Park Adventure!

Question For all you Columbus folks (and anyone else who happens to be reading this!): What do you get if you cross Monkey Joe's, Cascade Hills' indoor playground and the McDonald's playplace on Veteran's Parkway?

Answer: Pointe Noire's "Park Adventure" and a fantastic way to spend an afternoon!

During Christmas break, we ventured out with some other families (moms/kids) to this fun indoor playground. Thought you might like to see some pictures.

A few ways it's similar to places in America:

• snack bar!
• fun!
• paid money to get in
• slides!
• multi colored brightness
• had to take off your shoes
• attendants walking around making sure kids aren't being too crazy

A few ways it's different from places in America:

• the snackbar served omelettes and beignets and multi-flavors of Fanta
• LOUD (indoor playplaces are usually loud in America....but not this loud)
• it opened at 2:00 (they kindly let us in at 1:30...but we had to sit on little stools in the dark until 2:00)
• kids got hot (again, they get hot at these types of places in America...but this was a special hot! - thus all the water drinking.)
• little nets are given out to help you slide faster (America could take a lesson!)

It's kind of incredible when we get to do things that are so familiar and "normal" off the ship.  It's been fun to find things here in Pointe Noire that are so enjoyable and delightful - things that remind us of home and are special treats when we get to experience them - things like coke and stuffed crust pizza at Carnivore...things like walking on the beach (no, not something we got to do in Columbus....but a favorite activity on vacations!) and going to an indoor play place.

And it's fun to discover new things that are so enjoyable and delightful - things like fresh baguettes and "baby cheese" (little triangles of "Laughing Cow" cheese that are available in the states....we just never bought it!)...luxuries like buying limes in the market to squeeze in our coke and knowing how to ask for ice in French.

Every good and perfect gift - new and old, familiar and soon-to-become familiar, acknowledged and unacknowledged - every single gift - is from above.

Surely there will be more to come.