July 6, 2009 6:39 am

Quick recap of Sunday:

The girls slept in until 9:30, but I got up at 8:00. I had my quiet time on the beach and then went for a swim in the ocean. I love when you can just sit back and take in God's creation. He is amazing.

After breakfast, Hailey and I kayaked through the mangrove forest. It started to rain so we didn't get any pictures but the rain also cooled us down. Our guide, Jeff, was very down to earth and friendly. The mangrove forest reminded me of a scene out of the movie "Anaconda"-- large trees growing out of swampy water with very little sunlight breaking through the forest canopy. We saw a few stingrays and Jeff pointed out a three foot shark but we missed it.

We left Subic Bay at 12:45 and arrived back in San Pablo City by 9:30. I did laundry, took a shower, and went to bed.

After I went to bed, I had a very interesting experience. Remember those "neighbors" I talked about a few weeks ago-- they came for a visit. The rats are too large to get inside the bedrooms unless we leave the doors open. So you are supposed to always close the door when you come and go. While we were gone, the kids cleaned our rooms and left the doors open all day. Not good. I had only been laying down for 15 or 20 minutes when I heard a rat under my bed. I decided to just ignore it. A few minutes later it was rustling through my trash can so I had to do something about it. When I shined my flashlight at it, it took off running back under my bed. Not a big deal. I went back to sleep. About an hour and a half later (12:30pm) it wakes me up as it runs across my body in bed. After this, I can not sleep. Call me a wuss, I don't care. :) The rest of my night consisted of shining the flashlight at it every 30 minutes or so to get it to leave and sleeping in 15 minute segments. It wasn't fun. I was having nightmares about it carrying me off in my sleep. haha. I left my bedroom door open all morning hoping that I would lose one rat instead of gaining three more. I let you know how it goes tonight but I've already made preparations to sleep on the couch in the heat. I'd rather sweat than share my bed.