Our trip

We got back 4 days ago from our vacation. We had a great time. I am so, so thankful to the Lord for a break and for a good time as a family. It's been hard to go from vacation to "normal life" again. Especially when vacation meant nice stores to shop at, cooler temperatures and showers with hot water... and "normal life" means cooking from scratch and cold bucket showers and constant battles for control of my kitchen against millions of bugs and geckos....

Will take a while to get all the pictures up, but here are a few to start....

Our first five nights we stayed at a small hotel right by the beach on the eastern side of the island. We basically just stayed at the hotel and swam and vegged. We had a "garden suite" which meant we had a walled courtyard with a lounging bed outside; a kitchen - that also was completely open to the outside and an open air bathroom... I didn't get pictures of it, but had white rocks with a huge rock bathtub - very modern and zen like - with a pond right behind it. Our bedroom was totally closed in (with AC!) and the boys did great all being in the same room. It was nice to have the courtyard and kitchen so Brant and I could hang out when the boys were sleeping.

We figured out really quickly it was easier to order room service (way cheap!) than leave the hotel to eat. Also, I went to a local grocery store and got lots of fun Western types food (like cheese and strawberries and spaghetti sauce in a jar!) and cooked some. Way easier on the boys than going to a fancy restaurant.


The hotel had great breakfasts and then we spent most mornings in the pool; which was cool with two levels (the upper level being really shallow with fun fountains and then flowing into the deeper part.)



We did venture out to do some shopping - which was fun for me but stressful with the little boys. We made up for it with treats.... like Cold Stone!!!!!!!!

One evening, we went to visit our good friends, who were also on vacation and staying at a hotel nearby. They had the coolest waterslide at their hotel. The boys - even Ezra - went down it multiple times with Brant.

The beach was pretty crummy right by our hotel, so we walked up the beach walk to a really fancy resort on the beach and spent the day there. Was a plus knowing the language as Brant could talk to the manager and get special permission. :) They had really cool pagoda type things that we hung out in and the boys loved playing in the sand.


On our way back to our hotel we saw a dead whale washed up on shore. Was kinda gross but cool for the boys to see how big they are. (Brant said he thought it was a baby sperm whale???)