Thursday, November 17, 2011

Had a taste of paradise, now I want more!

Josh and I just got home from a fabulous, wonderful, amazing, relaxing, much needed vacation to the Eastern Caribbean ( St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, and Grand Turk). We were invited along on a “birthday party” cruise for our dear friend Tiffany Booth. COOLEST BIRTHDAY PARTY EVER! We got to celebrate it on a week long cruise! (We are forever indebted to you, Rob and Tiff for such an awesome trip!)

Well, I’ll sum up our trip in pictures….IMG_0230IMG_0241IMG_0269IMG_0266IMG_0267IMG_0268IMG_0278sIMG_0236

St. Thomas: (our first port of call since we missed Half Moon Cay, Bahamas due to wind and choppy seas) It poured down rain most of the time…got about 20 minutes of sun on Magen’s Bay Beach. We would like to go back and visit again!

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Puerto Rico: It started out sunny this day, as we walked around Fort San Felipe del Morro in Old San Juan. It was built in the 1500’s by the Spanish (If I remember our intro video correctly). We were getting pretty hot in the sun and decided to head to a beach. Got changed into our suits and started the walk when it started raining! We persevered and swam in the ocean in the pouring down rain, again!

We were determined to get in our Caribbean Sea time. Then we gave up swimming to go eat an authentic Puerto Rican lunch of Mufongo (yucca mashed and fried into a bowl shape filled with meat). It stopped raining when we left the beach. We finished up the day with souvenir shopping. Our port time always went by too quickly!

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The time on the boat was spent mostly eating. I tried to take a picture of most of our dinner dishes. We tried a few appetizers and entrees every night, such gluttons! Desserts were always beautifully presented! We had a midnight Mexican buffet one night, and a chocolate buffet for lunch one day.

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We played cards for a few hours every night also. The entertainment was lacking on the boat (as you might have guessed if you know Josh and his desire to play games). We saw some comedy acts,danced, watched movies, and sang some karaoke. It was great to have so much time with my hubby without the stresses of school, work, and kids. And it was so fun to hang out with Rob and Tiff so much. You guys are awesome friends and travel buds! We are rooting for that job in SLC, Rob!

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Grand Turk was our favorite port! It was gorgeous! (And the only day without rain) The water was crystal clear and warm. We took a catamaran snorkeling tour. Yeah they took us to a popular spot called the Library. It was 20-40 ft deep and then had a drop off edge where the ocean floor went down to 7000 ft.!!!!! Most of you know about my extreme (maybe irrational) fear of sharks and deep water (because that’s where sharks live). Well I had no choice really. I had to do some deep breathing through my snorkel most of the time and was constantly on the lookout for the mortal enemy. Josh held my hand for the majority of the 30 minutes we were in the water. He would ask permission to let go so he could dive down and get closer to the fish or go check out the drop off. There is absolutely no way I would/could have done this snorkeling trip without his reassurance and the feeling of protection I have when he’s with me. Anywho, we highly recommend Grand Turk. I don’t know how much there is to do except for the beach area and shops right next to the port, since we only had 2 hours to check it out after our tour. This was the hardest day to have to get back onto the boat. It was excruciating to leave such a tropical paradise! IMG_0399IMG_0411IMG_0421IMG_0431IMG_0438IMG_0446IMG_0448IMG_0453

Escargot! One of the many unusual things we tried out.

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It rained our last day at sea. Bummer! So Tiff and I had some girl time and went the chocolate buffet, a Thriller dance class, and a mini makeover at the Spa while the boys napped. Later, Rob helped me out in the towel folding class, we were making a swan. IMG_0479IMG_0491IMG_0496

We had a night to spend in Miami until our flight Monday morning back to reality. We walked around South Beach and soaked up some sun. (Good thing we did, as its in the low 50’s and coollllddd in Utah now!!!!)

Sorry for the long post. I loved our vacation and am enjoying reliving it Smile

P.S. The kids had a blast at Grandma’s while we were gone. Matt learned all these cool things he likes to show me and Emma ate a lot of food. (That’s good for her!!!) Its nice to be with them again…except when Emma starts screaming or Matt isn’t cooperating…then I just zone out and think of walking on the white sand beach holding my sweetie’s hand and looking for shells.

2 comments:

Melissa DeMoux said...

Ooooh, jealous! I'm glad you guys had such an awesome trip!

Tiffany said...

Thanks so much for coming with us. We had SO much fun and after reading this post want to go back so bad. When should we plan our next trip to Grand Turk? :) You guys are the best.