Let them drink Rum!

This morning we got up and pretty much relaxed all morning.  The plan is not to go out and do anything until this afternoon. So we all assumed our positions on the patio...

and I tried to catch up on the blog this morning.  I'm not sure really how much time people anticipate this takes me..honestly it depend on my level of concentration and intoxication (which is directly inversely correlated) (FYI, at first I wrote adversely correlated which is also true but I don't think its right).  It can take me between an hour and two hours to get my thoughts all coherently on the page, and the appropriate photos in the appropriate spots.  I was reading the blog to Jay last night and talking about the copious amounts of tequila (there really is no denying it) that Trev and I have consumed and he said "What, have you been going to bed drunk every night?"  Yeah, pretty much.  Anyway, its a good thing we didn't have anything planned for this morning because Lea gave Avery her enema and she pretty much pooped for the next few hours!  Sweet little thing, she's feeling so much better now!

Sometime before lunch we decided that we would go to the beach.  It was about 10:00am.  The girls boogie boarded in the waves and we had a lot of fun.  The beach where we are is about 50% sand and 50% rock, so its not the best for the kids.  I think tomorrow we're going to try to go to a sandier beach.

When we got back from the beach Julia had our lunch ready, it was a pork roast with homemade apple sauce, salad and fruit.  It was delicious - but all meat is well done here..there is no medium or pink in the middle.  It gets cooked, then it sits on a plate until you're ready to eat.  So while its not HOT, its 80 degrees, which is room temperature - lol.

When we were done lunch and while Jay was getting the girls ready for going out after lunch and everyone was organizing, I filled the sink up with soapy water and started doing the dishes.  Julia said to me (and this isn't the first time she has said this to one of us, Mardell said the same thing to Dwayne when he helped to empty the garbage) "You people never cease to amaze me, I've never had a guest come up in here and start doing their dishes".  I was just killing time, we had to leave straight after lunch once the kids were all organized and I felt bad leaving her with all the lunch mess.

We left pretty much after that and went to the Barbados Wild Animal Preserve on the island. The great thing about this trip in Barbados is that is seems to rain every time we get in the car, but NEVER rains on us otherwise.  It also rains overnight every night, so everything is green, but we never have rain during the day! Its about 20 minutes away from us by car to the Preserve and was an easy drive.  I had read online that you should wear good footwear (so we all wore sneakers) and that you should plan to be there for 2pm, which is feeding time for the animals.  So we arrived for 1:45pm and walked to the feeding area and wow, when the wheelbarrow full of fresh fruits and veggies was dropped in a pile it was a free for all for the monkeys, tortoises and brocket deer (a weird deer with sharp devil horns).  It was a lot of fun and the monkeys and other animals were within an arms length of us.  And the paths were all weeble wobbly cobble stone, so the sneakers were a must as well.

We had only one incident with an angry monkey that first made a little bit of aggressive movement against the girls, baring his teeth.  And then moved on to Trevor, who grinned at the 'silly monkey'.  Then a Bajan guy said to Trev, don't smile at it, it takes your teeth as an act of aggression.  So then all of us tried not to smile at the pretty monkeys.  At one point we went into the reptile area and saw an enormous reticulated Python, in the next area we saw guinea pigs that were kind of being stored under a bird exhibit..hmm, wonder what they're used for?

We headed back over to the other side of the reserve, which was a forest and up an observation tower for a great view of the north coast.

That was a quick outing - Leanne said "this is my kind of activity Dana, in, out and back to the house!"  I think all told we were gone from the house for about 90 minutes!

When we got back I was so hot - I had been sitting in the back back seat of the 8 passenger APV, and this is no Ford Explorer where you walk through two buckets to get to the back row, oh no, you climb over, butt in the air into the back seat.  I climbed over and said to Dwayne "Like a cheetah".  I'm not even sure what that means, I was just VERY impressed with myself that I didn't do a face plant, put a foot in anyone's face or get stuck half way over.  Back to me being hot...So I got on my swimsuit when we got back, only both my pairs of bottoms were out on the pool deck, so instead I doubled up on underwear and wore them out to the pool.  Oh my goodness, to the girls you would think that I was crazy!  They told everyone that I was wearing my underwear in the pool in a hushed voice..like telling it quietly is not revealing a secret..so like their Dad.  I couldn't have cared less that I was wearing underwear, but they thought it was hilarious!

Julia came out to the pool to chat with us about tomorrow's brunch.  We already figured we had to go to the store, yet again, to get bread, eggs and bacon for brunch, and she confirmed it.  We asked her to sit down with us at the patio and Jay went in the house and got her drink and ice for her.  She sat and chatted with us for about half an hour and just relaxed, it was really nice.

Julia used the rest of the Mahi Mahi that we had from the other night and made fish tacos for dinner tonight.  So we finally got to use the taco sauce that I bought by accident for a purpose!  We're lucky that I'm staying for another week, because we have a lot of leftover food to use up that I can take with me to the next house.   We're actually hoping that I can get access to the next house early in the day on Sunday so that we can check out of this house and go straight to that house for the day and use that pool so that we don't have to try to kill 4 hours with packed cars before I drop everyone to the airport and pick up Mom and Maria.

