Aruba 2021
Moomba Beach
Day 4: What shall we do today? There wasn't anything on my agenda and I wanted to try to rotate days of doing things that cost money. So, today would be an explore day or a beach day. I let Sakari decide and to my surprise she said beach! You just never know what you'll get out of her these days. But, I'll take it!
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Now we just needed to decide which beach to go to. Remember that little key chain pass that we found when we first got to the home that said 2 free chairs at Moomba Beach? Well, I figured today we would take them up on that and have fun at that beach. The only time we had ever been there before was the first time we had been to Aruba and it was at night to eat with a couple of friends we met while in Aruba. So, we really couldn't judge what the beach really even looked like. But, when they say "free" I'm there.
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We packed up our beach gear and headed out. Our morning visitors was walking down the street like they owned this neighborhood. I mean how many of you can say goats just walk down your neighborhood. I could live with it every day.
We parked, hauled our beach bags to the beach and they immediately told us "we are full and don't have any chairs for the day". Um, ok. I showed them that we had the ticket for free chairs and he told us to just hang out and he would let us know when they had chairs. We decided to sit in the shade, under the trees, at one of the dining tables that was out on the beach area (only because we had seen some other people do it as we were standing there).
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They then told us "15 minutes" and we should have some chairs come up. Well, 15 minutes came and went and so did 30 and 90 and so on. No chairs seem to become "available". However, we did see several people just walk up and they accommodated them instantly. But, at this point we had already decided we were staying right where we were at because it gave Sakari a table to draw at, it was in the shade, the beach chairs and little umbrella's were constantly not in the shade with the sun moving...yea, we were good.
Sakari made sure to bring her water ball with us. She loves to play ball in the water and this would be consistently happening during our entire vacation. We played for hours!
We came up with every game possible that could incorporate throwing a ball in it. I didn't realize we could get this creative but we did. Throwing the ball and rotating hands catching. Counting how many times we could catch it without dropping it. Throwing the ball and doing a spin when catching it. Yea, I was absolutely positively sure that I was going to be very very sore the next day and not be able to use my arms.
The beach is very pretty and has the powdery soft sand and crystal clear water without the rocks. Of course that meant no snorkeling, but I was ok with it. We were having fun and I was spending valuable time with this child I just discovered actually still lives with us back home. At least I believe she belongs to us. She goes off into her room and each time she decides to emerge, she's a few inches taller and has longer hair. I guess we'll keep her. After this vacation, we will see her again in about 4 months I predict.
Every once in awhile we would see a pirate ship go by. Sakari said "that looks like fun. We quickly reminded her that she was scared of pirates because she has always been afraid that they will find out she is a mermaid and kill her. She just laughed and said she wasn't worried about it anymore. Those teenagers, they think they can take on the world. So, we got into a discussion about how she would always go to the kids club and always had her face painted and dressed up like pirates in their cute little hats they would wear and then they would have a pirate parade around the ship chanting pirate songs. Then all of a sudden it all stopped and she was afraid. She absolutely refused to go on pirate day because she was afraid. We now had open discussion about this fear and where did she come up with that at? Well, after all these years, I finally hear the truth "daddy told me that". Wait, what??? He started laughing. Yea, he's the one that tarnished our kid for years.
During our little break from throwing the ball and resting my arms, we would sit at the table and watch all the pretty little yellow birds in the trees singing.
The black birds were fearless. They would get as close to you as possible in hopes to steal something.
Sakari would be busy drawing of course...she is also at that serious look stage. It's so hard to get her to smile for the camera. You have to trick her or threaten to take her drawing pad away.
The hubby decided he would head over to the cigar shop on the premises. He came back with a box vainilla (yes it was spelled that way) something or other. A box of 10 was $16 US
The hubby was hungry and he managed to convince Sakari that she was too. They summoned for a menu. I really wasn't hungry at all so I did a hard pass. He hates to eat without me and I had to reassure him over and over if he's hungry then eat. It won't bother me. If I got hungry later, I could always order something. However, I will take a drink. :) Both the hubby and Sakari ordered tuna fish sandwiches. I told them, you realize we are at a beach club and by the ocean and your tunafish sandwich might not be what you are used to back home...which would be out of a can. Hey don't knock Chicken of the Sea...he was always cute. BTW, hubby does NOT like seafood (except shrimp scampi) so I was very fretful that this big piece of fish was going to come out slabbed on a piece of bread. But, it didn't and he was relieved. I personally do NOT like tunafish AT ALL! I can't even stand the smell of it. He kept telling me that it was really good and Sakari agreed. The fries looked really good...don't mind if my unhungry self does help myself thank you very much.
Neither the hubby or the daughter could eat all of their sandwich. They convinced me to try it. I tried it and I was actually pleasantly surprised. But I did warn him that this didn't mean I would start eating the canned stuff at home. I would stick to my canned chicken breast meat for sandwiches. So, I was glad that I hadn't ordered anything because for 2 meals all 3 of us were able to eat. (But I will say, the more I ate of it, the less I liked it. Don't get me wrong, it was good, I'm just not a tuna person). Now daiquiri's will cost you $8.50, virgin is $6, the Tuna sandwich was $9 and fries $4. Our bill came to $49.00 US or $85.75 ƒ
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Sakari had started her masterpiece of the day already...
We played a little more ball in the water and then decided it was time to go.
I took pictures as we were headed out
If you want to rinse off before you go, these would be the showers...
Buckets...buckets that sprinkled you!
