October break is just coming to an end and we've had a super memorable week! We found a really great deal on a local hotel here, so we booked it for two nights. The promo was called a "cultural getaway," and featured a 3-hour tour of Manila. We've had many 3 hour "tours" of Manila (also called "traffic jams") so we chose not to avail of that.
Instead, we spent the majority of our time in and around the pool. This hotel has a pool that rivals the ones we swam in in Mexico. It was gorgeous and even had two water slides. Mackenzie's first trip featured a look of terror as she zipped down the slide. Thankfully, she surfaced giggling and squealing with delight. So over the course of three days, she probably went down the slide 50 more times.
Bella was less interested, and a little mortified, as she went down the slide. It worked out fine because the life guard wouldn't let her go down anyway. Right next to the pool was the perfect playground. Bella split her time between the pool, the swings, the playground slide, and the sandbox. I trailed her with a bottle of sunscreen the entire time. (The hotel is right on the ocean so the kids didn't have that "protective" layer of pollution keeping them from burning.)
When we weren't in the pool, we were usually eating. We headed down the road to the Mall of Asia, a hu-uge mall here. There, I saw the most ingenious of ideas.
You ready?
It's good.
There are sensors above each parking spot that light up red when unavailable and green when available! The mall parking situation on a daily basis is comparable to US malls on Christmas Eve, so you can imagine how brilliant this feature is.
Anyway, we ate some yumm-o Mediterranean food and then enjoyed some ice cream. When I say enjoyed, I mean this...
Bella was especially enjoying the delectable ice cream. Actually, she and I looked alike, but the chocolate residue on the face is just much cuter on a little girl.
At night, we'd let the girls watch a movie in bed with popcorn. We watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Enchanted and Peter Pan. So fun!
On our last day, Deacon joined us. Oh, did I not mention that the first two days were just the oldest four in our family? Deacon stayed with our good friends here while we had fun in the sun. He had a great time and we had a great time with the girls.
On the last day though, he joined us poolside and he jumped right into the fun. The pool had a kiddie end that gradually got deeper like ocean on a beach. Deacon charged right in and loved getting hit in the face with the water.
I laughed at this one because it looks like our little guy is relieving himself on Grumpy.
He didn't last long though, and crashed in Josh's arms for a sweet moment.
Anyway, I'm so thankful that we had such a blast. Josh and I kept saying, "That was so much fun!" Up until now, any family getaway was fun, but usually it was even more work than being at home. But this time, there was very little work and we just spent the entire time enjoying our kids. Loved it!
**********
We play in our volleyball league semi-finals (and hopefully finals) tomorrow, so we had to practice today and yesterday. Since we had to bring the girls back early from break, we decided to make it a fun over-nighter. After practice yesterday, we headed to the mall. While us coaches waited for our Sbarros to bake, the girls had to complete a scavenger hunt on camera. Each picture was volleyball related. I'm working on uploading the pics to facebook, so I won't mess with them right now.
Maybe just one. I don't remember why this "dog pile in the dog food aisle" is volleyball-related...
After the mall, we headed back to the house of two of our players. There we played a mess of Korean games. They were mostly concentration games, but twice as challenging when they are in another language. There were a LOT of laughs. Hopefully, all the team bonding will carry over to our games tomorrow and we'll dominate a team that we've beaten once in the last 10 years!