I'm just finishing up writing in bed, and then I'll add the photos and Jay just said to me "Good job on the tequila today, I'm surprised you're blogging...or sitting up".  HAHA, I can hold my tequila - especially after 6 straight days of it!  We tried, and by we I mean me and Trev, to switch to rum at one point.  But rum goes with lemons and then Trev needed antacid.  Limes, no problem but lemons are a no go - so he said with a flourish of his hand "I will drink tequila - - let them drink Rum!" (Them being us when we run out of tequila!)



**I just had to re-open my laptop and add this.  I closed my computer and turned my phone to airplane mode for the night.  Neither my phone or my ipad automatically changed the time zone, which is one hour ahead from home.  So I switched one of them at one point because I had to set an alarm.  My phone as I set it to airplane mode for bed said it was 9:09pm..I was like wow, so really its 10:09pm here because its 9:09pm at home...but then I pull my ipad out to read and it says its 8:09pm..which means that the iphone is right - and its literally 9:09pm and we have ALL been in bed for 45 minutes and because I'm writing the blog I'm the last one awake at 9:09pm..that's SO bad..but so good at the same time...

Thank goodness I'm not at risk for scurvy!

I'm a day behind on the blog, so I'm going to try to do this one this morning so that I can get back on track tonight.

This morning Jay and Trevor went diving again to do a deep wreck dive.  100ft depth to see a wreck that is 400 ft long and 50 ft wide...it sounded cool, but especially after yesterdays o-ring disaster I was a little hesitant to join them, so decided to stay home with Dwayne, Lea and the girls.  We decided that we would go down to Bridgetown to meet them on the beach though for when they got back to shore and have lunch together.  Yesterday we got back to the beach at 12:30pm, so we assumed it would be about the same time to headed down to Bridgetown around 10:30am.  Jay and Trev had taken the GPS with them, so we were going by memory, but at least I had driven down the day before.  At one point I went by Leanne's recommendation and left the route that I recognized..we got lost, found our way back to the roundabout and took my way and were there in 5 minutes!  But we got to see the Port and the shopping area in case we wanted to go back after lunch!

The beach is really nice, all sand, very deep - the water is so turquoise its unreal.  Its very gentle, the kids could just walk in, and there were silver fish swimming all around.  At one point I had Sophie floating on her boogie board with her goggles on looking in the water.  She saw a sea turtle floating under water and completely freaked out..turns out it was a rock, so at least she would go back in the water!  Dwayne took Trevs snorkel and my mask and swam out to where the snorkel tours were and got some great photos of sea turtles.  Again, how pissed would you be if you spent $50 on a snorkel tour and they took you just off the beach!

The sun started getting really hot as the cloud cover dissipated, and we'd eaten some of our snacks we brought, and it was 1pm and the dive boat wasn't in sight, so I texted Trev and told him we were going to head out to grab lunch and for them to join us.  I also wrote a note for them and left it on their car that said "Its 1:20, we're going to get something to eat, I'll text you when we find a place.  If we get back and the car is gone we'll assume you went back home, if we get back and the car is still here we'll assume you got eaten by sharks.  See ya!".  They weren't eaten by sharks - but they didn't text to say that they would meet us at the restaurant until about 2:30pm, so its a good thing we didn't wait for them any longer before heading for lunch!  So they arrived to the restaurant after we had eaten already and we decided to leave prior to them getting their food because it was so hot - so Dwayne stayed with them and Lea and I left with the girls to allow them to, finally, do some shopping on the way home.

At the restaurant you could sit at picnic tables in the sand in an area before the beach, in the shade, where there was a stage.  Avery was up on the stage a lot, killing time while we got our food, let me just say you can totally see what she might be like down here on vacation when she's 18!

We got to the shops back in Holetown and first we saw a few ladies with tables set up along the sidewalk, so the girls looked at a few jewellery and then decided to wait to see what else they could find.  They both have about $20 US to spend here on whatever they want and Sophie wants to make sure she gets just the right thing.  We went to all 3 tables and then went to all the little shops and she couldn't decide on anything.  So then we went back to the first table and Paige got a necklace to complete her $20, she had also bought a wind chime the other day at the Harrison's Cave gift shop.  The lady said, pointing at Sophie, "What's wrong with this one" when she decided not to get anything - I said "She's hording her money"..

We went to the grocery store just before we left to go back to the house, which was right beside the little shopping we were doing.  I bought 2 more bottles of tequila, more lemons and more limes!  I guess Trev said to Dwayne too that he had been holding back, playing it safe until he had done his dives and now the gloves were off when it came to drinking..that was holding back??  This will make 5 bottles of tequila and the equivalent of a lime tree (we make a pitcher every day and use 12 limes..we have the recipe down pat at this point).  Leanne said to us "You guys will never get scurvy!"  I'm pretty sure we said the same thing last year in Costa Rica.  And, poor Avery still hasn't pooped, so Leanne bought a little enema for her - so hopefully she poops today because that's what's in store for her tomorrow!

