Frogs, Monkeys and Butterflies… OH MY!

Howler monkeys, butterflies, frogs, birds and bugs. Those were the animals making all those sounds we heard.  Who in the world knew that butterflies together could make THAT LOUD of a noise?!

We caught glimpses of quite a few fireflies but I refused to go out and catch them in the pitch dark with huge frogs everywhere. Frogs scare me. Huge slimy, loud and fast frogs REALLY scare me.

The first morning we did what anyone else would do when staying right on the beach.  We woke up first thing and ran down the walkway as fast as our legs would take us to go see the waves and the rocks and oh…the seashells!  The girls got to work right away collecting seashells.  It was hilarious to watch their excitement because each seashell was the same and they were everywhere. This resulted in the girls dodging from one corner to another, screaming in delight and saying, “THIS IS THE BEST ONE EVER.” They repeated that over and over the whole morning. I was doing the same thing.

Being at the ocean was helping me to unwind.  I can bea tightly wound lady andcould feel myself starting to let go and physically unwind inside. To breathe. To be. Boy, that ocean sound does something to you!

The water here is the perfect temperature: not too warm and never too cool. If we wanted something a bit colder we would just hop in the infinity pool, which the girls just adored.

There are moments I believe you can freeze and store in your mind for future use.  Peaceful, calming, beautiful, simple moments that you can replay over and over in your mind.  You get to replay them when your life is out of spin and you need those moments to survive or just to go back in time to remember and grin.

This happened twice on our trip. The first one was on the beach by the house later on that day when the tide had come out and we saw the sand dollars. Cameron was fast asleep, along with Tyler, so Abby and I snuck out to see the low tide beach. We both screeched with excitement when we came down and saw that, yes, there really were sand dollars everywhere!

Along with crabs, so we had to be quite careful!

We collected as many as we could and then our eyes caught and looked at the ocean.  The waves were coming faster and stronger.  Abby started running towards the ocean on my right, with me trying to keep up with her. I saw the jungle in the distance behind her, the ocean in front of her, the cool soft sand on her feet. The sound of her feet flying as fast as they could take her with a pitter patter pitter patter. Her HUGE smile and then jumping into the waves.

She was wearing the bathing suit she SWORE she needed to have for Panama: the brown zebra print with pink lining. Boy, did she have to have that suit and she wore it with pride.

“I am the master!” She screamed, “Master of the waves! I can do it all on my own!” And she jumped in and out of the waves grinning as wide as I have ever seen that kid grin.

That is one of my moments I have stored in my mind.

The other one involves Cameron, Arturo and a rickety old fishing boat. I can’t wait to tell you all about that.

And if you want to see a video of the girls collecting sand dollars, the house’s private beach and a yummy lobster dinner eaten by 2 brave girls…click here.

Tags: panama

Comments are closed.