On our way out...to get to Moomba you go down the street right across from the mall. It's super easy to get to. It's not always super easy to park though. I've seen this place so crowded in the evenings that people are parked up and down the road and you can barely get by.
I thought this water ball outside the hotel was really cool
Moomba really is a beautiful beach and we enjoyed our time there.
Once home we showered and got ready to go to the Paseo Herencia Mall to shop and hang out for the evening. But first we headed to Super Foods (which is one of the HUGE grocery stores on the island) for a few things we needed: dishwasher detergent, baby shampoo for our snorkel masks and more pop of course. We spent $60.08 US or $105.14 ƒ. As we walked out, I started thinking about the price and it just didn't seem right. We noticed the cashier had charged us for more pop than we had, which meant going back in to confront her only to find out all the cashiers had switched registers in that short walk out to the car. Eek! When we finally located her, she told us to go up to customer service for a refund and that's when I would discover that Super Foods charged more for pop than what we had been paying at the local small stores. We were issued a refund and we were on our merry way.
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We had looked up a place called Chill Out Beach that Sakari wanted to go to. It had Boba (which she loves) and it also served seafood. Sakari would soon find out that this cute little skirt she wanted to wear is not really practical in the windy island of Aruba and would spend most of the evening trying to keep it from blowing up.
A lot of the shops were closed down or being remodeled for the next renter. I supposed COVID put a lot of places out of business.
Sakari and I had found a place called the Chill Out Beach (online prior to coming) and it had Boba (her new obsession) and it also looked like it served seafood as I stated above. We decided we would go there for dinner tonight. We looked all over the mall for it and couldn't find it. We were asking other shop owners and either they would have us on a wild goose chase or they didn't know. In the end, we would eventually find out that they went out of business.
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But, there was a little stand that had Boba. We would stop there and at least let her get her Boba fix while we were in Aruba.
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The hubby likes Oreo's so he decided to go with that flavor. The employee there talked Sakari into a "Tiger Brown Sugar", which she said is what everyone there loves and we did see others getting it, and I went with the sour apple. We all got the Boba popping balls in the bottom.
I've never really seen how they make these and I guess I didn't realize they shake them up, but I would get a sneak peak of behind the sceenes to a boba shop tonight.
Well, both the hubby and Sakari were very disappointed in their choice's for Boba. Neither one of them liked it and you could tell they were really suffering. I told them to just throw it away. No need to force yourself to drink something you don't like. But the hubby was having an issue with paying so much for a drink he wasn't going to drink. I made a good decision with my sour apple and drank all of it. In the end, they just couldn't stomach their flavors and pitched them in the nearest trash.
As we walked around, the hubby found the cigar store that he had went to before and wanted to stop in. We sat outside and watched the party bus going back and forth. They looked like they were having such a good time. Truth be known, I was just glad to sit for awhile and get off my leg. One thing I did notice was there were no carriage rides this time around. Before we road it and it took us all the way down the street and back, and we had a lot of fun while the driver had let Sakari sit up front with him and steer the horses. Not sure if COVID put them out of business or the animal rights people.
As we searched for a new place to eat, we had walked past a little pizza place a few times and decided we would just stop here. This place was called Pizza Napoli
We ordered the Meat Lovers pizza and it was pretty darn good I have to say! We always seem to find these pizza places when we are on vacation and they are always successful.
Our 12" pizza was $30 and pop will cost you $4 each so dinner was $42 tonight. They served us our bill in a pizza slice box.
We did a little more shopping and Sakari found a cute little white 2 piece outfit ($35) and a dream catcher ($20), which they gave us a discount if we used cash instead of the card. She would model it for me when we got back to the house.
Then I found a cute little red phone booth made out of medal that I just HAD to have at a shop called Flamingo Island! However, they wanted $30 for it and I just couldn't bring myself to buy it. My office in the loft at home has a vacation theme and the colors of it is gray, black and red. Everything I buy from vacations needs to be red. I have a huge picture sitting above my desk that is black and white, but there's a red phone booth on it and I knew it would match perfect! We passed back by it again and I sent the hubby in to buy it...and he managed to talk them down to $20! Ok, I'll take it. Yep, it goes great with my picture!
I stopped at one of my favorite places, the Aloe Store and purchased 3 after sun gels for $65.00. They smell SO GOOD!
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A few more pictures I took on the way out of the mall and back to the car.
Back home I messaged Kendra to show her the outfit that Sakari had purchased tonight (because the shorts reminded me of some that Kendra use to wear a few years ago with the layered lacy look) and Kendra immediately said "Hey remember when I used to wear those?" Then she sent me this picture.
Yep, she still had hers!!! LOL Kendra has a walk in closet that is the size of a small bedroom...therefore she keeps EVERYTHING! I guess it shouldn't have surprised me that she still had them for that very reason. LOL
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Now one thing that wasn't working when we arrived at the house in Aruba were the pool lights. I had contacted the company to let them know they weren't coming on and they immediately fixed them and we came home to this...
How cool is that? The lights changed colors! I don't think I mentioned it but another thing that was missing was the leaf skimmer (remember I had tried to ask the pool boy where it was at and he didn't understand my English?) well I would find a brand new one sitting on our back table the very same day. These rental people are AMAZING so far!
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We hung out a little by the pool and then decided to head to bed. Being at the beach and in the sun really drains you...not to mention all that walking I did. My leg was swollen and I just wanted to rest up for the next day.
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Sakari headed to her sauna room to draw of course.
