May 5, 2025
We’re all in one room here at the resort with the kids on a pull out couch only 10 feet from our bed. Last night, both kids migrated to our bed and made Kyle so uncomfortable that he himself migrated to the pullout couch. It could be the time change or the later than usual bedtime, but we all slept past 8am so had a slow start this morning.
After dropping the boys off at the kids club, Kyle and I again went to the gym for a bit. We then went to the beach and took a walk along the shoreline. There is a coral reef surrounding the beach so there are tons of shells, coral pieces and sea creatures in the shallows and on shore. We found a huge crown of thorns starfish that we flipped over with a stick to check if it was still alive (we think it was?). Sadly we didn’t have our phones with us to take a picture to show Lenny as these starfish are strangely one of his favorite animals. Or at least an animal he talks about A LOT thanks to an Octonauts movie. We also saw a few pufferfish swimming along the shoreline and hoped the would be around later to show the kids.
Len had a great day at the kids club where he took a swim class and played a bunch of games. Ollie was the oldest kid there today and not pleased about it. But, when I picked him up shortly after lunch, he was happily dancing to Gangnam style and asked to stay for a few extra songs so he could continue dancing.
We then made our way to the main pool for more swimming time. There were lots of flips, kid tosses and monster fights. Ollie went on Kyle’s shoulders in the pool, looked like he was walking on water and yelled, “I’m Jesus!” Kyle then started tossing the kids off of his shoulders so they would do a backflip. They loved this. Then Kyle and I both attempted Len’s “front flip” into the pool and both felt nauseous after one flip. Len’s swimming is improving but still can’t be entirely trusted. He will “monkey” around the side of the pool where he grips the edge and makes his way along the wall. He bragged that he can monkey around the huge pool in one go. He started but then abruptly quit feigning hunger.
Len went back to the room to nap while me and Ollie went critter hunting in the ocean. There were lots to see and chase. We saw a few crabs in the shallow water that Ollie named “transformers” as they seemed to fold up into little tight balls. We walked along the beach in search of the crown of thorns starfish Kyle and I saw earlier, but sadly it was gone. We assume someone from the resort moved it as they are super venomous.
We then found a weird shaped rock that ended up being squishy and not a rock– it was a sea cucumber! I had no idea if they were dangerous so asked Ollie to not pick it up, but he did clean the sand off of it so we could get a better look. We noticed out of one end there were white strings hanging out and we avoided those too. We kept walking and found more hermit crabs– some very small ones the size of a nickel and one bigger one in a decrepit looking old shell.
As we were leaving the water, we found another sea cucumber. I walked ahead while Ollie took a closer look, and apparently a touch, of the sea cucumber. He was soon fussing and stressing as he ran up behind me. He had the white filaments from the sea cucumber over his arm and on his hand. They weren’t stinging or hurting him but these things were incredibly sticky. We struggled to get them off his hand until we ran to the towel to rub them off. We failed at getting them of his swim-shirt, though, and they’re still on there even after a sink scrub at the room. We learned the white bits were expellable innards called Cuvierian organs that they shoot out of their butt. Apparently they can entangle or trap smaller predators but luckily they proved to just be a nuisance to us.
At dinner, we played a quick game of Uno where Len successfully migrated from Kyle’s team to Ollie’s. We ate at one of the seafood restaurants, but the boys both had spaghetti with tomato sauce for dinner. Ollie slurped a noodle so fiercely that it slapped him directly in the eyeball, leading to a few minutes worth of whining and moaning. This led Kyle to then tell the story of how more than 5 times in his life he’s put toothpaste on his toothbrush so aggressively that toothpaste flicked off the end and into his eye causing a painful sting. He swears he’s not alone in this struggle and that aggressive toothpaste application is a universal problem.
After a double scoop ice cream dessert for the boys (coconut and chocolate for Ollie, lemon and chocolate for Lenny), we walked home along the shoreline hunting for crabs by phone flashlight. The kids were near tears when initially only Kyle and I caught sight of the crabs before they quickly disappeared into their burrows. Eventually, thankfully, the kids caught sight of a few crabs so we all went home happy.
We saw 5 porch lizards night when we got back to our room. Then we were surprised to find 2 more lizards/geckos in our room. Kyle considered trying to catch them in a cup to put them outside, but after seeing how speedy they were, we determined a catch and release was not in the cards for us tonight. Len mentioned that lizards are good at killing bugs so we went to sleep hoping our room lizards took care of any sneaky mosquitos.
