Ice Cream and Swimming!

Our first night in Panama City we decided to call this 'vacation' our ICE CREAM VACATION! Every night we would eat ice cream! No questions!! It was our deal. They were thrilled to indulge and even more thrilled to know there was more ice cream to come.
HC was enjoying her goggles and her boogie board. We found out our hotel had beach access via a 20 minute boat ride. Sometimes when you read a brochure it is the things they leave out that makes you wonder. Well this was the case here. They said you could request an umbrella from the front desk and you could not bring your own beverages (you had to buy theirs on the boat) but feel free to bring food. That is it.

In my mind I had this sneaking suspicion that there were no chairs. I wasn't sure but... it didn't sound promising. Asking the hotel staff was ZERO help at all! It is like they didn't want the word to get out or something. Their answers were very vague. So I didn't go. The kids used their beach gear in the pool instead. Later on one of the other families came by to say hello and shared their 'beach' experience. There were no chairs, no potty and no restaurant. It was just them and the sand. Then they had to wait over 45 minutes for the next boat to take them back on another 20 minute ride! Don't you love it when you listen to that little voice inside sometimes??? I was thrilled I didn't bother to see what it was like! The kids and I would have been so disappointed to have wasted such precious swim time on a wild goose chase for the beach. So we swam in the pool!
My 2 had full access to this pool for a few hours! The hotel had 3 pools. I guess you have to have something to keep the people coming back! Because once they take the boat ride - they do not go back to the beach!
Every time HC would get in/out to grab a new toy she would organize her things! I found this to be hilarious because she would take her time carefully placing every single piece in it's proper place!
JB trying out part of his snorkel.
They were both leery of putting their faces under the water very much. They would carefully place it at surface level and then quickly pull it back out! That was our experience until we came to this bigger pool. We found our friends were at this one and so we joined in the fun.
JB and his buddy Reid (not pictured) would run and splash into this shallow part of the pool. By the end of day 2 at the pool - JB was completely submerging himself in the water.
HC went off to play with some new friends she made and asked me to come see what she was doing. I walked over to find her jump in and this is what I saw! She was going all the way under!!!
She really became brave while I wasn't looking. That is the good side of being with your peers. They spur you to try to push past your fears. Boy did she!

They both found some friends that drove them to try harder! I love that! They had a great time exploring things Mommy and Daddy could not convince them to try!