It feels like forever since we've met, and so much has happened! Haha...but really, last night for the 4th of July we spent the night at a local hotel. Not just a hotel, but a pretty nice one. It is situated on the beach (no swimming access), but regardless, it has all the beauty you would imagine a hotel on the beach would. Because there were six of us, we had to get two rooms (a suite for us and just a regular room for the kids, although we ended up with a kid in our room). We ate and swam and ate some more, then swam some more, but we didn't have any fireworks. That was a bummer, but we ate and swam like we would have if we were in the U.S. Oh, my gosh….we ate sooo much.  That is a good thing because we found some foods that we like…cheeseburgers, pizza, ice cream! Mmmmm, so good!

When we checked into ‘The Park’ hotel on Wednesday, we were greeted by the front desk staff and each of us was given a coconut with a straw. This is pretty common here; you can purchase them about anywhere.  A straw is put in them to be able to drink the coconut water. It has a different flavor if you’ve never tasted it, but after the initial unique flavor, I thought they tasted pretty good. The boys, however (including the husband boy) did not agree with me. The staff was super awesome, taking us to our room. When we got there the manager, a housekeeping person and another staff member were all there to greet us and let us know if we needed anything to call them. It was so much better than anything we've experienced in the states.

the kids posing for a picture with their coconuts!

Ryan wouldn't even put the straw in his mouth after his initial "taste test"

 After checking in, we let the boys swim (but first we took a hot shower) and then Ryan and I both had a massage at the local spa…it was AWESOME!! We did what they called a “synchronized 4-hand massage” where you have 2 massage therapists working together…ahhhhh, heaven! (We booked another massage before we leave India, hehe)

hotel bathroom

hotel room

beach view from our room

cute little good night message on our pillow

 

I took another shower and then we ate a late lunch/early dinner...and I found a cheeseburger! It wasn’t as ‘western’ as I would have liked it (they probably actually used beef […and yes, it was beef…or so they said…no snarky comments about it being monkey butt, please] that wasn’t 20% fat). It was pretty good for being the first red meat I’ve eaten since we came here (I don’t care for bacon like the rest of my family does).  Ryan ordered the beef tenderloin, although it was too chewy for tenderloin (his might have been the monkey butt), Brayden ordered the jumbo prawns, that came out in the shell, eyeballs and all, and Conor ordered a sandwich that included ham, bacon and a hot dog.

brayden's dinner

cheeseburger!

conor's sandwich was called a "Porky Pig" with ham, bacon and a pork hot dog

About 3 hours after we ate our late lunch/early dinner, we were sitting by the pool and noticed they were firing up a brick oven. So we casually walked over to see what was going on and found out they make brick oven pizzas in this oven. What? Pizza and a cheeseburger all in one night! It truly was a holiday! We ordered a pepperoni pizza and a basil and garlic pizza and then ordered another pepperoni pizza. Soooo, yummy. All that was missing was the rootbeer. No root beer here. :(

eating pizza "poolside"

 We went back to the room to watch a movie (and of course order room service), and I took a bath. Ahh, 2 showers and a bath in about 10 hours...it felt soo good. The desserts we ordered were quite interesting I must say. Dallan and Conor ordered the same thing. It was called the 'outrageous never ending chocolate sundae'. Sounds pretty chocolatey, right? Sure, except for the scoop of chunky cherry ice cream that was in the middle of it all. Not so tasty. Davis' tropical sundae that was supposed to be vanilla, strawberry and mango ice cream...not sure exactly what he got, but not so good, either. Ryan ordered a milkshake and when he ordered it, he wanted it "thick". How do you explain a "thick" milkshake to somebody that doesn't really do milkshakes to begin with? It was a little thinner than Hershey's syrup chocolate sauce, with a small scoop of ice cream...I'm guessing to make it "thick"...no so tasty, either.

Today, was more swimming, more eating and another shower (for me)! We checked out and left about 1:00 and honestly, as soon as we pulled out of the hotel I realized we were still in India. I think I had totally forgotten we were here and not just at some nice hotel. The hotel did a great job of  making us think we were somewhere else.

playing in the pool

We survived the 4th of July, even without fireworks. We have the mosquito bites and sun burn to prove it!

Today Ryan and I both had an epiphany.  We decided the food we liked the best was hotel food. They usually have a wider variety of dishes and they tend to taste pretty good (let me clarify that by saying the nicer hotels), so for dinner tonight we went to another hotel to try their dinner buffet. The biggest thing we haven't  been able to grasp here is that they start dinner hours at about 7:30 in the evening. So, when you show up for a buffet at 6:00, they tend to not have any food out. We could however, order from one page of the menu, so after a 30 minute debate, we decided to wait until the buffet was open. It was really tasty. We all tried new dishes and new desserts. Some were tasty, some were not so much to our liking, but at the end of the night they had pizza and pasta, so the kids were happy!

different salads

Davis trying a fish salad

noodles, potatoes and chicken

Pasta!

trying something new!

different desserts

Random funny story: After getting back from dinner tonight Brayden tells us this story. The maid that we have comes daily to scrub the floors. If we are not here, she will continue to come back until we are here.  After we got back from the hotel I dropped the boys off at the apartment so I could do some grocery shopping. The boys were here playing their ipods when the cleaning lady comes to do the floors. Brayden tells everyone to be quiet and turns off all the lights after the cleaning lady knocks. (Remember, he's 13). So, the boys are all trying to be quiet (probably giggling) when she opens a window from the outside (it won't lock because the cable cord runs from the tv to the outside of the building), stick her fingers through the bars to move the curtain and looks inside the apartment to tell the boys in Telegu to open the door. Haha

Happy late 4th of July!