Awaiting Adventure

Happy Friday, everyone! How was your week? Summer seems to be flying by and (should we dare write it out?) before we know it, the first day of school will be here. Well…before we totally bum everyone out, let’s take you to Hawaii for another Wonder moment. We do have a quick announcement before we get to our next blogger…

A note from Cheryl: What a fun, last 14 months it has been! Thank you all for welcoming me as your blog curator this past year. Your engagement, support, suggestions, photos, and testimonials have been so valuable and I am forever grateful. It has been a true honor and a privilege to serve you and learn alongside all of you. I have, however, accepted an offer to be a part of SLOCA’s Administration Team. I’m not going far – I will be serving you as the Assistant to the Director of Admissions & Parent Care so I will still be around and may see some of you on campus. Now, I am beyond thrilled to hand off our little corner of the internet to Track A mom Sharon Cumberland, who is now taking the helm (who’s actually taken over since the beginning of this week!) as your new Blog Curator! We are so pleased to have Sharon as part of Team SLOCA and I do hope all of our readers will give her the warm welcome I was given!

Meet the Cumberlands-

Hello, Down Home Readers! My name is Sharon Cumberland and the 2019/2020 school year will mark our family’s 5th year at SLOCA. My husband, Dave, and I cannot believe that our son, Ian, will be starting Lower Middle School (say it isn’t so!) and our daughter, Ainsley, will be jumping into that magical year called Kindergarten. As an avid reader of the Down Home Blog since our family began our SLOCA journey, I have relied on the blog not only a homeschooling resource but as an essential way to feel connected to the SLOCA community. As I step into this role as Blog Curator I intend to maintain the quality and consistency established by my prodigious predecessors. I look forward to collaborating with you all to continue to make the Down Home Blog an invaluable resource.

And now for some tropical wondering…

Our family recently returned from an amazing adventure on the island of Kauai. (We no longer refer to family trips as “vacations”; that label implies that there will be rest, relaxation, and little responsibility.  Those three “R’s” can be difficult to attain when traveling with kids, so we now call them “adventures” and it helps us keep our expectations in check.) We spent our week snorkeling, swimming, hiking, biking, and eating french fries and ice cream for dinner at 9:00 pm. It was pretty easy to find wonder on our trip; we marveled at how the island was formed by a volcano, envisioned swinging like Tarzan from the long, dangling vines above us on our hike and even pondered what it might be like to go over one of the many waterfalls we saw.  

However, my favorite wondering was when we went to view the Spouting Horn. For those unfamiliar with the tourist spots on Kauai, the Spouting Horn is a blowhole. The surf is drawn into a natural lava tube and expels out the hole reaching heights of up to 50 ft. It’s mesmerizing. With each wave, we tried to predict how high the spray would go. As we stood there watching (and listening, it’s called a “horn” for a reason) we happened to spy a sea turtle floating near the entrance to the blowhole. Among the “oohs” and “aahs”, Ian, our ten-year-old, wondered aloud, “Mom, what would happen if the turtle got sucked into the blowhole?” It did not take us long to all imagine a turtle being drawn into the blowhole by the powerful surge of the ocean. And then we just had to wonder what would happen next. Would he get stuck in the blowhole and block it like a cork or would he be launched out of it like a cannonball? Would he go into the blowhole willingly or be taken unawares? What sort of sound would the “horn” make then? 

The turtle did not meet any of these fates, at least not while we were watching, but it was fun to think up all of the possible outcomes.  Personally, I like to imagine him intentionally catching the next wave, being drawn into the blowhole, and riding the water spout out into the world on an adventure of his own.