On the way back from the grocery store Avery was asking why Dwayne and Lea we're going out for dinner tonight and she was staying with us..Lea told her because sometimes Mommies and Daddies need time together, she said "why?"  (her second favourite word after "No"). I said "because we need some time to refresh and recharge so we can be the better Mommies and Daddies", so true. 

We got back to the house and the boys were here already sitting on the patio. The girls wanted to swim in the pool, so up they went. I got some pictures the other day, so I'll post them here, but they were from a few days ago..I just finally got the photos to transfer from my underwater camera memory card to my laptop. 

Nana and Papa got the girls these FunFin mermaid tails for Christmas and let me tell you they have been a hit!  They must have put them on 15 times Christmas Day and Boxing Day and they wear them at least twice a day in the pool. And they're FAST swimming in them..Sophie did a little photo shoot for me and I got some good pictures of her in her fin. 

Jay was reading his ipad this afternoon and said "this is an interesting article, it's about marriage in your mid-life and how at the beginning of your married life and in the golden years you are the most happy, while there is a dip in mid-life of happiness. It's called the U effect". He looked at me, then covered his face with his ipad (a cue he is about to giggle about something) "and it says here that it can be attributed to men named Kelly in many cases". Hehe. I said "I knew you were up to something when you covered your face with you ipad".   He said "it helps when you marry your best friend". Ahhh. I said "oh that's to bad you couldn't have done THAT then.."  I know, spoil a moment..but at the same time he said "I don't know if I would call you my BEST friend.."..yeah, we are meant for each other. 

Julie, the concierge arrived with a gift for us from the owners. A box that included a calendar, some fudge, a lemon loaf and some greeting cards featuring a local artist. The fudge was opened immediately, and there were 4 different varieties inside. I didn't have a piece but called dibs on a mint chocolate piece for after dinner.  Sophie came later and said to me "mommy, since you like the mint and I like the chocolate, can I eat the brown off your fudge and you can have the green?"  Uh, no. 

We had flying fish for dinner with jacket potatoes (twice baked potatoes) and steamed veggies.  It was delicious, only I got thrown off because under the breading the fish still had its skin on..gross.  Sophie said "What's this black stuff?"  I said "you don't want to know" as Jay said "seasoning"..haha, his approach was probably better (thank god for travel stars)...though he said about 5 minutes later "is this skin?  That's a little gross".  Sophie said, if I lived in this house I would have Julia's french toast every day!

Avery wasn't feeling well, so she didn't eat dinner at all.  Sweet little muffin, she went to bed just after dinner and I snuggled with her up in her bed and she went straight to sleep - from awake to unconscious in about 5 minutes.   She still hasn't pooped, so she's in for a rude awakening tomorrow.  I think that Dwayne was hoping she would evacuate while they were out for dinner!

Your logic is tying me up in knots..

I woke up in the middle of the night with the sun blazing in my eyes...oh wait, that's Jay on my laptop watching YouTube because he can't sleep.  Shit that shit is bright!  He's turning into an old man, aka Dad, waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to sleep.  We got our AC fixed yesterday, so the sleep was just fine for me, Jay was up worrying - that's his thing.  As for the AC, we don't keep it super cold anyway, just at 24 to cut the humidity - but we keep the windows open all day for the breeze, so the room isn't too bad.  Jay had talked about leaving the windows open last night and not putting on the AC but when we got up to the room there was a huge bug on the window, so that nixed that idea!

We got up this morning, had breakfast on the patio and pretty much chillaxed until we were ready to head out to Harrison's Cave for our activity for today.   Avery was doing a little jig and I said to her "do you need to go pee pee?" "No" (because she's 3, and that's her favourite word)..."Are you sure?  You're doing the pee pee dance".."No, I'm not" "ok, it sure looks like a pee pee dance.." and then Dwayne looks over and looks at Leanne, who is sitting next to where Avery is standing and says "uh, hon..it looks like she might have peed" and Avery says "I don't have to pee, I did already" as her pull up starts dripping on the floor - haha.   Every Mom who has completed potty training recognizes the pee pee dance!

We were getting ready to go out and I asked Lea if she happened to have brought nail clippers and she did!  And then she said "And I also brought some nail polish remover..you know, not that you need it" haha, but I've complained a couple of times about the cheap dollar store nail polish I put on my toes the day we left for our trip that is chipping off, so I said "Oh, for my trailer trash toes?!?"  "NO!!" she denied, but it was totally for my trailer trash toes.  I actually brought some of my own nail polish remover so I did the deed, only the cheap dollar store nail polish stained my big toes BLUE so now I look like I have circulatory problems!  I was going to do my fav Jamberries but didn't get around to it.

Dwayne came out a few minutes later as we were still sitting on the patio (clearly we're not in a rush to get out this morning) and asked if anyone had opened up the window in the main bathroom..no, no one remembered opening it..but no one is too fussed about it either.  Apparently it bothered Dwayne, several times he "joked" about a vagrant having come through the window and into the house.  I told him I'm going to go through the house and just open random windows just to f*&k with him.

