And so we went to Panama

So my little sister Emily fell in love with a Panamanian.  And they got married so we packed up and went down to Panama for the wedding.  It was the first extended vacation we have taken besides visiting family.  Well I guess this one we were visiting family too, but we stayed in a hotel instead of grandma's house.

We had to make sure we brought everything we needed including stuffed elephants.

We got into Panama late, took a taxi to our hotel where we had reserved a two bedroom suite.  And we get there and they didn't have our room, but they could give us two rooms.  Annoying but whatever. Until they wanted to charge us more.  Fortunately my now brother in law Eric came and set them straight.  The next day we moved down the street to my sister's hotel which was nicer, and if we had to split our family up, for the same price we might as well go to the nicer hotel that wasn't trying to fleece us.  And then we got some really nice views.

The first afternoon we went to the Panama Canal.  They had this cool museum.  It showed some of the boats it used in the construction.  This one would dig up the bottom.

They had lots of cool bugs there.  Some of these bugs made me say wow! some made me say yay for living in a place that freezes every winter so the bugs are not gigantic.

 

The kids were super excited to see their uncle Marty.

 

We got to find out what percentage our body was in water.  And to get a random fact about the Panama Canal using that percentage.

I turned a corner and saw this guy sitting next to someone else and he looked kind of creepy, but then I realized that he looked creepy because he was fake.  Then the other one moved,  I jumped so high, and realized my mom (I couldn't see her face when I turned the corner) had sat down next to the fake guy.  Totally creeped me out. She couldn't have done it better if she had planned it.  Here is my mom next to her fake guy friend.

The kids got to pretend they were driving a boat through the canal.

And here is the actual canal.  It wasn't much larger than the locks on the Hudson river, but it still has huge boats go through.  We didn't get to see any boats go through, which I was kind of sad about I wanted to see the huge boat wedge in there.

Then that evening we went to visit Old Town.  They had some souvenir shops.  They also had some fun paintings and this statue which is all over town. 

I also made everyone stop to look in this church, because I love looking at churches.  The front was covered in gold.

The next day we went to the beach.  We went to a beach a couple hours away, but it was a beautiful drive and it was fun to see the country side.  We also got to see these awesome floppy eared cows.

The kids loved the beach.  It was beautiful, and we were the only ones around. The waves were really strong so they all had to hold an adult's hand while in the water.  Minna went in with out an adult and got pulled under. My sister Emily went in and pulled her out and got all beat up in the process.   The girls also loved collecting shells and making little sandcastles.    The boys also played soccer, which mostly was everyone against Eric who handily won.

 And some pelicans on a boat

That evening we had a Barrington side family dinner.  We even had a band come over and play us a special song just for us. 

The next day we tried to go to the zoo.  But it started raining which was fine. Then it starting pouring like crazy.  Most every one ran for cover, not Minna she embraced the rain.

After a crazy drive back through one part was like driving through a river we changed clothes and went to the largest mall in Latin America instead.  They had animals all over to let you know which wing you were in.

And they had a carousel.  The kids favorite part.  Either that or the cake we got at a kiosk.

The next two days were the wedding which will be another blog post for itself.  Sunday we went to church in Panama we were lucky to find (I mean my dear sister Emily found for us) a Spanish English ward.  Which meant they had translators.  I don't know if they were called or just do it when needed but that was such a wonderful service they gave us.  Translating is hard work.  Afterwards when we rounded our kids up from primary we found Joshua playing soccer with several boys in a primary room.

That afternoon we went down to the walking path by the beach where there were some playgrounds.  One of them seemed less like a playground and more like a gym. It even had exercise instructions.

 

Here are a few other things we saw in Panama. They had these buses that were painted up really crazy.  They were part of the public transportation.  The bus drivers could paint the buses however they wanted.

 

They also had this awesome church I loved driving by.

 

And this sign was always reassuring it meant we found the right road where our hotel is.  (We brought our GPS and it was very helpful.)

 

 

 

Then unfortunately our vacation had to come to an end.  We had to get up super early (5:30 eastern time) and we got home super late (Midnight eastern time). The girls both fell asleep at different times.

But we made it home and we had a marvelous time.