Easter in Palau

The Easter bunny brought kids!   Jake got almost a full week of just play, play, and more play.  There is a family from Guam that has a boat here and they come once a month to work on it, getting it ready to sail.  They have a 6 year old boy and a 9 year old girl.  We finally met them on their trip this time around and Jake and Charlie pretty much spent every day together.  They were here over Easter, so we had an egg hunt up at the Yacht Club/Sam’s Tours.  The kids ran around with so much energy as if they’d already eaten that candy, trying to find the eggs.  Jake is a trip to watch…he couldn’t find his own head if it wasn’t attached.  He gets so excited and runs around looking left and right, up and down and never actually sees anything.  But he did manage to find a few eggs (with a little help) and one of them even had a dollar in it (He’s saving up for his very own iPad…he says he only needs $700, so every little bit helps).  They did a second hunt and Charlie’s dad hid one of them in the water.  Jake came running to Andy and said, “Daddy?  Can I jump in and get it?”  Andy said, “Sure”  and off he went.  He never missed a beat…ran right down the dock and into the water to get that egg.

Throughout the week the boys spent time swimming, “pulling” (they lay on the paddle board and hold onto a ski rope while we pull them with the dinghy), playing on each others boats and then we topped it off with a huge play date with both Charlie and Carla as well as Selma (6) and Magnus (3) from another boat, Hero.  If anyone knows me, they know I’m not exactly the kind of mom who usually invites 4 kids over to play…but these kids are really sweet and well behaved and they all played well together, despite the age differences.  The boys played Hero Factory while the girls decided to set up shop and “sell” the parts to the boys so they could make their creatures.  This is a typical scenario for boat kids.  They meet, get to know each other in about 8 seconds, then play as hard as they can because they don’t know when they’ll get to do it again.  Unfortunately, Charlie and Carla were headed to the Rock Islands, we were headed to Nikko Bay, and Selma and Magnus were leaving Palau for adventures elsewhere.  The good news is, Charlie and Carla will be back next month (and the next, and the next), so there will be many more play dates in the future!