and entertaining people in the area.

We looked in the windows of the really ritzy stores that we don't dare step into for fear of a sneer. The salespeople are intimidating. I taught Emily how to pronounce "Hermes".

On a side note, I just learned how to pronounce "haute couture" this week.

We ate at "The Yard House" and I told Emily she could order anything she wanted as long as it was dairy free. I ate the tomato and the slab of mushroom on her plate as she refused to.

After dinner we browsed a bookstore, because any place filled with books thrills Emily.

On the second day, we had the fabulous breakfast buffet in the hotel, swam in the pool, and strolled down the beach in between P2P sessions.

For dinner we went to the Magic In Paradise show which was wonderful! They had a great buffet and we got to see a comedy magic show. We shared a table with a couple who were visiting Hawaii for their 50th anniversary and we had a fabulous time talking with them.

The last event on our agenda was to go on the Atlantis Submarine. Kerry and I went on our anniversary, but none of the kids have been and I knew this would be a lot of fun for Emily.

Having been on this before, I made sure we were positioned near the door leading to the submarine, hoping to be seated near the front of the vessel where we would be able to see out the front window as well. Unfortunately, a large Russian man near me had the same idea. He elbowed his way to the front of the line and pretended not to speak English when the staff were instructing him to move out of the way and sit down.

When we were finally boarding, it turned out we were at the very back of the submarine and Mr. Big Russian Elbow Thrower was in the very last seat where he suddenly became fluent in English for the rest of the trip.

This is what Emily looks like deep under the ocean in a submarine.

We saw an amazing amount of fish and turtles!

We really enjoyed this time together! This was a great weekend and I would recommend that everyone take a chance to spend time with each of your children individually. I hadn't realize how different it can be with just one child rather than all three. We were able to get in a lot of private talks and really have some fabulous girl time.

Go do it!