Much Needed Vacay

Man, it's hard to come home from vacation. Last Friday, as Jeff and I got ready to leave, he said, "Well, I'm already sad. Our vacation is going to go so fast that it feels like it's already over." I laughed at him, but he was right--it went way too fast.

After dropping Damon off at school (he stayed with Jeff's sister next door), we dropped the girls off in St. George with my family and headed to Las Vegas where we caught the red eye flight to Boston, connecting in the morning to San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was long day (two days, actually) of traveling, but we made it. We met up with my aunt and uncle in San Juan and we took a taxi to the cruise ship, where we checked in. Our ship didn't leave until 10:00 pm, so we went back for a quick tour of Old San Juan. Puerto Rico was awesome, and I would love to go back for a longer stay. Here are the four of us (Tyler, Colleen, me and Jeff) on an old cobblestone street in San Juan. We were all excited for the adventure ahead of us!

Stop one was St. Thomas (one of the U.S. Virgin Islands) on Sunday. We found the local branch and went to church. It was a cool experience and we couldn't get enough of the local accent. Routinely, the people in the Caribbean drop the 'h' in words with 'th' sounds, pronouncing "three" as "tree" and "thought" as "tought." I loved it. After lunch back on the boat, Jeff and I took a bus to Coki Beach, where we went to Coral World, an aquarium/nature park on the other side of the island. We ended up not spending any time at the beach, because it was very crowded. Feeling adventurous, we decided to take the bus back, thinking we needed to be back by 5:00. It made us nervous when the bus kept stopping, but we made it back to our ship by 4:56. We went straight to our rooms to get ready for dinner, and were a tad surprised when the ship pulled out of the harbor at 5:15. Yes, we cut it very close. This is a view of St. Thomas from our ship. It is a cool island and I would love to go back.


Stop number two, Monday, was St. Maarten/St. Martin. It is an island shared by the Dutch, in the south, and the French, in the north, hence the different spelling, depending where on the island you are at. We wanted to rent a car on at least one of the islands, and this was the likely choice. Driving is on the right, the roads are fairly well maintained, and the island is small enough to explore in one short day. We, along with my aunt and uncle, drove to the top of Paradise Peak and had a great view (not nearly as impressive in pictures). We drove to the north side of the island and took a ferry to Ilet Pinel, an uninhabited island with awesome sand and water. Jeff and I went snorkeling and saw a lot of beautiful fish and coral. We didn't take any pictures of the beach, which may seem like a bad thing until you hear that there were several topless women who were not at all appealing (and not just to me--Jeff didn't think they were much to look at either). We spent the rest of the afternoon in Marigot, sampling cold coconut and exploring Fort St. Louis. It was a busy, full day and we really enjoyed our time there. This isn't the best view of the island, with the clunky boat and industrial area, but the water was so blue, and beautiful.



Monday was also our first formal night, and I included a pic of us all dressed up, lest you think we spent the week in swim suits and ball caps. I forgot to pack Jeff's belts, which is why he is without one. Oh well, I guess it can't be perfect.


Stop number three was Antigua. Jeff had gotten badly sunburned on the backs of his legs (from all the snorkeling), and didn't want to spend much time in the sun, so we hired a driver to take the four of us to some historical sites on the other side of the island. Our driver, James, even stopped to point out aloe growing by the side of the road to ease Jeff's pain. Antigua was dry, compared to the other islands we visited, and was a lot less tropical. It was still beautiful, and has 366 beaches, but was our least favorite stop. This was at Shirley Heights, an overlook where the British army had fortifications to protect their island.


Stop four was St. Lucia. In comparison with Antigua, it was a tropical paradise. We called it St. Luscious the entire day. We took a boat to Soufriere, where we saw an active volcano (which was just steam coming out of the mountain side, reeking of sulfur) and a waterfall before we went to the beach for a few hours. It rained off and on all day, the only bad weather day of our entire trip, so the beach wasn't the best. But the island was magnificent, and one of our very favorites.

Jeff and me in front of one of the Pitons, two awesome peaks on the coast of St. Lucia. It wasn't a great day at all for photographing the peaks, but we'll just have to go back. The sand on this island wasn't the white sand we got used to, but a darker, almost chocolate brown volcanic sand. It was really cool.

Stop five was Barbados. Jeff and I had scheduled a scuba diving trip with a local dive shop and we met our taxi at 8:30. I was really nervous to go diving. We got certified in 2001 at BYU and I didn't have a great experience with my open water dives. I got a little panicky under the water, which is the very last thing you want to do while diving. You can't just bolt for the surface, because it can be very dangerous, and the instructors tell you repeatedly that as long as you stay calm, you can solve your problems under water. I haven't been diving since, but had heard that diving in the Caribbean is an awesome experience and I thought we should do it. Well, I started to feel anxious about the whole thing the night before, but I kept telling myself that I could do it. I knew what to do, and as long as I kept calm, it would be fine.

I thought a lot about my kids and how I encourage them to do things that are hard or scary, beacuse I know that they can do them. I repeated "You can do hard things" to myslef, knowing that there was really no reason for me to be so nervous about it. It wasn't like I was doing something stupid or was unprepared, I was just scared. I realized that the older I get, the fewer things I am willing to do that are out of my comfort zone. It's not that often that I have to do things that scare me, and I really wanted to do this.

So, despite my trepidation, I took the plunge (literally). We did two dives and everything went perfectly. I have to admit, it was amazing. It was like being surrounded by a Discovery Channel special about the ocean and I am so glad I didn't chicken out but went through with it. This is a picture of the two of us after we were finished diving, waiting for our taxi to take us back. The beaches in Barbados were amazing and there were long stretches that looked just like this. The water was also a beautiful turquoise color and I fell in love with the island. I definitely want to go back there. The catamaran is just for scenery--we had nothing to do with it.

Our last day was spent at sea, and it was nice and relaxing, like the rest of the vacation. Colleen and I finally made it over to the rock wall and that was a lot of fun. Colleen was most impressive, making it to the very top of the wall, despite wanting to quit several times. I'm so glad she was there, because who really wants to climb alone?



I stayed for the speed climb (the lady told me I could win a prize if I won), and took first place in the women's division with a best time of 19 seconds. It wasn't really that difficult, especially since I was the ONLY woman who competed. Oh well, we don't have to remember that tiny detail, do we? I got a medal and a t-shirt. Fun memories.

Overall, it was a fantastic vacation. Way better than our last cruise to the Bahamas. Here are some things I learned when comparint the two:

• Seven day cruises are WAY better than four day cruises. You need the extra time to really enjoy it, and if you have bad weather, you have a lot more days to make it up.
• The food on Royal Caribbean was WAY better than Carnival. Not even close.
• We had better weather, and I liked our destinations better.
• We had one bed, instead of bunk beds. No explanation needed.
• Our boat was much more stable and we experienced only a few, sporadic moments of seasickness.
  
• Our boat was bigger and there was more to do onboard.
• The crowd was a more mature crowd, and it wasn't so much the party boat that Carnival was. There were very few people our age on board, but we didn't mind. We weren't there to make friends.
• We had my aunt and uncle with us, which was way better than traveling alone. We had a lot of fun with them and dragged them around for several days before they decided they needed a break from us and all our activities.

Yes, it was a great, and much needed, vacation. And while it is hard to come home (and deal with the piles of laundry to be done), I'm so glad we went. I wish I could've come home a little more tan, but sunscreen was my friend, and I didn't get any bad burns. It was so fun to be reunited with the kids again, and to hear that they had been well-behaved while we were gone.