Punta Cana or Bust

Where do I even begin?!? 

Last week Brad and I vacationed in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic at the Iberostar Grand Bavaro Hotel.  It was FABULOUS!!!  The trip was an adults-only trip with me, Brad, Brad's brother, Justin, and Justin's wife, Christina.

I couldn't really decide the best way to blog about the trip so please bear with me as I try to describe our journey to relaxation.

Our trip began early last Sunday morning from the Pensacola airport.

We were ready to enter the country with our customs and immigration paperwork ready to go.  Neither of us were really sure if we filled it out correctly, but after getting through customs we realized it didn't matter; they just wanted a record of our visit.

A view of the lovely Punta Cana airport.  It was all outdoors with thatch roofs and really big fans.  It reminded me what you would think a Hawaiian airport may look like.  When you first enter the airport you get in line to get your tourist card, $10 per person.  Then you proceed to the line where you turn in your tourist card.  It was kind of funny that no sooner did you get the card you were handing it back over.  After we got our luggage we went through customs.  This consisted of a guy shuffling us quickly through grabbing our customs paperwork.

On our way to the resort we had a "War Eagle" moment.  The couple we were riding with were wearing their Auburn gear.  Turns out the girl had graduated from Auburn and the couple lived in Birmingham.  You can't go on a trip without your "War Eagle" moment!

We arrived in paradise a little after Justin and Christina and they were able to give us the low down on the resort.  Above is the view from our room.

What was the rest of the trip filled with?  Eating, relaxing, more eating and more relaxing.

A typical day food-wise for Brad and me included a room service delivery of coffee (with the coffee always came a small plate of breads and pastries), breakfast at the huge buffet, lunch at the huge buffet, a mid-afternoon snack of nachos while playing bingo, another snack of cheese and bread while getting ready, then on to dinner with included 3 or 4 courses.  We finished off each night with an order from room service of pizza and either a club sandwich or ham sandwich.  Yes, we were little piggies. 

The breakfast buffet had pretty much anything you could possibly want.  There was sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, omelets, potatoes, other style eggs, all sorts of pastires, all sorts of fruit, all sorts of cereal and yogurt, and even some stuff that none of us would eat.  My typical breakfast included a ham and swiss hot pressed crossiant with a little bit of fruit.  I changed it up a little on a few days by having bacon and potatoes.  I think Brad's plate changed every day.

The lunch buffet was not your typical buffet.  It had anything and everything you could possibly want, some things you probably wouldn't want (cow tail??) and if you didn't see what you wanted you could order whatever you wanted.  I heard where some people had lobster with their lunch every day.  I pretty much stuck with hamburgers and nachos for the most part.  I am a creature of habit and once I find something I like, I stick with it. 

Dinner - yum!  Each night was a different experience.  We were all good about trying different things and I think we could all agree that the Japanese restaurant was our favorite.

So, what did we do during the day and at night?

Day - RELAXED!!!

Really, the resort had different things for you to do if you wanted throughout the day.  Your Star Friends would come around looking for "2 million people" to play whatever. 

Brad won the air riffle shooting contest the day he and Justin participated.  He won a great hat!

Brad with one of our favorite Star Friends, Jose Luis.

Christina and I did water aerobics one day.

Brad, Justin and Christina kayaked.  I stayed back to get my one book a year read.

Relaxing on the beach, where you (or maybe just met) had the chance of getting cold if you were in the shade.

And this is where we spent most of our time - in the pool!  Here we are chatting with some of the new friends we made.  As you can tell, Brad is not in the picture.  He turned into a little chatty cathy with all of his new friends.  I guess you can tell he has been hanging around me for a long time - I love it!

Night - a little of this and a little of that

The resort had a couple of shows in their theater while we were there.  We enjoyed the ones we went to.  Here Christina and I are posing with Michael Jackson after the Michael Jackson show.  Some of the other shows included a magic show, Dominican night (which we did not see) and Boogie Nights.

The other nights we were at the ship karoking and dancing (yes, Brad and I actually danced, probably a first for us, but hopefully not a last!).  The karoking was fun!  The other people may not have enjoyed but I didn't really care.  After hearing some of the others we agreed we needed an up beat song  to liven up the crowd.  So, we gave our best shot at "Sweet Home Alabama"!

There you have it - the short and sweet story of our relaxing vacation!  We missed Paige like crazy and we both talked about how we couldn't wait to get home to get our big Paige hugs (she gives the BEST hugs)!!!

Funnies of the Week

I wanted to share 2 fun memories from last week.

Smores

Last week was "Camping" week at school.  As a special treat the kids got to enjoy smores!  Ms. Ashley told me that while the other kids were a little reluctant to try this treat, Paige dug on in without any hesitation.  After the other kids saw how much Paige was enjoying it, they too started to dig in and enjoy.

Errands

Brad had a conference Sunday afternoon in Point Clear.  That was one of the reasons we chose to relax around the pool for most of the weekend because we knew we wouldn't have Sunday afternoon.  I decided to put off the normal errands until meeting time.  Whew wee. Paige and I were both exhausted by the time it was all said and done.  Getting ready seemed like we were going to the beach again, but this time we were just going up the road trying to get things checked off. 

One of our stops was Target.  I found these cups that I thought might be fun for Paige to try.  I was right!  I normally let her hold on to something while we shop - just makes the trip so much smoother.  This time she got to hold on the cups.  By the time we got up to the check out register she had taken one of the cups out of the package and was trying to drink from it.  Instead of making a scene by taking it away from her, I did the unthinkable and let her hold on to it while she "drank" from it.  She didn't want to let go, thus leading to the pic above.  And yes, I took this while I was driving.  I tried at the stop light but the pic came out blurry so right after the light turned green I very carefully took this picture.  Don't worry, there weren't any other cars around and I was going like 2 mph.

