We have been very busy! God has been incredibly kind and merciful to us in so many ways. The children and I have been memorizing Psalm 103, and it has helped me to hold on to God’s promises in the midst of some things my heart is aching for.

Libby is quite the typer. She actually typed everything you are about to read. I literally had no time to type, so it was good to delegate. I hope that with time, her writing becomes more and more insightful, but this was amazing as a record of our activities! I literally just had to add some comas here and there, and delete others. But wow, I’m glad she has been taking her typing lessons online becasue she was fast! LOL!

OUR VACATION

Last week we went to the beach in Panama City, Florida. We stopped  at a restaurant for breakfast and for lunch. I don’t remember if we ate dinner at the hotel or at another restaurant. We got to our hotel around 6:00 pm. and started unpacking. 

Our room had two TV’s, one bed, one bunkbed, one bathroom, and one closet. After unpacking, we went down to the beach and watched the sunset. It was beautiful. We took a few photos too. Then we went back to our hotel and slept.

In the morning, we ate breakfast at the hotel and went to the beach at around 10:00 am. All of us were ready with our swimsuits, including Danny. He loved the water!  At first he just sat there, letting the water gently brush his toes. Then he actually crawled into the ocean.  We had to go get him because he had started crawling farther than was safe for him. He really wants to start walking. If you grab him by the wrists, he instantly stands up and starts walking away. And he goes so fast that he always stands on his tippy-toes. Mommy walked with him from the sand all the way to the ocean until the water was at Danny’s chest. Danny loved it. He kept picking up sand and seeing it fall though his fingers. Somehow he knew not to eat it. 

There were a lot of fishes. I had goggles to go underwater. I tried catching some with my hands. They are seriously more afraid of the waves than of you. They try to touch your feet, and there were tons of them. If you tried to catch them, they would swim away a few feet and then come back five seconds later. I tried kicking up sand while I was underwater, but they just swam through it, even more curious. When they were going through it, I tried to catch them because they probably couldn’t see that well. I touched half a fish, but it got away. 

After the beach, we went to our hotel pool. Most pools usually feel cold at the beginning but then it feels better. This pool was cold even after you got in. There was a hot tub next to the pool. When I got in, it felt burning, but you got used to it. Daddy got in too. Enzo touched the water and instantly jumped back in the pool. Daddy’s watch showed that the hot tub was 100F. In the pool, there was a lazy river that went from right to left in a loop. The current was really strong. Even with my mermaid tail, I could not swim against the current. I just stayed in one place and got more and more tired. Danny was tired from the beach, so he fell asleep on daddy’s chest.

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After the pool we had some pizza. Danny had one whole slice of pizza to himself. We went back to our room and all took showers. Enzo and I watched some TV, and soon after that we had some dinner at a restaurant really close to our hotel. Then Daddy took us to play mini golf. It was very fun. He was first place, Mommy was second, Enzo was third, and, of course, I was last. Then we went to our room and went to bed. 

The next morning Mommy and Daddy went to exercise and we went with them. After they were done, we went back to the hotel and had breakfast, then went to the beach and pool again. Then we went back to our room, took showers again, ate dinner, then went to sleep. In the morning, Mommy and Daddy went to exercise again, but this time, they left us at the hotel, and we watched TV until they came back. After they returned, we ate breakfast, and first we went to the pool. Danny floated a little in his float, but he was shivering, so he had to get out. Mommy and I decided to go to the beach. There were a lot of jellyfish in the water, so we did not swim. There were also twenty dead jellyfish on the shore! After the beach, we did not take showers but we started packing. 

After we finished packing, we went to a surprise Daddy had planned for us. When we got there, we found out it was an amusement park! It was small, which was good because, if we wanted to, we could ride everything. We rode on bumper cars, bumper boats, and we went to a fun house. We also rode on a rollercoaster. It was small, but it was a real rollercoaster. Real turns and loops. The feeling in my stomach was awful. 

Then there was something that looked like a ginormous carousel, but it was a little bit tilted and there were cars. And they were all connected to the top and they spun super fast. The cars didn’t touch the ground, the machine just pulled them. Enzo and I went on it, and it felt almost the same as the rollercoaster. It went so fast! It lasted a few minutes with the cars going forward. Then it slowed down and finally stopped. Then, just as I thought someone was going to get us off, it started going again. This time, backwards. I think going backwards was a little better, but not much. 

Then we went on something like a tilted ferris wheel, But it went faster. There were no seatbelts, so you had to hold on really tight. When you went up, your seat turned. It can turn all the way around and keep going, so when we went up, we flipped over. It was scary, but soon it was over. There was also a black-light mini golf. It was very fun. 

We went back to our hotel two or three hours later. We all went to sleep, ate breakfast the next morning, and we left to our new hotel. We got there in the evening, and unpacked quickly. We ate dinner, and went to sleep again. In the morning, we ate breakfast at our new hotel. It was really good. Then we went to G3 from 9:00 – 5:30. Then we did that again the next day. 

There was a huge aquarium right next to our hotel, and Daddy bought us tickets!  First we saw the sharks. There was a tiger shark. Then there were the hammerhead sharks. After the sharks, we saw big stingrays, fish, sea turtles, and two huge whale sharks! Then we saw a show with dolphins and after that, a show with sea lions. 

We also saw otters, penguins, puffins, sea dragons (which look like sea horses, but they actually have wings), crocodiles, jellyfish, a 4-D show about an octopus, and beluga whales. There were three beluga whales in one tank and two seals in the same tank. I don’t know what the seals were doing in the same tank as the beluga whales, because most animals had separate tanks.

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There was also a petting zoo where we could pet stingrays. Their barbs had been taken off so that they could not sting us. They were very calm. They felt so soft and squishy! I think that was everything. The aquarium was awesome. 

Then we packed our things again on Saturday and drove home. We arrived late in the night. We went to church on Sunday and unpacked when we came home. 

I loved our vacation. We had so much fun and went so many places. 

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