Aore Aelan (otherwise known as Aore Island)

On Sunday, August 5, 2012, we took a boat ride across Luganville Bay to Aore Island.

Our kids had never been on a boat, and I had forgone the Drammamine because I only bought the kind that makes you sleepy for the looooong plane ride…turns out no one really needed it, anyway, but I digress. Luckily, they ended up not needing it for the boat ride, either! They were all 3 enthralled the entire time, with Eli especially, taking everything in.

It ended up being about a 10-15 minute trip to the island, and as we got closer to the island, the water was sooooo clear!

The kids were having a blast spotting coral and anemone (terms I’m pretty sure they only know due to watching Finding Nemo), and were off to change into their swimsuits as soon as we were on land. The beach was beautiful!

Paighton, Mikayla, and Emily took off in a kayak to have some fun girl time,

while Lainey, Eli, and Maxwell started looking for sea life close to the water’s edge.

Eli was the first to find a big starfish.

And Lainey found a couple of little crabs…I didn’t believe her at first…I thought they were just snails in their shells…but then out popped the little pinchers! Paighton took our camera out on the kayak and took some really neat pictures of some of the things they found…

and some really great pics of each other ; )

After some water fun, we had lunch at a restaurant on the island, then headed back to Luganville. Paighton stayed at the Widups with Mikayla and Emily, and the rest of us headed back to our apartment to try to finish unpacking, again, and get organized a bit. The trip to the island was something my kids had been begging for since the day we got here! They wanted to get in the ocean and see cool things, so for those of you who know what begging kids sound like day after day after day, I was happy to get that out of the way! And it was a nice way to relax a little after the crazy, cockroachy day we’d had the day before!