Recap of the last two weeks.

Besides Monday and Tuesday, last week was quite eventful for our uneventful lives.  Monday and Tuesday were spent catching up from our trip: cleaning the pool, doing housework, laundry  and blogging about the trip.  On Wednesday, Brent and the boys went camping with a co-worker while the girls and I enjoyed the quiet time with a movie night and a little shopping the next day at the "Mercadillo" our weekly street market.

Aug 15  Mercadillo

The purple purse and hat were what Kamree picked out for herself at the street market. 

 

Aug 14-15 Atazar Reservoir

Brent and the boys went with a few other families camping at Lake Piraguas.  They had to kayak across the lake up a finger for over an hour to get to where they planned to camp.   Morgan began sharing a kayak with his friend Mateo and another boy Luis.  But after struggling together rowing this kayak, and repeatedly hitting each other in the head with the oars they inevitably switched things up a bit with some older kids.

Here they are at their 4**** campsite eating dinner.  The boys were very disappointed that they weren't permitted to have a fire for hotdogs and marshmallows.

 

 

 In the morning, after surely a very comfortable night sleep, the bravest ones kayaked farther up the finger another half an hour for some cliff jumping. 

 

 

 

 

 Morgan being Morgan surprised everyone when he ran and jumped off this before anyone else.  Morgan keeps reminding me that it is a lot higher than I think! 

 

 

 

I guess since Morgan jumped off this monster Brent figured he should be able to brave it as well. Only 2 other kids (out of 12) besides Brent and Morgan  dared jumped off this. 



 

 

 

Aug 16 Parque Warner

 

We surprised the kids on Friday when we pulled up to the Warner Bros. amusement park.  It has been compared to Disneyland since it has cartoon characters walking around and driving around cars such as Scooby-doo, Tom and Jerry, Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny etc, and they also have lots of themed rides: Batman, Superman; however, most of the rides were more comparable to Lagoon's than Disney's.

 

These are the "Scooby Doo tea-cups"  in the Cartoon Village where all the younger kid rides are.  Morgan has taken over the wheel after being warned not to and so he was obviously having more fun than the others. 

 

Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of the "superfun", "superscary" or "superwet" rides!  As we were waiting for the gates to open we noticed a lot of people in swimsuits and assumed they must have a water park inside, but it wasn't until after waiting in line just a few minutes at one of the water rides we got drenched from being squirted by people on the ride that we understood. 

 

After a full 12 hour day we were entirely exhausted and ready to fall asleep in the car!!!!

 Aug 17  Entrepenas Reservoir

While we were at Parque Warner,  Brent's co-worker called and asked if we wanted to go boating with his brother who is a professional wakeboarder the next day.  So obviously, the next day we set out to this beautiful 30 mile long lake.

Here is Morgan going over the wake.  It really felt great to be on the water again and it was also nice that Brent didn't have to drive.  We were surprised by the relaxed boating laws here compared to what we are used to.  We asked where the orange flag was when the first wakeboarder crashed and the driver said "the what?" He also said he didn't think there was a law about kids needing to wear lifejackets on the boat.  There is also no law against driving within 75 yards of other boats.  He drove close enough to a stopped boat with a skier in the water that our wakeboarder had to cross the wake to avoid them. 

After boating the kids seemingly hadn't had enough of the water so they did a little cliff-jumping.  Morgan is just so graceful don't ya think?  This lake is popular with wakeboarders and most of these buoyed boats belong to people that only live in this small town during the summer to wakeboard. 

Aug 22 Brent's Birthday  

For Brent's birthday we went to dinner at Foster's Hollywood (American Food) since it was one of the few restaurants open around 7:30 at night.   Fortunately we were early birds so we had the place to ourselves for awhile. By the time we left around 8:30 there were two other families. 

This resistant swim band is what Brent made himself for his birthday.  He had planned to buy one and realized we had everything we needed to make one.  We have all greatly enjoyed swimming with it.

Aug 23 Fiestas Patronales Virgen de los Remedios

The next night, on Friday evening we went to the opening ceremonies of a neighboring town's festivities.   We felt quite out of place without being all dressed up. They began with a procession of a virgin statue and then they had some amazing fireworks which is the reason we went.





We unknowingly ended up sitting right across the road from where they set off the fireworks and so they were extremely loud, stinky and bright, but mesmerizing.  The show was quite amazing.