And . . .

the BEST memory from Aruba . . .

The Iguanas!

(I took pictures of 100s of Iguanas and I was never able to capture a picture that did one of the them justice.)

There were Iguanas everywhere in Aruba. They were really noticeable as you floated around the lazy river because they were right at eye level and some of them were HUGE. Anyway, first day around we were all talking about how someone had once told Lisa Iguanas could swim. Ha, ha, how preposterous, . . . right?

Literally 30 seconds later a child was chasing an Iguana around the pool and for safety the Iguana jumped into the water, swam faster then anything (I'm not sure what to use as an example here) and crawled up the rock on the other side. We were lucky to live and tell the tale. Seriously there would have been no escaping an Iguana who was after you because it was so darn fast. We screamed, splashed around, fell out of our tubes and are almost died.

We finally calmed ourselves with the observation that I guess they do in fact swim, but obviously ONLY when provoked. Again literally 2 minutes later one willingly jumps in, swims across and out the other side.

It was difficult to truly be at complete ease in the Lazy River the rest of the week.

Then a few days later . . .

Addison was swimming 15 feet in front of us and she started screaming a blood curdling scream and flailing around for dear life. At first we couldn't tell if she was serious, but pretty soon realized she was completely scared out of her gourd. Ryan luckily rescued her because all of the sudden I was even scared to cross the water to her because whatever attacked her was still in the water. (Ryan just was a little closer, and I would have risked my legs to save my first born.) In the end, she had thought her life jacket strap was an Iguana in the water. I have NEVER seen panic like that from her in her whole little life. We couldn't stop laughing for awhile and she eventually laughed with us.

The last day we were there, Lisa and I were going around talking about how crazy the swimming Iguanas were and a first day vacationer laughed at us and our little "joke" . . . Ha, ha-if Iguanas could swim. We tried to warn him, but I don't think he ever took us seriously. I'm sure he learned his lesson . . . eventually.