Before we left, while we are killing what is obviously ample time before we leave, I had to make more simple syrup for the tequila sours.  Jay came up to me this morning and said "You know that water that you had in the cups in the fridge?"  "Yeah, the simple syrup?"  "Yeah, I thought it was water, and it wasn't - so you'll have to make some more"...I'm not sure if he poured it out or spit it back into the cup - either way its a tragedy.

Finally we leave the house, its about 10:00am...lol - we get up early and do a lot of preparing (and by preparing I mean sitting) before we leave the house.  We're on our way to Harrison's Caves.  We're all quite comfortable in the 8 passenger APV, but first we have to get gas, so we head just a little beyond our turn off the main highway and go to the gas station.  Jay was sitting in the middle row beside Avery in her booster, who kept telling him all the things she was seeing out the window (like yellow alligators)..finally Jay said to her "Avery, your logic is tying me up in knots!  Its a good thing you're so cute..".   I think that Lea was a little wary of the route to the caves, which is in the middle of the island.  She didn't want to take any roads that were marked in gray (which basically indicates that they're dirt I think, though we haven't seen a single dirt road here, they're remarkably well maintained and all asphalt) - the road we ended up taking had a couple of narrow, sketchy moments but for the most part was great.  And we pulled into the Harrison's Caves parking lot and Leanne said "This isn't sketchy at all!" with great delight!

The first thing we saw was this sign, so I pointed it out to Dwayne, thinking he would be happy that there is an emergency contingency plan in place.

He said "I saw that...I wondered what kind of emergency would necessitate an emergency meeting point like that.."  HA!

We got into the line up, paid and immediately got onto the tram, which was awesome - great timing because we didn't have to wait at all.  Its an hour long tram through the cave system.  You end up a maximum of 150ft below ground in a limestone cavern that is constantly dripping..its dripping rain that fell a year ago onto the ground and is now dripping into the cavern and tunnels.  It was really interesting and the girls might want to do the Jr Adventure Tour, which is a walking tour offered that is an hour and a half..so we might come back and do that next week when Mom and Maria are down (don't worry, you guys can stay by the pool and I can take them back if you want!).  I got some cool photos of the caverns..

You can also do a 4 hour caving tour where you go through the caves in your runners with a head lamp and gloves and knee pads on, which I think would be awesome - but I don't think Jay wants to do.

After the caves we came back to the house after a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up a few more essentials.  Julia had prepared for us a great fruit salad and green salad to go with our lunch today.  We told her we would just eat some leftovers today for lunch (pizza from last night) and maybe some veggies and dip and sandwiches, so we had lunch on the patio and it was delish!

After lunch we swam in the pool and Jay and Dwayne went with Julia to the fish market to pick up some Mahi Mahi for our blackened fish dinner tonight.  Julia had come out to the pool after calling the fisherman and found out all the tuna was gone and he just had one whole Mahi Mahi fish left that we could have, but we would have to take the whole fish and it would be a little over $100.  We said we weren't sure if it was worth $100 to get the fish if we weren't going to eat it all that night for dinner, even if I could take the leftovers with me to the other house we didn't think it was a good idea.  Then I said "Is it $100 Bajan dollars or $100 US dollars?"  "$100 Bajan dollars.." "Oh, ok, so that's like $50 - I think that's fine.." and everyone agreed it was fine and we got 12 lbs of freshly caught and prepared Mahi Mahi for $50, and it was AMAZING!  Lea says that the Mahi Mahi that she buys at home is crap compared to that.  She even breaded some for the kids and cooked it separate..Sophie didn't like it when she thought that it was chicken, but when we told her it was fish and gave her a little ketchup she was fine!  Both girls ate it actually and I, who really is not a fish person, really really enjoyed it.  Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself...its still just after lunch.

Tomorrow for lunch we're supposed to have Roti..so Trev and I and the girls go down past Holetown to the Roti House to by 14 Roti skins for our Roti tomorrow.  We order them and have to wait 15 minutes until they're ready, so we decide to walk down the street and come to a public access for the beach so head down there and then walk back along the beach back to the Roti House to kill our 15 minutes.

Julia, the cook, doesn't have a car and takes public transportation.  I think a lot of her guests either pay for her to take a taxi and do the shopping for them or pay for food delivery through the concierge we booked through, but we're pretty hands on and like to go and get things ourselves.

We got back home and the girls wanted to go to the beach before dinner, so we changed into our swim suits and all headed down to the beach for an hour before supper.  The tide was up even higher than it was the day before, so the rollers were really fun.  Jay, Trev and Dwayne went over to the point again to try to play in the waves, but they're no fun over there either I guess.  I got some cool photos of the sunset though, picture perfect behind a cloud with a sailboat sailing by..

And a couple of the girls in the surf too. 

Tomorrow we're going to go in the afternoon over to the East side of the Island to the beach and hopefully the boys have some fun waves there.  We went back home, had quick showers and then had our amazing dinner, as described above, including a caribbean fried rice (with bacon in it), roasted beets, the salad, the remaining fruit salad and the amazing blackened mahi mahi.  While the boys cleaned up after dinner, Lea and I took the girls BACK to the grocery store to pick up a few MORE essentials..I haven't been to the grocery store so much in my life..and Leanne can not grasp the number of limes we have gone through in 2 days!  (Today Trev and I just spent the time to make a pitcher of tequila sours..short term pain for long term gain).

