Shangri-La Paradise Weekend

The kids had a 2 week long semester break. Lucy's birthday occupied the 1st week, which was super fun, but we also wanted to add a little family getaway while we had the chance. We talked about visiting parts of Jeremy's mission, or hiking at a volcano...for some reason it all seemed like so much effort! Instead we finally settled on the most amazing hotel I've ever been to, which just happens to be a one hour drive away. It's called the Shangri-La. Yes, I am posting a lot of pictures of this place because we LOVED every second of it!!!!! Here we go: This is the sailboat we went for a ride on. I couldn't take a picture of us actually on it because there was nowhere to put a camera! Plus, our waterproof camera's memory card was full :( The highlights: *We swam (it had both a kiddie pool for Sam, 2 large pools including a waterslide for the older 2, and the ocean which was absolutely beautiful and warm!! * a really fun play area with huge slides (one the girls actually had to wear a helmet to go on and Sami was too little for it) *We rode ocean kayaks out to a dock and fed the fish. SO FUN!!! *We went on a sailboat which was awesome, too! Sami fell asleep about halfway through after she requested we go FASTER! :) *We fed the fish right along the shore. The fish were EVERYWHERE. We just watched them jump out of the water all around us. Sami didn't love that part, but the rest of us did. If they got too close to Lucy she would just throw sand on them! *The food was delicious, the room very comfortable, and the TV big. Oh, and of course we ALL loved the luxury of a bathtub!!!!!! *It had a nice pool table/ping pong room. Gracie did great with ping pong! I'm sure she would have done great with pool too, but we didn't try that :) *We played badminton on nice soft grass with a net! Awesome! *There were big, nice hammocks to relax on complete with grass and shade. *The workers brought out free samples of fruit kabobs and juice several times. YUM This is one 5 star hotel that deserves all 5 stars in my book! It was SO fun to spend that time with our family. The fun playroom slide:

Tooth fairy and Halloween

Lucy had her first loose tooth for at least a month or two. She was very nervous for it to come out. We thought maybe the big day would be her birthday, but that little tooth held on for 3 more days. Finally, the time had come. Daddy had to help a little, but that tooth was ready to come out! Lucy was so excited, and boy does she look cute!! Just in time to carve...coconuts.




Lucy designing her "jack-o-lantern"




Sami was very helpful for all of us!








Jeremy had the idea since there are no pumpkins here, we could carve coconuts for jack-o-lanterns instead. We stopped at a coconut stand and I wish I would have taken pictures there. The guy we bought them from had a big machete he cut one side off of each coconut and then poured out the milk. He made it look so easy!

We got home and began designing our coconuts. Then Jeremy and Junel (he works for us)did pretty much all the hard work-the actual carving. They turned out awesome!! Oh, and yes, we did do one squash which also looked awesome :)




Grace taking her personally designed coconut outside





The final result



One final word of Halloween. No, we didn't dress up in costumes, so I have no pictures of any type of Halloween party or trick-or-treating. They do celebrate Halloween here, but it's much more optional. Our neighborhood kids did come trick-or-treating, but it was Sunday night, so my girls just stayed home with me. Grace did hand out candy we had to the neighborhood kids, and I was impressed that they were so nice they came and brought a lot of their candy over to us since the girls didn't get any. At any rate, we had so much fun with the coconuts it helped make up for the dress up part.

Lucy's Birthday!! 6 Years!!

I love Lucy. She is one of the coolest people ever. Seriously. She has so many sides to her, it's just fun to get to know her. This year she has grown in a lot of ways. For one, she is much taller. For another, she's experienced so many different situations (school, church, and our home to mention a few) here that I think it has broadened her perspective. Finally, seeing her learn and develop as both a younger sister and an older sister has been neat. She is really quite the little Mommy to Samantha, and a good friend for Grace. She always asks such relevant questions when we discuss things like religion. It always impresses me. She is also so silly and fun! She LOVES to kick back and relax. Yes, I love Lucy.


Okay, Lucy's birthday is on Oct. 27th, but her school started semester break after the 22nd. So, Lucy had a school party on Friday the 22nd and then had a family/neighborhood party on her actual birthday.





This is Lucy's class. When it's your birthday, you walk around the room in a circle holding a globe. THere's a candle in the middle of the globe representing the sun, and you circle one time for each year you've been on the earth. While Lucy was circling the room, I told about what Lucy liked and did each year of her life, and Gracie held up pictures of Lucy. Then, even though Lucy's class only goes half day, on birthdays the birthday child brings lunch for everyone plus cupcakes and gift bags. So we did. It went great and Lucy was happy.



The cupcakes. So yummy!



On Lucy's birthday, Gracie made sure Lucy stayed in bed until she was served breakfast. Yes, those are brownies you see. The nice lady, Haydee, that works for us made them special for Lucy.




The morning of Lucy's real birthday, we headed to SM (the big mall here) to paint ceramics. It was so fun! Even Sami liked it, although hers accidentally broke at the end...The girls did a lovely job painting. We made it home just in time for the party!


The rest of the pictures are from Lucy's party. We had it in our neighborhood by the pool. Lots of kids went swimming until it rained too hard and they had to stop. Then we had donuts, played games, and ate a giant pizza. It was a great time!