Monday, 5/14, Morning/Day

We went to Starbucks (just Aaron & I) as usual but instead of running, we took a little break and just had coffee. There is this one family (father, son & daughter) that has been at Starbucks daily since we've been going and Aaron & I have talked about them often because they seem like the happiest people on earth. The daughter is around 14-16 years old, the boy is about 9-10 years, I think... they look like a family that likes surfing... I think the reason they caught our eye was that the kids generally seem SO happy and at peace to hang out with their dad every morning. But this morning, we noticed something we hadn't.... as they each got their breakfast, they closed their eyes and said a prayer. Aaron & I both looked at each other and both said something like "awww" . After coffee, we drove back to the condos and told the kids we would rent paddle boards today. They were excited! We decided to make life simpler, that we should just rent them from a local rental place really close by and just paddle board around our condo. It isn't the best place to do it because of all the coral reefs, but the boys did great overcoming the obstacles. It took 4 people to carry the 2 boards from the rental shop though... the paddle boards are HUGE. I guess we are not used to carrying them for very long, since when we've rented them at Elk Lake, they have it right there at the lake. This experience was also different for the boys since paddle boarding on a still lake is very peaceful and much easier.... With the waves, and the wind pushing them away from shore, it was a bit more of a scary experience (at least for me). I ended up leaving Aaron in charge of the whole thing and laying out by the pool while the girls played with their beach balls between the hot tub and the pool. At one point, Michael got on the paddle board and somehow crashed into Calvin, and, at the same time, a huge wave knocked him off his board right into the corals. He suffered some minor lacerations, but thankfully, Aaron was able to bandage it up and he was good to go again for a while. The all day rental at the local rental place was $35 per day, although we only used the boards for about 3-4 hours total. It was still a good experience and probably a lot better than going to Whaler's Village and getting a surf lesson from one of the "activities" booth. Aaron went on a bike ride in the afternoon while I stayed at the condo with the kids and played another round of golf tournament. This time, Noah was the big winner.