Darren awoke at 515 am to a beautiful sunrise in the West, not a cloud in the sky nor the slightest breeze. Santa had made his rounds and there were full stockings at the end of all the beds. Jacob stirred after 6 and immediately emptied his stocking and came to my bedside to report all the amazing things he had discovered! After waking his brother and getting the video camera up and running, we filmed the entire procedure of everything a second time! Jacob was so excited to get a zhu zhu hamster toy and a schwack of candy/gum/chocolate. He was set for about 2 weeks with his haul. Santa was generous as ever with a Mandarin as well as a banana this year! He must have known we had ‘gone tropical’. Nicholas was very pleased with his haul from Santa as well but was still deep down hoping for a new video game for his Nintendo. He was a bit disappointed it did not make an appearance in his stocking but there was still hope later when we opened presents.
Darren and Krista got a few unique things as well but we all had to get moving quickly as Mass was to begin at 8am sharp and we needed to be gone by 730 to beat the rush. We wolfed down some breakfast and were out the door at 720 arriving at 735 and were the 8th people in the building… Good thing we hurried. After some brief family photos outdoors, Mass flew by in under an hour concluding with all the children being invited to play percussion instruments for the concluding song – Joy to the World. Nicholas smartly grabbed a tambourine and Jacob – his lifelong favourite – a drum. Along with the other 10 children aged 2-9, there was indeed a din and a thunderous round of applause for them at the conclusion. The jury is still out on whether it was because the song/mass had ended or whether the children garnered the attention…
We returned home and had some brunch and made a few Skype calls before settling down to the task at hand, putting a dent in almost 60 gifts under the tree. With cameras in hand, we took almost 2 hours to unwrap and clean up everything. The highlights were certainly of Nicholas opening up his new Nintendo game Pokémon Silver – it was complete joy as he lay on his back wriggling about clutching it to his chest as he had been asking for it for about 6 months’ time. Jacob got two more Zhu Zhu accessories and is now set with everything for his adventures. His cousin Sienna got one as well so now they had all sorts of adventures to have between them. The boys got a couple of pool toys as well as a big jug of army men to play with.
We ate a quick lunch and headed to the beach for a couple hours. We had done this three years ago in the Cook Islands and wanted to go swim in the ocean. The wind picked up dramatically and the waves were enormous. The boys brought their boogie boards and we jumped in the ocean and tried our luck at surfing for a while. Darren finally mustered up the courage to go as the ocean had been chilly the last week, but today – was boiling! I had forgotten how alive the sea was and tossed you around throwing salt water in your eyes and getting sand absolutely everywhere – yes everywhere! After a couple hours of swimming and playing with a Waboba ball ( bouncy ball that skips off water and flies like the wind ), Tim Darren Nicholas and Jacob went to Tim’s for a bit of X-Box with the new Connects attachment where 3 little video cameras sense your every move so you no longer need to hold any objects – it just senses where you are and what you are doing. After a couple games of bowling, we headed home and jumped in the pool and then showered to get rid of the sand. We tackled the bedroom nightmare that had gifts and clothes strewn about haphazardly and began to pack for our next trip tomorrow morning to Adelaide to see George Melissa and family for 3 days.
Many of Devin and Melissa’s friends popped in for a visit and the pool party lasted until well into the late afternoon. After getting some food into the kids, we finally got them to bed around 9 and ourselves around 10. We are anxiously awaiting our next journey and getting on flight number 3/8 in the next 3 weeks. Thankfully this one is only 3 hours and not 15 like the last one. We are truly blessed for the adventures we have had thus far and look forward to many more great experiences in the days to come.
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