Trip to Panama!

Panama! Let me tell you about Panama! Wow! What a fun adventure!

So our whole purpose in going to Panama was to be able to attend the temple. Plus the flights and lodging were cheaper there than it would be to travel anywhere else. I will say the MONKEYS were a HUGE added bonus!

 TERMS:

Temple=A beautiful building, that we consider to be the most sacred place on earth. It is more special then a church building. It is dedicated to the Lord. Anyone is welcome to visit the temple, though there are moral and religious requirements/standards necessary to enter.

Ward=Large congregation of members, that attends church service at the same time, and are from the same geographical region. 

The city of Panama is quite the opposite from Saba! Skyscrapers, tons of traffic, several lane roads, business, lots of lights, and signs and people! Haha You get the idea.

We were overjoyed that the apartment complex we were staying in had a Christmas tree! Yay! (We used AirBnB). We arrived on Saturday and attended church on Sunday. The only English service near us was actually right next to the temple! So we were able to walk the grounds as a family, see the Nativity (set up at the church building) and share with the kids why the Temple was so important. 

Monday we enjoyed the city a little bit. There was a park just down the street that had a huge playground, and huge nativity characters. We enjoyed our pool and even got some Dunkin Donuts! Yay!

We made an effort to go back to the park nativity one of the evenings, as it was lit up and beautiful! The kids were in awe! This was the 1^st Christmas lights they had seen this season. I’m really glad we got to go, because it ended up being the only Christmas lights we saw this year. [When we got back to Saba, the power was out across the island. And when the power came back on our car wasn’t working… so we couldn’t drive and see lights, and we didn’t have any. ]

During the week Matthew and I would each take turns going to the temple. While one person was gone, the other person had the kiddos at the indoor play place the apartment complex had. Then we connected with a ward member we had met on Sunday and she offered to have her girls babysit for us! Matthew and I were able to go to the temple a couple times together!

Another day we made it an effort to visit Monkey Island!! I took so many pictures, only to find out that my phone had maxed out on pictures and didn’t save the last bunch I took. But we had monkey’s eating out of our hands! Even Sadie fed the monkeys!

 (We rode on the actual panama canal, and saw some large cargo ships come through!)

Sadie thought the fruit pieces were for her. Just as well. She thinks she is part monkey. 

It was so much fun, being together, as a family, attending the temple after so so long, exploring new places, and letting down our hair after a full semester of hard work.