So now we're in bed..its 9:30ish.  Jay and Trev and I are diving in the morning - I said to Jay "Do you think I'll get eaten by sharks when I'm diving on my period?" (I think its a valid concern) (I've even tried to google it..apparently no one else thinks that bleeding into shark infested waters is a problem, because I can't find anything on it).  He said no, no problem - I said "Or are you just saying that?"  I mean really, what better way to prove for insurance you didn't kill your wife than to have her eaten by sharks while scuba diving!  If I don't write tomorrow..you know why..

Blogging frustration..

I woke up this morning and Jay rolled over and gently touched my arm and said, it's time to get up soon for diving. I was thinking to myself "he's being weird", he just was. Then he said "I had a weird dream.." Here we go.."you broke up with me, well I guess it would be divorce now, but we were at hockey practice and you were the coach - this is where I started to question the reality of this situation (he said) - and you said 'listen I could be out with for dinner with candlelight instead of here at practice too' and I said "wait, what? Who are you dating" and you said "his name is Kelly".  This became an all day event this dream. 

Jay, Trev and I went down to Bridgetown this morning and went diving.  It took us about an hour to get down to Bridgetown to the dive shop and we hit a bit of a traffic jam at one point because there is no right turn lane (and right is like our left) for cars getting onto the highway so it was jammed up.  While we were waiting to get past that point we could hear sirens - we are on a narrow two lane road with traffic traveling in both directions and no shoulder and yet we're supposed to pull over for the prison bus (yes, prison bus) that is coming straight down the middle of the road behind me.  I'm not sure what kind of emergency necessitates a prison bus having a siren in the first place, but I'm pretty sure in this instance they just didn't want to wait in traffic!

We got to the dive shop just a little late, with one call to the shop to get directions as we stopped at a gas station.  Nothing has a street address here, you just plug into the GPS the nearest point of reference you can find (in this case it was the Garrison Horse Track) and do your best from there.
Jay had forgotten his PADI card, so he had to call back to the house and get Dwayne to get it out of the safe and read him off the number.  Because he's coming back tomorrow they were ok with him not having it with him, they can check it tomorrow.

We got on the boat and introduced ourselves to the other divers, we met Madeline and Stetson..Jay was like "Stetson! Now that's a great handle", while Patrick, our dive instructor kept calling him Stenton or Stilton..I said its Stetson, like the cowboy hat. Patrick said "I'm British, what do I know about Cowboys?"

Our first dive was off the reef and was a drift dive with the current.  It was a really cool reef, with lots of little fish and a small wreck that we could look at.  We always check air levels before and after the dive..I started with 3100 psi and ended with 1800..I'm a very relaxed breather in the water. Jay ended with under 1,000 which is typical.  Patrick said our second dive we would have a contest to see who could come back with the most air left. After the first dive we went back to the beach to pick up 5 divers who were doing a Discover Scuba Diving morning, so they did a bit of training while we went out for our first dive and they joined us for the second dive, which was pretty much just off the shore to see 4 or 5 wrecks.  During our 30 minutes above the water to equalize Jay turned to Trev and said "Hey Trev, you know any guys named Kelly?"..seriously?  "Nope, I don't think so" and Jay says "well if you know anyone named Kelly and see them hanging around my house then let me know". Oh brother. 

When we set up our equipment for our second dive onto our new tanks my secondary regulator was leaking air.  For anyone that doesn't dive your equipment always has a secondary regulator in case a) your buddy needs to use your air or b) something malfunctions on your primary regulator. I said to Patrick "no wonder I came back with only 1800, I was leaking!"  Patrick said I was being cocky.  He also said "don't worry about it, it will be fine".   I think he just wanted to win the contest.

We got in the water and immediately descended.  Patrick told us to meet him down there, to feel free to explore the first wreck and to just wait there and he would be down in a second. There was another instructor in the water with us with the Discover divers, so we just went down, cruised around, went in the wreck and around the wreck and waited. Then Patrick met us and we went off to the second wreck. One of the wrecks the we were diving you can actually snorkel to from the beach, but there were like 50 snorkels and butts sticking out of the water around the buoy indicating the wreck, so you can't be afraid of a crowd out there.  I'd be pissed if I paid for a snorkel tour to bring me out and you could get to it free from the beach!  So I made sure to email Mom and Maria to bring their snorkels for next week and we can hit that spot.

We were almost to the second wreck when Patrick's tank blew an o-ring and he started spouting air out the top. So Trev, as his buddy, went over and Patrick used his extra regulator.  Patrick indicated that he couldn't fix it and he was heading up, but for us to stay down and just join the other group.  It was kind of freaky, but good that it happened to the instructor.  We joined the other group of divers that was on our boat and followed G, their instructor. We were allowed to penetrate the wrecks, while the Discover divers were not. We saw a small reef shark right off the bat, then later saw a sea turtle pretty close up, though when we went up to the surface I said "the sea turtle was pretty cool" and Trev said "There was a sea turtle?"  We got on the boat and I said to Patrick, "way to throw the air contest, were you that worried I was going to win?"

