Panama day 6

Today was a good day. We all got up early. Kilee and I got up even earlier for a morning jog. Our first stop was to Lori Gibson’s house, a friend of my mom’s, who lives out in Gamboa, right on the canal. She was a neat lady with an amazing house and lots of little projects and businesses she is working on. Rick called her the Martha Stewart of Panama. I told her I want just a tenth of her creative mind. This is where we got the "weenies" that I will have to show you when I get home. They are these cool bracelets made by the Kuna Indians, but she sells them for them. The Today Show interviewed her when Matt Lauer was doing his special on Panama a few months ago.

From here we went to the Gamboa Resort to walk around for a bit. Wow, this is an amazing resort! It costs a whopping $250 a night to stay here! Gamboa is such a beautiful part of Panama—I can understand why they built a resort here. We snapped some shots then headed for a little jaunt in the jungle. My mom visits this "waterhole" as she calls it almost every time she comes. It’s a serene setting in the midst of the jungle with a little waterfall. It was GORGEOUS !!

Next stop was the Summit Botanical Gardens/Zoo. This too was such a fun place where we played with the monkeys and my brothers pestered the Cayman Crocs. There was a fun walk through this maze of giant bamboo chutes. The downpour hit us just as we approached the highlight of this stop, the turtles. My brothers were little boys again. It was as if the years rewound, the façade of adulthood was peeled away and all the personalities of all my siblings were born once again. Every single one of my brothers reached in a muddy, murky pond and caught a turtle. They were right proud of their accomplishment, though I’m sure the turtles felt differently. We even saw a wild Cayman croc staring at us from the pond. I don’t think I care to know how many more lurked in the murk below!

We were starving by this point so we got sushi and Subway—great combo, right? (They were next door to each other and we thought the sushi would take too long so we ordered Subway as well.)

We headed to the Albrook Mall once again, and once again I don’t feel like I got enough shopping time in! There is so much to see and we only had three hours so it is all a bit overwhelming. We got a few super cheap things, but the highlight was finding something perfect for my mom. We had wanted to give something special from the kids to Mom as a thank you for allowing all of us to come to her hometown and for paying for as much as she has for us. Nicole has loved this mosceda jewelry that my mom has and loves too. It is authentic to Panama, very hard to find and very expensive, but we found a jewelry store in the mall that had some! The man was so nice and he even let us custom design it in a way. We got some beautiful earrings that we had him add some pearls to and this necklace pendant made out of a real Panama Balboa coin. We picked a chain out and had him dip it in gold, so it was all gold-plated. He even gave us a discount, I think, because he liked Nicole! Salazar, was his name; he owned the store named after him. The jewelry is so beautiful and perfect for my mom! We were so excited that Nicole turned some heads as she did a happy jig around the mall. We are excited to present Mom with our gift and we will most likely give it to her tomorrow night. She has done so much for us to get us here and even since we’ve been here—paid for so many meals, today she bought us all weenies and paid for numerous admissions to events. I’m really blown away by her generosity. She planned it this way too; she has envelopes labeled for specific outings or dinners with money inside for the event. I look forward to giving just a small token of gratitude back to her with this jewelry tomorrow. The girls are all excited, but I don’t think the guys really fully grasp the excitement quite yet.

After shopping until the mall closed (8 p.m.) we came back to our hotel and sat in the hot tub and swam for a bit. Kilee and I caught a baby gecko and it almost flew down my shirt! Luckily we were able to find him and put him back. He was super tiny, but super fun to play with. Signing off. . .