Today started off absolutely horrible.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1:00-ish this morning I woke up with a
horrible migraine headache. I don’t know
what would cause a migraine in the middle of the night but it hurt, made me
sick to my stomach and left me immobile in bed. This headache lasted nearly 3 hours! What a complete waste of a perfectly good
vacation night. Just as my headache was
subsiding enough for me to fall back to sleep Quinten woke up screaming and
started wandering around the condo. I
got up, gave him a hug and just put him back to bed where he slept the rest of
the night.
I don’t really know what time everyone else woke up but everyone was
awake and breakfast was nearly ready at 7:30 am when I woke up. The boys were already bouncing off the walls
of the little condo. The anticipation of
swimming was thick in the air as the boys had been looking forward to getting
wet since they first glimpsed the pools Sunday morning; actually they’ve been
anticipating the pools since before we left Provo. But the pools didn’t open until 10:00 am
(9:00 am for adults only).
With the time before swimming we had our morning devotional and the
boys got to play around. I showed them
the short movie compilation of “Beware The Giant” and that got them fired up to
play another tickle war but I didn’t want to do that this morning. We only had about an hour before the pool
opened and the boys played until they decided to put their swimsuits on. Then we began the process of applying
sunblock to each boy. Michelle and I
decided to try the coconut oil which is supposed to have a SPF of 4. It may have worked if we hadn’t gone in the
water but after a short swim we came
back with red shoulders.
The boys were so excited when 10:00 am rolled around and we were
barely able to contain them inside the condo.
If the law allowed unsupervised boys in the pool we wouldn’t have seen
our boys the rest of the day! However,
we all managed to go down to the water together. We each got a special pool towel and then they jumped
in the “lazy river”. We played in the
“lazy river” for awhile but Quinten wouldn’t let go of me. I also had Aleky who was not sure about the
float tube he had and wouldn't go very far from my side. Michael clung to Michelle for dear life and
was having no fun at all. Strange,
considering the incredible desire to get in the water. David and Donovan had no problems enjoying
the water and swimming like fish. But as
the boys got cold, the temperature outside was only in the 70’s when we jumped in the
water, we switched to the main pool.
The boys thought the main pool was great because they could jump in
from the side instead of entering on the stairs. They swam for a little bit but vacated the
pool when they discovered the heated spa nearby. They played in there for the rest of the
morning. Aleky tried to go back to the
main pool but no one would be his swim buddy so he came back and enjoyed the
warmth of the heated pool. Finally, we
called it a morning, dried off and went back upstairs for lunch.
Once again the boys were bouncing off the walls in a matter of minutes. We ate cheese and bean burritos for lunch and then Quinten, who nearly fell asleep while eating lunch, took a nap. We tried to enforce a quiet time with little success. Part of the success of quiet time requires some policing and Michelle and I decided to take naps, just like Quinten. Michelle woke up first to face the barrage of boys. I wasn’t too far behind. The boys couldn’t wait to go back downstairs for another round of pool fun. So everyone geared up for a second foray into the waters.
We hit the “lazy river” a second time and spent most of our time floating around and around. The boys were much braver the second time around and it was warmer and much more enjoyable. Then we headed to the north pool. Once again David was thrilled by the chance to jump into the pool and spent about 10 minutes of nothing but “cannon balls” into the pool from the side. The other boys only briefly graced the larger pool and then found themselves in the heated smaller pool. I turned on the jets and that also activated the waterfall. The boys thought going behind and under the waterfall was great fun. Once again, the boys protested the ended of the pool session but quickly dried off and headed back upstairs.
The boys did a quick shower rinse while Michelle prepared a yummy
tuna casserole for dinner. The boys
fought over who got to help fix dinner and who was setting the table. No one seemed to fight over who was supposed
to clean up the bedrooms or pick up the books and other stuff off the
floor. After dinner we wanted to go see
the lights up on Fremont St. but we just couldn’t get the boys moving. The light shows don’t start until dusk (about
8:00 pm) and the boys must have been getting tired. So we got out the door about 7:55 for the
8:00 pm show. Obviously we didn’t make
it so we just stopped at the store and picked up a few needed supplies and came
back to the condo. The boys got ready
for bed, wrote/drew in their journals and went right to bed. We didn’t even have to fight anyone
tonight…except Gidean. He had two good
naps and wasn’t ready for bed right away so he went to bed a little later and
enjoyed exploring the condo without any boys tripping over him or taking away
his toys.
The boys had a real educational experience today. They learned a lot about modesty, especially
in relation to bikinis! The boys first
noticed bikini girls from our balcony so we thought we’d take the opportunity
to explain a little about modesty and free agency to our boys. We tried to explain clearly and
thoroughly that some people don’t have our same standards and others simply
make different choices from us. We also
explained that we don’t chasten people about their choices.
And when the problem (of modesty) confronts us we make the choice now to
look the other way (I guess we could have told them to turn the other cheek ;-)
). David struggled with this concept and
we had to remind him to stop staring at the bikini girls. We talked to him when we returned to the
condo and he was quite distraught. He
told us he couldn’t stop starring at them and thought that maybe he should have
told them to put some more clothes on.
We reminded him of our conversation earlier and told him that he was okay but
that we should plan and prepare ourselves for the future.
