Vacation Highlights

by Amy

Wow...where has the time gone? Thanks, Julia for encouragement to get back to the blog! :) I can hardly believe that our vacation was almost 6 weeks ago and I haven't posted pics yet! So much has happened over the last few weeks, that it will take several posts to catch you up! But, since school is starting on Monday, I hope to have more time to blog (more about school starting later) Now...back to our super-fab, really-fun family vacation!

We went down to a HUGE city in the southern part of our country. We had never been there before, so since we could get such cheap airline tickets, (under $600 for 5 round-trip tickets!) we decided to check it out! It was great!! This city had tons of fun things to do with kids! We were there for six full days and only returned to the hotel for naps twice. Needless to say, our kids were worn out by the end of the day!

We spent one whole day in a really big mall. How could a family of 5 (with three kids, 5 and under) spend an entire day in mall, you ask? Well, this mall was full of rare finds (rare in Asia that is.) It had a huge bookstore with a pretty good selection of English books; a large "Chuck-E-Cheese" type arcade for kids, a really nice movie theater, Burger King, Starbucks, Dairy Queen, and a Toys R Us! We spent at least two hours in Toys R Us playing. My parents gave the kids money for their birthdays, so they all got to pick out a favorite new toy -- within reason, of course!

Another day we went to a huge indoor play area called Fun Dazzle. It's like a McDonalds play area on steroids. It has big slides, tons of things to climb and rope bridges. My kids (along with the two other children there on a Wednesday morning) found it to be a great place to play hide 'n seek! They had a blast and were worn out afterwards. So, Brad took the kids back to the hotel for one of their two naps of the week while I headed off to scope out IKEA....

I was never a big fan of IKEA in America. I always felt like once you started waking, you could never get out! It's the same way in Asia-land, but now I love it! I love all the decorating ideas they have and their prices are not bad -- especially for those hard-to-find-in-Asia items -- like candles, measuring cups, bakeware, cute dishes, serving pieces, and organizational things. It was a treat to feel like I could take my time and browse.

Another day we spent at a super fun science museum! My kids loved it! All of the exhibits were in English and Asianese, so that was nice. Their favorite part was getting to "go to work," as Peter put it. They had a room full of hands-on kid activities -- similar to Kid Zone, for anyone from Louisville! My kids loved getting to be construction workers. They pushed wheel barrels, pulled levies, and built walls. It was great fun!

We also go to celebrate Brad's birthday the second day of our vacation. It was fun for him to be able to get super yummy food for his birthday and get to drink Starbucks coffee! Mmmm! After a fun, adventure-filled day, we returned to our hotel to find a birthday cake waiting for him. I guess, since they had to copy our passports, they made it a point to notice birthdays. :) Even though Asian cakes look way better than they taste (they are spongy and not very sweet), it the thought that counts!

Here's Brad the morning of his birthday, posing in the hall with the kiddos!

It rained all but one and a half days of our vacation. In our city, rain = no taxis, which means it's huge pain to go anywhere! But, in this Mega city, our hotel was literally four steps from the entrance of the subway. That was beautiful!! The rain didn't dampen our plans a bit! And, we even got to enjoy a boat ride one a "rain-free" day....

Well, I'm not sure that's all our vacation details, but it's all I can remember 6 weeks after it! To all of you faithful Morello Madness checkers, thanks for hangin' in there! I'll try not to wait another 6 weeks.... Savannah's birthday celebrations and more --- coming soon!