We went back in to shore and headed back to the house where Julia had prepared for us a lunch of chicken roti, ate up and then assumed our positions on the patio, drink in hand. Dwayne laid down on the couch and said "are you going to blog?"  I said yeah, but I'll do it later in bed, I'm just making some notes on stuff so I don't forget what happened today and actually I'm looking up vacation houses for next year,  Dwayne suggested that I should aspire to have a day on vacation that I have nothing to write about, where I do literally nothing all day...I feel like that's what we've been doing, it just reads like we're busy!  And, I think we're going to go to Costa Rica again next Jan!

While we were diving the girls spent the morning with Dwayne and Lea. They went down the road a bit to Mullins beach, where they bought the girls boogie boards. They had had breakfast, made by Julia, of French toast and bacon (which we missed because we were diving). When Julia asked who was eating my girls said they already ate and weren't hungry..we had given them a piece of toast before we left because they were up. 

OH MY GOD, I just lost what I wrote for the last 40 minutes..I'm so mad.  I might just give up on today.  AND, I delete my notes as I blog, so now I have to try to remember all that crap that was fun about yesterday..here goes...now I'm on my computer instead of my ipad anyway, so it should be faster..frig.

...So, even though the girls said that they didn't want any of the french toast, Sophie ended up demoing 4 pieces, which left Dwayne and Lea to share a piece!  I would have been like "yeah, not happening, you said you didn't want any - go have a banana"..but maybe not to their kid, so I get where they were coming from too.  Though it is funny, Dwayne said later that Leanne had sounded like me more talking to the girls at the beach - I'm pretty sure she told them "You're fine" more than once!  Good on ya'.  Sophie totally made up for what we are calling the 'breakfast incident'  later though.  Avery gave Dwayne her last bit of Rice Krispies square to have a 'bite' and he accidentally dropped it at the beach.  He tried to pick it up and wipe it off as best he could, but wiping sand off of a Rice Krispie square is suspect at best.  So he took a bite to see if he had done an adequate job and no, it was not edible.  As Leanne said, there is no 5 second rule with Rice Krispie squares in the sand!  Total meltdown potential, this kid eats Rice Krispies squares like Jay.  So Sophie said "She can have mine.." Crisis averted and french toast thievery forgotten! They came back to the house and had lunch just before we arrived back for our roti.

We spent the afternoon doing nothing, sitting, chatting, maybe swimming.  At one point Jay pushed two of the big, square chairs together and curled up and had a nap.  Dwayne had offered him the couch twice, but he declined.  Avery came out and said "What's he doing?"  He's having a nap.  "He looks like a giant baby".  Yup, that sounds about right.

The girls have been asking for a couple of days to go shopping, they have money from back home burning a hole in their pockets.  So we left for dinner a little early in order to go to the shops before we ate since the last two times we've been out to do some shopping the shops have been closed.  We got there and the shops were closed.  You've GOT to be kidding me, we are so terrible at this.  So we went straight to dinner at a place called Just Grillin' that Lea found online or in one of the books we've been left.  We sat down and looked at the menu and Lea asked the server if the jerk chicken was hot..she said "It depends, just a second" and she went back to the kitchen and brought us out a sample!  Dwayne says all restaurants should do that!  Four of us ordered the jerk chicken, the kids had hamburgers (we re-instituted the travel stars reward system that we devised on our trip to London last year if we can get through dinner without a tonne of whinging, its awesome) and Dwayne had a fish of some kind, I can't remember.  Then the guys got dessert, oh yeah - Jay is back on sugar.  He's binging.  He had chocolate bars, he had cheese cake, he had carrot cake, he's had COKE people!  I can't say anything though, I've gone through 3 bottles of tequila with Trevor in 4 days, I guess we're binging too.

During dinner Leanne was on guard all night, sometimes standing beside the table and glaring around us, watching for mosquitos.  She's petrified of the Chikungunya virus that mosquitos carry down here - granted it does sound horrible, but there have only been 58 cases in Barbados so I think we're probably ok.  In other news, Avery is all stopped up and hasn't pooped since the plane ride here, so she also picked up some medicine for Avery and every 5 minutes rushed her to the bathroom, while on her off minutes glared at us and the patrons around us like an angry, pregnant, maniac while shooing away imaginary mosquitos.

Dinner just finished and dessert consumed and Dwayne says "What time is it anyway?  Is it too early for bed?" I looked at my watch and said "6:40..no, not too early for bed"  He said "what?!"  I mean, its dark, you're tired, you're on vacation - go to bed, we're not judging you.  He said "This vacation is awesome, I love you guys so much"..and Leanne is in her glory!  She lives to sleep, so the fact that we're all in bed by 9pm is amazing for her.

As we were leaving the restaurant a guy saw Trev's Maple Leafs t-shirt and said "Ah, some people from Toronto, we just got in a couple of hours ago"..oh, we heard its cold at home.."It is SO cold at home, -27 today, I literally thought I was going to die getting from the car to the terminal"  (and he had taken a limo to the airport, so he literally meant from the car to the terminal.  So glad we're here.  I also got a text today from Juls that said "My love for you guys is unconditional..but in this -33 weather and seeing those beautiful beaches WTF!!!"  I wrote her back and said "It could have been you!!  They had been invited to come down as well but couldn't because of Kobe's hockey schedule.

