Better late than never!

So far we have gone to a different beach every day, which is kind of nice. Also Mom and Maria are both pretty flexible when the plan is to go to Browne's Beach today and all of the sudden I turn into another parking lot and say "this looks cool, why don't we try here?"  And they're ok with that. I just turned to Maria and said - when we changed the plan today and went to that beach, were you ok with that?  Oh yeah, I'm easy - and that was my favourite beach so far..mine too, and Moms too - so it worked out great.

We got to the beach and paid for our 3 chairs and an umbrella - 40 bajan, same as everywhere and went in the water.  This is the best beach for boogie boarding we have had so far, and there doesn't seem to be a rip tide anywhere so even though it's rough it's totally safe for the girls. 

 This is the first day the girls got burnt, just because they were in the water so much that no matter how many times I put on sunblock it just got wiped and washed away. Especially as they wiped the salt water off their faces after getting a wave in the face!  At one point I put the thick thick thick sunblock on their faces and they looked like mimes.  Mom put it on and she looked like an aboriginal in the Australian outback!

At lunch time Maria and I decided to walk up to the road and see what was around to eat and bring it back to the beach. The girls wanted Chefette's which is like a Caribbean McDonald's, they have roti and chicken sandwiches, pizza and burgers etc. and it was across the road from the beach, so no problem.  Across the street there was a little plaza and a Just Grillin' restaurant..awesome!  So we all got jerk chicken with various side dishes (a few places have been having problems with the gas, which we later googled and found out its a supply issue the the whole of the West coast is having so they have no gas for cooking, heating water etc.  We didn't have an issue when we were there last week, but this week a few times the gas issue has come up)  Jerk chicken was the only option for meat at Just Grillin' which was great, because it was what I wanted anyway!

As we were leaving the beach Paige pointed to two girls walking ahead of us to the parking lot and said "Mama, look at those girls bathing suits, they go right up their butts - why do they want swim suits that go up their butts?"  They want brown bums "Why do they want brown bums?  So they don't have white bums?".  Pretty much.

We decided to drop our stuff in the car and go over to the little plaza again.  Mom had lost her sunglasses in the waves at the beach and wanted to pick up another pair.  Also, there was an ice cream shop that looked good, so we got some ice cream and sat outside to finish it at a table.  I finished first so I decided to go  into one of the shops - Maria had inspired me to maybe get a bikini (don't visualize it if you don't want to, its not for you its for me! - haha).  I went in and the girl asked me if she could help me..I said "I'm looking for a two piece that would maybe fit me?"  She looked at me and said "We just have this style here"..moving away from the fun and funky patterns to the black..I said "So just the old lady style?"  "Yes"..."ok, its ok, I'll just go home and workout"  I haven't worked out in a month..its awful..at least all the parts of me you can see will be tanned!!

We had to stop at the grocery store for more tequila and limes (did I mention Maria likes the tequila sours?) and bread and toilet paper..just the essentials.  Mom and Maria went in while me and the girls stayed in the car.  Paige dictated the following text to Jay:

"Hi Daddy.  We love you and just got back from the beach.  What is it like there?  Is it cold or warm?  Haha sucker!"  She reminds me of me.

The plan was to go to Oistins to the fish fry tonight, which they do every Friday night and we've been talking about all week.  But this morning we had googled the fish fry and found out it didn't start until 7pm..that's almost bed time!  So we decided to have leftovers again and skip the fish fry because it would interfere with our drinking.  Also because we all got a bit of sun today at the beach, and I thought dragging the girls down to the fish fry for 7pm might be a disaster..so once I said I thought I would stay home with them both Mom and Maria said they didn't mind skipping it either and we made a pitcher of tequila sours.  

Then, because we now had a little bit extra tequila to manage, since we bought an extra bottle, I made tomorrow's pitcher today (uh oh), this way we can probably manage to finish off the tequila tomorrow.  This was prompted by Maria coming out to the gazebo and saying "I asked your Mom if she wanted a top up before I filled our glasses...I have to say I was a little relieved when she said no.."  When we bought the extra bottle of tequila I said "I'd rather leave a little bit of tequila on the island than not have enough" and Mom and Maria both said "I agree", it was unanimous.  But I am happy to report that we have left none of our tequila on the island (I'm two days behind on the blog again)!  In fact, I would wager there may be a tequila shortage in Barbados for a while.

So, we were sitting under the pergola enjoying our beverages and leftovers and I was getting a little warm, so I reached over and turned on the fan, which is awesome out there. Not even a minute later Maria says "You know, for having such a closed in back yard, there's always a nice breeze out here every night"...."well, I did just turn on the fan.."  She looked up "haha, I guess that would do it, yeah".  Too funny.  Mom is now hooked on Candy Crush. I deleted it - I can't handle it, it owned me. 

