A Birthday in Panama City

Yesterday, we drove over to Panama City to celebrate my mom's birthday. We left after church so that the little ones could get a nap in the car on the way. For most of us, it was a great day, full of fun and relaxation. But for Noodle, it was a Bad Day. She labled it thus mainly because of two events that happened on the way to Panama City. The first one happened when we stopped at a gas station for a bathroom break. Tyler (my brother) and Noodle went inside while we waited in the car. After a little while, I realized the bathroom break seemed to be taking too long. Maybe something's wrong, I started to think outloud. After another minute, Tyler came up to the car, moving quickly, but obviously alone.

"Noodle's trapped in the bathroom and the manager says there's no key," he said. Seth and my dad quickly ran into the store. The woman running the store (as I was later told) had made some rude comment about how her child wouldn't have gotten trapped in the bathroom and had gone back to helping customers. Does anyone here care that there's a little girl stuck in a public restroom? Apparently not! We didn't know if some stranger had locked her in there with them or if she was hurt... all that mattered was getting the door opened. My dad began to take apart the doorknob with his knife. The store worker, suddenly noticing that we were serious about this door business, magically "found" the key and came over to open the door!

Noodle was fine, but very shaken. Everyone filed out to the cars, and we were on our way again. However, this was not quite the end to Noodle's bad day.

She calmed down and began enjoying the rest of the ride to the beach. It was a beautiful day with sunshine and perfect temperatures. As we entered St. Andrews state park, we rolled the windows down and poked our head out to feel the warm breeze. There was a deer standing on the side of the road, and we stopped the car to stare at him for a few minutes. Finally, we pulled into the parking lot. Seth began rolling up the windows in the car and suddenly we hear, "Ow, ow OW!!" I look over to see Noodle's head stuck in the car window! It had only been rolled halfway down and she had been resting her chin on the edge. In a second's time, she was stuck! We couldn't help but laugh, especially because she wasn't really hurt, but Noodle was not laughing. This was a Bad Day. Would it be for you? If you got trapped in a convenience store bathroom and a car window all in the same day, would you be very happy?

Uncle Tyler found a hermit crab to show Noodle.

Hopers loves the beach.

Making sandcastles and smooshing them was a favorite beach activity.

The Roach

I couldn't help myself, you know. It was merely a reaction. A gut instinct. It was a moment in time that was destined. We were standing in my mother's kitchen talking. Hopers and Tabitha were playing on the floor. Noodle, coloring in the dining room. I glanced down and noticed a dark brown object, about the size of my thumb, on the floor near the cabinet.

"Eww. A dead roach," I said, aiming my comment at my mom. It wasn't just any dead roach though. It was the really icky kind that seem sentient when alive and have articulating heads that turn to look at you as they skitter past your foot.

"Where?" Mom asked, craning her neck to see past me. Just then, as if sensing our words and using her super power of doing the opposite of whatever I wanted her to, Hopers leaned over and snatched up the roach with her chubby little fist.

"EEEEIIIKKKK!" I screeched, uncharacteristically loud, and grabbed Hopers by the shoulders. She dropped the roach, which landed (apparently alive) on its back, wiggling its legs in a feeble attempt to escape. Hopers crumpled over onto the tile and began crying, afraid that she had just gotten in big trouble.

After it was all over (the roach was flushed) and I had dried my daughter's tears with hugs and kisses, I couldn't help but wonder... Will this be a moment that is permanently ingrained in my child's brain for a lifetime? Is is possible that she could have remained innocently curious about giant brown bugs for eternity if I hadn't reacted that way? I think I just scarred my kid in the same way that I was scarred as a small child. My own mother jumping away in terror placed a fear (call it a really deep heebie-jeebie) inside me that I just passed on to my offspring this morning! All I can say is that history really does repeat itself.

Stingray-day

I promised I would do a separate post about our day on Grand Cayman Island after I'd gotten the pictures developed from the waterproof camera. The day was perfect for spending out in the water. To get there from the ferry, we had to take a dilapidated old school bus driven by a crazy bus driver. He constantly was honking his horn and yelling things at other drivers, pedestrians, and inanimate objects. The strange part was that the people would simply wave back at him without a single comment or rude gesture! Apparently his behavior was commonplace.

From the bus, we all climbed on to a boat and rode out to a sandbar area way off from the island. The water on the sandbar was up to my chest. The minute we stopped, dozens of stingrays began swimming towards us. They were very familiar with people coming to this area and knew what to do.

The larger size of them surprised me because I had expected them to be more like the dinner plate size that I had seen near Florida. They are very soft and fleshy, gentle and tame. Someone asked if they had their stingers removed, but no, they are fully functional because they are still wild animals that live in the ocean! Here's me holding one.

And Seth holding one.

And Noodle and me touching one...

She was very nervous about touching them, as you can see in the picture. But she did do it. We really had a great time out there. We snorkled and swam around with the stingrays floating about us.

Post Cruise Post

We're back! After a whirlwind Caribbean vacation and a whirlwind Labor Day weekend, I finally have a moment to unwind on my couch with a laptop and a peaceful stare. I'll try not to stare in the direction of the suitcases still piled in the entryway while I'm blogging.

There's so much to tell you about our cruise that I just don't think I can get it all out in one post. I'll try, though, I promise.

First of all, it was awesome! I highly recommend it. As far as "seasickness" goes, we didn't feel queasy for even a second. In fact, I absolutely loved the rocking of the ship. It was incredibly soothing at bed time.