I think that was it...I didn't get this posted yesterday because the internet wasn't working up in the room, not because I was eaten by sharks, but thank you for those of you who emailed me just to make sure.

I'm Alive!

Just a quick note so that those of you worried about not hearing from me last night can rest easy..I did not get eaten by sharks..the internet was down, almost as tragic.

I'll post yesterdays soon!

Fun in the sun comes at a price..cranky pants kids

This morning I woke up pretty early..we realized last night when we went to bed that the AC in our room wasn't working, so we kept our windows open. We have windows on both sides of the room so we had a pretty good cross breeze, so it was ok.  We also had the curtains open in order to take advantage of as much breeze as possible and so it was also very bright, very early!

The other reason why I was up early was because Dwayne, in case an emergency exit out the front door was required, locked the door but left the key in the lock so we could make a quick escape!  And thus we have crowned a new Captain Safety...sorry Uncle Dave!  Because the cook, Julia, and the housekeeper, Mardell, were arriving at 8:00am I got up at 7:45am wondering if they tried to unlock the front door from the outside and the key was in the lock on the inside, would the door still unlock and open for them?  When I came into the hall Dwayne was just coming up the stairs from unlocking the door, apparently he had wondered the same thing!

When Julia arrived we all sat on the patio and made a meal plan for the week and then went grocery shopping.  Dwayne decided to come with me to the grocery store and when we got outside the house he climbed into the back of the van and let Julia get in the front.  She said "You sittin' in the back?"  he said he was ok in the back and then she thumbed it over to me and said "She a good driver?"..better than him, trust me.  Though Dwayne said today.."play dumb in the kitchen and you don't have to cook.." I get the drift, play like a bad driver...Leanne seemed pretty adamant that he not drive though, so there must be something there.  When we arrived to the store I asked Julia if I was a good driver, she said "ya, you a good driver". On the drive I was asking her a lot of questions about Barbados..like what are the Barbadian people called?  They're Bajans (sounds like Cajuns); there is little crime on the island, but there are crimes of opportunity so to make sure we lock the doors to the car; most Bajans own their homes and live in a "family home" where they all live together and it passes through the family;  public school is free to age 17/18; there are 4 Universities on the island; their main export is sugar and other stuff I can't remember. I could t get a good idea of what the wages are or how much a home costs to buy..she was sketchy on those type things and said wages depend on what you do (obviously) and wouldn't elaborate even as I asked and homes wouldn't give me a rough idea.  I thought maybe it was because she's private, but then she told me about her period pains and the delivery of her son, so I'm not sure what's up.

When we got back from the grocery store Jay, Trev, Lea and the girls were at the beach.  We changed into our swim suits and they arrived home so we jumped in the pool before lunch and cooled off.  The weather here is pretty much perfect.  Its a high of 29 and a low of 26 every day.  Its humid and so it rains every day a little bit, though today didn't rain at all and yesterday it only rained for about 5 minutes on our drive to the house.

Dwayne read the blog this morning and laughed at all the appropriate places and then later said to me - I want to read the blog again tomorrow...uh, and see what happens?  while here..on vacation...with me...ok...

We had lunch on the patio again and went for another swim.  Dwayne was sitting with his feet in the pool and said "Dana, you've opened my eyes to a whole new way to travel - and I like it!"  and Leanne said the same thing later when she came down from their room and Mardell had done the laundry in the hamper and folded it and left it back up on the bed.  They've got the baby next year, so might not be able to join us, wherever that trip may be, but they've got the right of first refusal sewn up.  While Dwayne and Trev sat at the edge with their feet dangling in, I was in the pool easing in. The pool is refreshing because it's just heated by the sun, but the air is about 80 and humid, so the pool is 80 and my kids are wimps!  Anyway, Sophie was looking a little cagey and whispered something in Trev's ear. Of course, because I think the world revolves around me, I think she's planning on splashing me wet while I'm adjusting to the temperature of the water. About 5 mins goes by and she's getting really restless, I've asked a couple times what she's up to and she just giggles. Then, no one is paying attention and all of the sudden Dwayne is in the pool!  Haha - her plan was for Trev to push him in!   Later when we came back from the beach to get in the pool Paige stopped in her tracks, looked at Dwayne and put up her two hands and said "I am not the one that pushed you in the pool!" Haha - I said to Sophie that she should tell him "no, I'm not the one who pushed you in the pool!".

A little while later Paige asked me if I would go to the beach with her since I missed it this morning so I said sure!  The girls, Dwayne, Trev and I ended up at the beach - Jay was sleeping and Avery said "I'm too tired to go to the beach" which suited Lea just fine, who I'm pretty sure was thinking she had totally scored (but then Avery never went to sleep!).