We were sitting chatting about tv shows we watch and Maria had a momentary memory lapse about what we were talking about, she was like "I can't remember what I was going to say...too much tequila..oh yeah!  The Good Wife...I think that deserves a reward" and her reward was another sip of tequila sour!

Shortly after that we went to bed...last day tomorrow, final beach day, final pitcher of tequila..oh Barbados/tequila how I'll miss you. 

We got up in the morning and discussed our favourite beach so far to go back to and everyone agreed Rockley Beach, from yesterday, would be our final beach day. And Maria took her final selfie of the week (she has been doing one with the girls each morning when we got in the car). 

When we drove over there Mom and Maria went to grab/rent our chairs and I took the girls over to the plaza to get them hats to try to avoid further burn on their faces. While there they saw these little stuffy monkey and turtle babies that have blankets that they kept going over to and asking for. Now Sophie, who had been hording her money, could buy one for herself..but wanted to surprise Paige and buy one for her, she is so sweet that way and it would never be reversed!  So I told Sophie if that's what she wanted then we would come back together later, we bought the hats and headed to the beach. Surprisingly the beach wasn't as busy as the day before. There were lots of people in the water, but not as many chairs rented. The waves were just as fun, and even Mom and I tried our hands at boogie boarding!

Just before lunch Maria went for a walk up the beach with the girls (and she did this for Jay and I)

While on the walk the girls reminded her, in a way that I'm told was not subtle but was polite, that she had said she would buy them something from her from Barbados. So when we went back up to grab lunch Maria and the girls disappeared into the store for so long that finally I realized she was buying them the babies..lucky Sophie, she still gets to keep her money AND both of them get their stuffy babies. Very nice of Maria.  We took our food back to the beach and stayed until we were done with the sun.  Before we left the girls and I walked down the beach with the boogie boards until we saw a group of kids, there were two women standing in the water beside them so I said "are these guys yours?"  The lady said "no, just because we're black and they're black doesn't make them our kids"...ok, she was laughing,  but it was weird..."No, I was just looking for parents to ask if we could give them our boogie boards, we're leaving tomorrow". "Oh, these are our kids". Pointing to some other kids on the beach. They happily took our boogie boards and promised that when they leave they will do the same thing and pass them on. We did the same thing with our sand toys before we left. 

On our way home we stopped at the grocery store just for ground beef and sour cream and limes..we have half our pitcher from last night (second pitcher, today's pitcher) and half a bottle of tequila left that we're going to tackle tonight...nachos again for dinner as they paired best with tequila sours!

Our last night..party party?  No. Bed by 8:30..late night tonight.  Last night Maria and I both had the spins from the extra glass of tequila we had from making our pitcher early.  Tonight was no problem, we're appropriately trained at this point. (There's a word here I'm looking for and can't quite get it, trained isn't what I want). 

We decide in the morning to have a pool day today instead of going to the beach. Our flight doesn't leave until 4:20pm and because there is no one checking into the house today the owner has said we can stay until we want to leave, which is around 2pm to go the 5 mins to the airport. So we spend the morning hanging out by the pool, reading and playing Candy Crush Soda (it's not the same as Candy Crush..I can handle it I'm sure), stupid game.   Get to the airport, return the rental car (full of sand, the guys who clean these cars must be so angry all the time), check into the flight, go to the lounge (because Maria travels so much for work she is a Super Elite flyer with Air Canada), then board and again Maria gets all of us priority boarding because of her Super Elite status..which is great, because the girls definitely did not want to say they're 5 so we could board with the passengers traveling with small children. Why do my kids have to be so tall?  No one will believe they are 5!  I told Mom I was going to make them carry their backpacks and each roll a suitcase over so they look laden down and the check in person wouldn't turn them away..but we didn't have to do that, Maria saved the day. 

The flight was good, uneventful. The girl beside me, across the aisle, looked so uncomfortable I asked her if she needed gravol, she said she took some. Then she leaned to her boyfriend and said something about "why did I go to the Oistins fish fry". Good thing we decided to skip it in favour of drinking tequila, now I don't feel so bad!

We landed in Toronto and I turned on my phone and Mary had texted me a link. Oh. My. God. It's an article titled "Your Dreams Have Come True: Tequila Is Actually Proven To Help Weight Loss". I laughed out loud. I showed Mom. She nearly wet herself...great welcome home!

We got our luggage and got a cab from the taxi stand for a flat rate back to the hotel. Mom said to the driver "so how much is the flat rate?"  He mumbled "$21 plus $13 is.." And she said "I beg your pardon?"  He said "well, with luggage like that..I guess I can do $21". I think he was referring to the 40lb booster bag, because everything else is carry-on. Anyway we got to the car and I said "good for you for calling him on the cab fare..he was totally trying to rip you off"  Mom said "what do you mean?  I just couldn't hear him so I said I beg your pardon". So funny. 

Finally home, Jay left today for San Diego so we won't see him until Thursday. School tomorrow, I hate making lunches..maybe I'll go away again.