How Sweet

Happy Father's Day!!  (well, a couple of days late!)

We made our Father's Day a weekend long celebration by the pool.  It involved swimming, realaxing, grilling out (DELISH!!) and just being together.

Paige is blessed with a fantabulous daddy and I don't know what either of us would do without him!!

Yes, another pool pic - where else would we be?!?

How sweet is this!

Our little artist in the making.

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there!

To the Beach

When I was writing our weekend recap I forgot to include a couple of my thoughts on how a child changes everything.

I am amazed at how a simple task of going to the beach can turn into a 2 hour ordeal just to get half way down there only to realize you left some of the stuff in the car and the keys were in the room.  Yes, that is how both mornings started.  After chasing Paige around the room trying to persuade her to put on her swimsuit, telling her we were going to the beach to see Myles and Ella and that she had to wear a swimsuit if she wanted to go out.  Somewhere while getting ready you fit in putting on the sunscreen and making sure it is in the beach bag.

Then there is getting yourself ready - definitely the easiest task of the morning.

Then you have to fill up the bag with everything you could possibly need - sunscreen, snacks, camera, room key, phone, floatie thing, hat (Paige's least favorite accessory), and the swim coverup because she decided she didn't want to wear it and it wasn't worth the battle to make her wear it.  Then there is the cooler - we need our drinks, water for Paige, and Paige's cup, plus you have to fill it up with ice on your way to the elevator.

So, bag and cooler are packed.  Then you load yourself up with baby, overflowing bag, cooler, beach chair, and umbrella.  Next stop - towel station.  Add 3 towels to the mix and you are ready to head down to the beach.  Only then you get stopped both days by the security guard making sure you knew you couldn't have glass in your cooler (apparently Brad looks like he is  rule-breaker).

Whew!  We made it!

And it was all worth it just to see her sweet smile as she rode the waves, played in the sand or relaxed in the pool!!!

Sand, Sand, and more Sand

I think this is what we are going to be finding in our house over the next few days and maybe even weeks - ha!

This weekend we made our first beach trip of the season.  Jamie and Matt invited us to tag along for Ella's birthday party weekend.  I am not sure they really thought we would come when they invited us, but we are not ones to turn down an opportunity to go to the beach.

We headed to Destin and stayed at the Hilton SanDestin.  Some of you may remember last year we stayed at the SanDestin resort and did not have a good experience.  Well, the Hilton is in the SanDestin complex but on the beach side and run by Hilton.  It was so much better than we could have hoped for or expected.  The rooms were a good size, they had fridges and microwaves in the room, they provided beach towels so we didn't have to worry with our's, and there were so many other neat things the resort had to offer.

After last weekend I was apprehensive about Paige and the pool and the beach for that matter.  Boy was I wrong!!!  The girl absolutely loved all of it!  She even cried a little when Brad was taking her out of the ocean today.  It was a such relief that she loved it all.

Reading, "Happy Birthday, Pookie" so that we could practice saying Happy Birthday to Ella.

Friday night at Pompano Joe's  - SO GOOD!!!!!

Paige plopped herself down right on the sand, me on the other hand had to sit on a towel...to be a kid again

This pink thing is a "puddle jumper" and Paige did really well with it!

Can you tell she liked the water?

Sweet Myles and Jamie

Having fun in the pool

Sweet Grayson and Paige

The Birthday Girl, Ella, who turned 5.

Happy Birthday Ella!!

Now we are looking at our calendars trying to figure out when we can go back to the beach.  I don't think it will be soon enough!

Fun in the Sun

We finally had the normal weekend at home we had all been wanting for a long time!  No one was sick and we had no plans other than celebrating our special days.  So, what does a normal weekend include?  The pool!!!

Poor Paige didn't know what to think about the pool at first; she just wasn't the biggest fan.  I had all these high hopes that she would just love it and would be swimming/floating/
whatever around.  I bought all the gear that I thought she would need and we ended up using none of it.  Instead we pulled out the raft from last and eventually she was good to go.

I have a feeling that the more time we spend in the water the more she will like it - that is what I am hoping for at least!

Farmer Frye

You may be wondering who Farmer Frye is.  Well, she is the girl that sits next to me, Janet Frye.  The people at her husband's work gave her this name and I love it!  Not only does she grow a variety of veggies, but she shares!!!  She has also inspired me to want to start a garden.  I am not sure if this will really happen, but it sure sounds good.

Anyway, last week she brought be a big ol' bag of zucchini, squash, banana peppers, green peppers and cucumbers.  Paige and I enjoyed having nice fresh veggies at dinner (Brad is not too big into these).  I had a little bit of zucchini left and decided to make some yummy zucchini bread.  This was my first zucchini bread experience and I think it turned out pretty well.  You would be amazed at all the different recipes there are out there for zucchini bread.  I went with a pretty simple one this time and if Janet brings me more zucchini I am going to start trying these different recipes out!  I loved that the only thing I had to buy was sour cream (and that was by choice because of the recipe I chose) because of my stock piling from couponing.

Packed up and ready to be taken to work.

Then, on my birthday, Janet surprised me with my favorite - okra!!!  I absolutely LOVE fried okra - Brad too!!!  Needless to say, we were both excited and devoured every bit.

Summer can officially begin now that we have had fried okra!