MomofA2E: September 2008

This is part of the hotel grounds. The hotel was right on the beach and had a huge pool.

This is the bread table...with an elephant made of bread. The fresh baked breads were one of the things we really enjoyed. A lot of their food is quite bland, but at least we didn't get sick like several of the people from our group.

This was another photo opp. This guy was walking around with the resort photographer and you could get your picture taken with the snake. They also had a monkey one day.

One of the many critters we saw. We saw a few geckos...including a baby one in our room one day, but we saw a lot more lizards...in a variety of colors.

This is the coast of Florida.

They had a beach party one night and the employees were pulling people from the audience to dance with them. This is a guy from our group, Carson, and one of the prettiest girls from the resort.

I still need to steal some of John's photos...maybe tomorrow.

So...details:

Day 1-We had a red-eye flight out. At the airport we watched the news about the hurricane and worried about relatives in that area.

We flew to Atlanta which is a HUGE airport. We had a 5 hour layover and then continued on to the Dominican Republic. There are a lot of small islands between there and Florida. But, we could tell when we saw our island, it was monstrous compared to the rest we had seen. The plane descended over magnificently green hills. There were no paved roads until right near the airport.

As we stepped off of the plane we were hit hard by the heat and humidity. We retrieved our luggage and found our bus to take us to our hotel. The bus did have a/c, but it was still a hot, miserable ride. The roads are full of potholes, there aren't stop signs and drivers seem to have something against using brakes. We were in the front of the bus and got to see all of the close calls. We drove through some very poor areas. One of the vehicles we passed was a motorcycle driven by a teenage boy and also carrying three other boys!

We got to the resort safely and it was breathtakingly beautiful. Fountains, palm trees, etc. We were assigned a room on the first floor, which we didn't learn until later that was not good. We were killing mosquitoes every day and the a/c, which worked amazingly well, actually became too cold at times.

Day 2-We went to the beach. As we were standing in the ocean a school of fish with a swordfish look to them swam by us, both in front and behind. That was a cool experience. Then we noticed that where they were swimming toward there were some snorkelers feeding the fish and drawing them in. That happened a few times.

Day 3-We went to the beach again. We saw a tiny sand crab. Then John wandered around with his camera while I did some souvenir shopping. We also went to the pool. Not my favorite thing to do. The water moving around me irritates my stomach.

Day 4-There were 2 groups going out of the resort. Most of them wanted to go to Hard Rock Cafe and do some shopping, but also stop at a school to give out supplies. One couple just wanted to go to a school and then stop at the shops just outside of our resort. We ended up going with them which I am glad because the other group ended up at a different school and the kids there didn't get all excited like ours did. The shopping was quite an experience, too. Luckily the girl with us spoke spanish and was also a good bargainer. We seemed to be the only tourists there at the time and there were over 30 little shops with each one having an employee begging us to come into their shop and what great deals they would give us. We could have went again with some other couples, but once was enough.

We also had a big frog hop across the path ahead of us that night on our way to dinner. That night we went to the Michael Jackson impersonator. There was a teenage boy who did young Michael, and did it well. Then there was the guy who did older Michael. They had whitened his face and he obviously did not know English because his lip-synching was horrible. But, overall it was an entertaining show because of the dancers. We were on the front row, so during "Thriller" I ended up with a ghoul in my lap.

Day 5-We found out that it was bread that people were feeding the fish. This time a big 1 1/2ish foot silver fish swam right by us.

John went snorkeling and really enjoyed that. We went to the beach party after dinner, but didn't stay long. Too much drinking and smoking going on.

Day 6-We went to the beach again. This time we had small 6 inch-ish white fish swim by. We had to go sit by the pool for a bit while we waited for housekeeping to finish our room.

We took a walk down the beach to the next resort and got a closer look at the sunken ship. There were all sizes of holes from sandcrabs along the way.

We went to another show, a magician this time, from Cuba. He was not very good. I was able to figure out how he did most of his tricks.

Day 7-John went snorkeling again while I hung out at the beach. This is when I got snagged by the photographer with the parrots.

A snorkeler found a baby turtle and brought it onto the beach for everyone to see and take pictures of.

We were able to check our email and hear from the girls. We had sent them an email on monday. That made me homesick. I missed my kids.

Day 8-Just ate breakfast and packed. The bus drive to the airport was less eventful, but much louder with everyone joking around and having fun. There was a Wendy's and a pizza place at the airport, but we chose to wait until we got to Atlanta to eat. But, my stomach wasn't happy about that. The food the people around us were eating smelled soooo good!

We got home at 12:30 am Sunday morning. The kids were all asleep, even though Caitlin said she wanted to wait up for us because she missed us so much. My mom had waited up for us, probably anxious to get back to her own bed. We were so grateful that she could take care of our kids while we were gone.

We slept until 8:30 and then I woke up the kids for some long-awaited hugs.

Our vacation was fun, but it is good to be home. It took a day or two to adjust to the humidity there. We only left the resort once. We went with another couple and took school supplies to a small school about 20 minutes away. That was an amazing experience. The kids were so excited and so sweet. They drew us pictures and wrote their names on strips of paper for us. Luckily the other woman with us spoke Spanish, so we were able to communicate with them.
It was strange being so near the Carribean where we went for our honeymoon, yet to hear the people speaking spanish. I can't tell you how many times I said "Hola" last week.
And the topless women walking the beach...reminds me of the AT&T commercial about how some beaches are more "naked" than others. And I have a picture to prove it. No, it's not what you think. It is of two 2-3 yr old girls. One dark skin and braided hair, the other pale and blond.
I will post some pictures from our trip in a day or two.