September 23, 2025
Everyone was worn out from all the car time yesterday. We had a slow morning and eventually made our way to breakfast. It was a plated breakfast day so Lenny was disappointed. Then we headed back to the room for home school where Ollie wrote a letter to his 1st grade teacher and class, Mrs. Alyssa. Knowing school is back in session at home has left him a bit sad and missing his friends. Lenny and I read some books on his iPad and then did the normal math work. As school was wrapping up, the boys squeezed themselves onto one small chair to listen to a story read by one of the learning apps.
Ollie and I headed to the spa so he could get a pedicure and I could get a manicure. The same woman that had done Kayleen and Lenny yesterday was working there, Puto. She started with Ollie who was keen to get his iPad for some free time. I convinced him to talk to me for a while first instead. He told me about some of his friends at school, who is good at soccer, who is nice, and who could be mean sometimes.
Halfway through my manicure Puto looked up with a distressed face and said she felt terrible and could not see clearly. I was very surprised but told her it was totally fine and helped clean up before packing up Ollie. As I was finishing, she ran out of the room and did an impressive catwalk on the koi pond stone wall to get to the bathroom with lighting speed.
We met Lenny and Kayleen back at the room and walked to the Citrus and Vine for lunch. They had nice smoothies and sandwiches on the menu we had noticed when getting coffee. On the walk there Ollie spotted a fallen coconut, which tied him with Lenny for coconut points. We saved it till after lunch to attempt to open it. At lunch we had a tic-tac-toe tournament to keep the boys entertained and Kayleen was crowned the champion.
We eventually got the coconut opened but during the process heard no liquid inside which did not make us hopeful. Our suspicions were confirmed when it cracked open and a shriveled yellow sphere of coconut meat popped out.
We grabbed our Scoopys once back at the hotel and headed back to the grocery to grab a few things. Once we got to the main road, we saw a man with a long stick whacking something in the middle of the road. As we got closer Kayleen and I realized it was a large snake, at least 6 feet. He must have chased it out of his shop and from the distance he was keeping I assume it was poisonous. Somehow the boys missed all of this! Ollie taking his navigation duties so seriously!!!
We pulled over and agreed to double back so they could see it and we could try to grab a photo. By the time we arrived back the snake was squirming on the side of the road in a ball and most of the commotion was over. We got a not-so-great picture but the memory of the whole event will last a lifetime.
For dinner we went to one of the places that gives kids the boot by 7PM, Sahaja. It has been really nice to walk to dinner from our hotel each night. We had made this reservation when walking to our lunch today at Citrus and Vine, 5:30PM sharp.
The views from the patio were beautiful with the sun setting and the weather is very pleasant when the sun goes down, not super humid like Hong Kong or Malaysia. The food was great and we are still amazed at how inexpensive it is. The area has plenty of small, but nice hotels, yet the prices are not inflated. My delicious tuna meal was 9 USD!
To have a nice relaxing meal, with a cocktail, the boys got the special treat of playing Angry Birds on my phone halfway through dinner. They were delighted so this meal had something for everyone!
