Aloha Stanley! Until we meet again.

We enjoyed our visit with Flat Stanley but in fear of keeping him prisoner even longer, we made the decision to send him on his way back to school so he can continue on his worldly adventure.

If you get the chance to participate in the Flat Stanley project, I highly recommend it.

It is such a fun way to teach children about different parts of the country and world.

Here is Flat Stanley just before he got packaged up and sent home.
The write up he's going home with is below. Enjoy!

And until next time, have a wonderful, beautiful, creative day!

♡ ąℓexąnʠяą

 

 Aloha Leah, Mrs. S and Classmates,   

Mahalo for letting Stanley visit our family in Hawaii. 

He came and stayed at our home in Kailua. 
Kailua is on the East side of the island Oahu. 

We get a little bit more rain here, than on the West side where Honolulu is located.

You might have heard about Honolulu. It is the capital of Hawaii. 

Unlike the rest of the states in the USA, Hawaii is an island, well actually 6 islands! 

The islands are Hilo (otherwise known as Big Island), Kauai, Oahu, Maui, Molokai, and Lanai.

Hawaii is the USA's 50th state. It become a state on August 21, 1959.

Some of the popular places on Oahu are: Honolulu, the capital. 

The popular tourist attraction is Waikiki, 

with beautiful beaches, big buildings and shopping.
Pearl Harbor, you'll read about it in your history book some day. 

On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the US Navy ships that were stationed here.
The North Shore is popular for those brave ladies and men who like to surf big waves.  

Just off the East Coast, on our drive to the North Shore is a small island called the "Chinaman's Hat." 

Do you know why? 

Well, you guessed it, because the island looks like a big hat! 

There is a story about a little boy who lived in China. 
He grew very tall from drinking a magic potion. 

He was trying to get a girl that he liked to notice him but because he grew so tall 
he was afraid for her to see him. 
He left China and ended up in Hawaii.  

The Hawaiian people welcomed him with food and fun and made him a new hat that fit him properly. 

He went to sleep on the ocean floor.
All you could see was his hat sticking out of the water. 

 He slept like that for weeks and one day woke to find himself back down to his normal size
 and able to return back to China to see his friend again.  
His hat remains here, off the coast of Oahu.

We did not get much of a chance to do A LOT with Stanley...but he did enjoy swimming in our pool. 

We took him to Kailua beach where it was VERY windy. 
He enjoyed watching the big waves.
He thought he would go on a kite-boarding adventure, 

but we saved him in just the nick of time!
 He was much too small to do that safely.  

Instead, we watched the grownups kite-board, windsurf and surf the waves.   
He also went to Honolulu International airport with us.  
Vera, Mia and Fletcher's grandma was visiting us from Boston, MA
and she needed to go back home.  

I told Stanley not to worry, I would be sending him back to School, not to Boston with Grandma.

We really enjoyed our time with Stanley.  

A custom here is to give visitors a necklace called a Lei. 

The Lei is just a welcome and warm "Aloha" which can mean, Hello, Goodbye,
Love and compassion, good wishes and welcome among a lot of other meanings. 

And so, we are sending Stanley back home with a Lei from Hawaii, a shell necklace so he
remembers his fun time at Kailua Beach, a box of Macadamia nuts covered in Chocolate 

(everyone sends these back to the mainland!) and a couple of other little things from
Hawaii.

Mahalo (which means Thank you in Hawaiian) for letting us borrow Stanley for so long. 

Alexandra, Vera, Mia and Fletcher Benson