Sending Hugs.

Day 4 of our calendar was to send "hugs" in our packages to friends in Palau. They watched our kids for 8 hours while we went diving and would barely let us take them out to dinner. They were so gracious and we finally got hold of their mailing address to send them a "Thank You," package.

We also made a few hand print ornaments and a family events of 2012 ornament.
Owen decorated one all by himself. 

It was a quiet night but definitely a sweet one together.

Palau: Waterfall, Lighthouse, Monoliths

There were all kinds of expensive tours to different waterfalls and we found out that the best one was only ten minutes away from where we were staying. We had to pay a fee to hike to it but it was well worth it (and a lot cheaper than going with a group)

Owen wussed out pretty early on.

The love tree. Two trees starting growing together and now they think it brings lovers good luck.

At the middle of the hike you can see the top of the falls. So pretty with the green surrounding it.

It was beyond beautiful. 

We took a trolley on the way back. It was just as slow as hiking but the hike back up is reallllly steep and carrying all the extra weight of the kids it seemed a lot nicer.

Carnivorous plants.

The old Japanese Lighthouse was recommended to us but we were a little bummed that it is mostly just a lookout. It was still pretty fun and the kids loved looking through to the islands.

We went to see the ancient monoliths and by then the kids were bored of our sight seeing. They mostly played in puddles through it but had a blast getting soaked.

Faces in the monoliths.

This Palauan lady was super nice and told me the Palauan version of the story of the monoliths and how they got there. I thought her money necklace was really cool too. 

Palau: Dive Day

We had gotten scuba certified before we left so we could check out a few of Palau's dive spots. They are supposed to be the best in the world and being so close we just couldn't pass it up.

The first one we went to was called the Virgin Blue Hole. It's over 100ft down and you swim thru a tunnel to get to a drop off. I was pretty nervous since we had only gone a max of 60ft prior to this and my ears sometimes hurt when I don't equalize quick enough. To my surprise it really didn't feel that much deeper. 

Glowing blue.

I can never get over the color of the water in tropical places. 

This is for real. They warned me that we would see some sharks but I didn't know they meant we would get so close. We used hook lines to float like kites on a drop off and there were tons of fish and sea life passing by. Unfortunately, for me (everyone else in the group were thrilled) there were about 5 or 6 great white sharks (granted they weren't fully grown) swimming about 6 feet from us. They circled around for half and hour. I was terrified. Longest half hour of my life!

After mentally peeing my pants with the sharks we moved on and saw a sea turtle. They are my absolute favorite to see while scuba diving.

After two dives we went to Jellyfish Lake. Tim had found out about this place before we even thought about moving out to the Marianas Islands and vowed to go there one day. It was pretty surreal that we were actually there. Unfortunately, our camera battery died about five minutes after arriving but it was incredible. Over 3,000 jellyfish are in the lake and because the lake closed off from the ocean several hundred years ago they no longer have stinging capabilities.

They are really squishing and soft. 

Seriously just layer upon layer upon layer of them just floating around.