From the moment we arrived on the ship, the feasting began.

It was lunch time, and we were immediately shown the way to the buffet dining room, The Brasserie. After eating, we wandered around the ship for a while, trying to figure out where everything was. It was extremely confusing! There were several sets of stairwells/elevators that went to some floors but not all floors, so you never knew where you were going to end up! We did a lot of walking on this trip! Here we are in the center of the ship, which was like a big atrium with two glass elevators. Very cool! This was where all of the shopping places were. Apparently, everyone likes to buy jewelry, perfume and liquor when on cruises because there aren't any taxes on them. So they were constantly announcing sales and raffles and such to entice people to spend more money. Weird!

Finally, our room was made available by about 1:00 so we scurried in to check it out. It was pretty much like the picture, except that the to twin beds were pushed together to make a king size bed, and Noodle had a cool bunk bed that pulled down from the wall.

Then, we went swimming in three of the four pools on the boat (the other one was adults only) and did an emergency drill where everyone had to put on their life jackets and troop down to a specified place on the boat (BOR-RING!).

Finally, we were off! The ship slowly made its way out of the Tampa Bay. It was an excellent time for a quick workout, because the gym is at the top/front of the ship. But before we knew it, it was time to eat again. We could choose between eating at the Brasserie buffet or sitting down for a "fancy" meal in the main dining room at our chosen time of 5:45. We wanted to try something new, so we decided on "fancy." We were assigned the same table and waiters for the whole week and also sat with another family. They turned out to be great dinner companions. Tao, Shirley, and little Stanley were a Chinese family from Canada. We had great conversations about culture, government, adoption, family, etc. It was so much fun!

The next day was the first long day at sea. I think we enjoyed being on the boat the most out of all our activities. We spent a lot of time exploring and trying out some of the activities. Noodle went to Camp Carnival and loved playing with the other kids, making crafts and playing games. (When Amie asked Noodle what she liked best about the cruise, she told her it was the Hairy Chest Contest. They held it out on the pool deck while we were swimming and boy, that was an educational moment in Noodle's life!)

That night, we got all dressed up for the Captain's Cocktail Party. It was a good excuse to get pretty and take pictures, really.

Wednesday morning our ship arrived at Grand Cayman island. Feeling adventurous, we had decided to go swimming with stingrays for our excursion on this stop. Just getting there left us feeling a bit like cattle, however. Everyone was herded onto a ferry and then herded into a waiting area for the bus. There were lots of people trying to offer deals on bus rides to various experiences. At one point, a man from Carnival cruise lines came over to our little group and, pointing, boomed at us in a loud voice, "STAY RIGHT HERE BY THIS SIGN! AND DON'T LET ANYONE PUSH YOU AROUND!" We laughed about that for the rest of the week.

I will have to write a separate post about the stingrays because we bought a disposable waterproof camera and I haven't gotten the pictures developed yet. But let me just say, it was really COOL! Other than that, I wasn't much impressed with Grand Cayman. It looked like an older, less developed version of South Florida. The water was beautiful though.

The next day we awoke to the sight of another ship outside our window and realized we were docked at Cozumel, Mexico. Noodle had fun making faces and waving at the men on the deck of the other ship. You can see in this picture how close we were to them and the dock inbetween (as seen from the ferry we took to get to Playa Del Carmen). After the ferry, we rode a tour bus (quite the upgrade from the old school bus on Grand Cayman) to the Mayan ruins at Tulum. It was very hot and people were shamelessly, constantly, trying to sell us stuff throughout the day. We learned a lot from the tour guide, but were disappointed when we realized they weren't even allowing people to touch the ruins. Apparently they were tired of people vandalizing things and only allowed us to walk on specific pathways around the structures.

But the most disappointing part was that Hurricane Dean (which had passed by the week before) knocked out the wooden stairway that led down to the beach. We couldn't get down the cliffs any other way, so there was nothing left to do but wander around in the heat for far too long! Noodle was very sad. Crushed, I might say. (Check out the iguana in this picture!)

However, we did make restitution by finding another small beach to go to for an hour once we made it back to Cozumel. Noodle found dozens of shells, pieces of coral, a Mexican centavo, and smooth sea glass to put in her "treasure box" which was actually an empty Cuban cigar box that Seth bought for her while we were there. She was extremely happy and showed them to everyone on the ship.

Ah there's so much to tell about this trip, but I'm getting too tired to write anymore. To make it short, we enjoyed another day at sea on Friday and came back to Tampa on Saturday morning. We got up late, packed slowly, and managed to be some of the last people to get off the boat. It was perfect, because we didn't have to wait in any lines like everyone else, and the customs people barely glanced at us!

Home again... but can't wait to do it again!

Take A Whack At This Daschund

Since we have been studying Mexico this week, I thought it would be great fun to make a pinata. We only had some random leftover party balloons on hand, so we had to be imaginitive with our pinata. Here's what a long, tube-shaped balloon and a small, gourd-shaped ballon can make: a daschund! Seth, Noodle and I worked together to wrap the newspaper and flour/water mixture around the balloons. (I had to make some freshly ground wheat flour for the project because that's all I had! This is a really HEALTHY pinata.) Noodle wrinkled her nose up at the messiness of it all, but did it anyway. She also helped cut out the tissue paper, drew the eyes, and manned the roll of masking tape. Not bad for a few first-timers, eh?