The walk to the beach is a little perilous.  Its across the street and down the road literally a block for the beach access, so close, and yet the roads are so narrow that its absolutely dangerous.  We heard a beep beep beep at one point, a little car giving us a heads up its coming up on us from behind?  Oh no, a HUGE bus traveling 60 km an hour and baring down on us and our little slice of roadside sidewalk/path.  The bark absolutely did not match the bite on that one!  And then it happened again, it really was just a courtesy beep but it should be a HONK! Buses should not sound like Hyundais!

I brought my camera and took a few photos of the beach..Dwayne said "No pictures of this (body sweep with the arms) on Facebook"...I said "same here".

We played in the water for a bit and then decided to move a little further down the beach because it was fairly rocky (like bits of reef rock) where we had set up and Trev said while they were there earlier in the day they were down further and it was more sandy.

We dropped the bags on the sand up near the wall, under this tree and went back in the water with the girls.  There weren't any breaking waves, but there were some big rollers..some big rollers that swept right up to our bag and washed all our stuff out as the wave retreated!  We managed to gather everything while 3 Bajan workers looked on, probably thinking 'stupid tourists' as they laughed inside at us scrambling and screaming to grab our stuff!  So then we dropped our stuff ON the wall instead of BY the wall.

Shortly after that Trev and Dwayne took the girls a little further down the beach where it looked like there might be some waves and I stayed in the water by our stuff to watch for Jay and Leanne in case they came down to the beach.  They came down a few minutes later and I told Lea that Dwayne and the girls were over on the other side of the point where it looked like there were some waves and she asked if you could surf over there, but I didn't think so.  Dwayne and Trev made their way back to where we were all swimming with the girls, the waves weren't that good over there either.  Then a surfer walked across the beach a little later and Leanne said to me "I want to take lessons with THAT guy"..."Yeah right" I said and then "I'm right here.." said Jay "and Dwayne is right there.." and pointed to Dwayne..then Jay says "the only thing that could make that funnier is if Dwayne was going like this" and posed like a body builder with one arm pointed toward the horizon!

Some other fun pictures of the girls climbing the trees and at the beach. 

We headed back to the house, with the wet towels, wet flip flops, and wet beach cover ups that had been dragged into the ocean and rinsed everything off in the outdoor shower and then went for a swim in the pool...rough day!  

The girls had a snack, Trev made tequila sours and then I went and grabbed some chips and salsa and brought them out - only I had bought taco sauce instead of salsa (picture salsa flavour in a tomato soup form).  It turned out to be not so bad...we were chatting about the house later and Dwayne said something about how he liked at the top of the stairs to the bedrooms there are metal gates that you can close and latch..like in case of a home invasion (good lord).  And I said to him, the only problem is that someone would leave taco sauce at the gate for him, like a trojan horse, and he would say 'oh look, taco sauce' and open up the gates!

This is one of the nights that Julia isn't doing dinner, so we went into Holetown and went to a pizza place for dinner on the beach.  Its a restaurant that Lea had found online.  It was really good, but the kids were all tired.  At one point Avery just dropped her head onto the table..and I can't remember if that was before or after we ate.  

Sophie was a bear too all through dinner...finally at home after she had been impossible for so long I said "what's the matter with you?"  She said "I just don't know!" - too much fun in the sun today!

We were sitting down on the patio, just before I came up to bed and to write, listening to music when the music turned off.  I said to Trev "what happened to the music?"  He pointed to Dwayne and Dwayne said "I like to play with the music.." I said "I like to listen to whole songs"..Dwayne apparently likes to listen to the first 30 seconds of every song and then switch...maybe I'll reneg on their rights of first refusal...but probably not, its a first offence.

Bar-BAY-Dos

We stayed in a hotel last night at the airport and got up super early this morning (5:40am) to get our 8:45am flight to Barbados.  We got up, had a shower and when I went to brush my teeth Jay had put our toothpaste away and so I grabbed the girls from my toiletry bag, put it on my toothbrush and then walked out to the living room, told the girls to get changed..and I'm thinking to myself - this toothpaste isn't minty, I don't know what the girls problem is, why they don't like it.  Then I realize it isn't really frothing either and then it felt kind of greasy..so I pulled out the tube and it was Cortizone Cream!!! Yuck!  So then I take a kleenex and start to wipe the grease off of my teeth and pull out the REAL toothpaste and brush again..so disgusting.

We got down to the lobby and had a quick breakfast and hopped on the shuttle, which the front desk person had told me will pick us up and take us directly to the airport (8-13 mins depending on traffic) yeah right!  It stops at another Marriott before going to the airport and THEN it back tracks BACK to the hotel and the people in front of us tell us that there are people who arrived at the airport and ordered the shuttle and then got OFF at the wrong Marriott so we're taking them back to the right Marriott before we go to the airport - oh my god.  Now we're tight for time.   And Jay pokes me on the shoulder, twice, and says "now we're tight for time" - yeah thanks. Our flight leaves at 8:45am and we finally arrive at Terminal 1 at 7:15, we have 90 minutes to check our booster bag (which is 25% full of boosters and 75% full of other crap we use on vacation that will fit in the bag - but its free to check so we have a hockey bag sized car seat bag that weights 20kg).  We check the bag, we sail through security with our Nexus and we have 60 minutes to spare!  We see Dwayne and Leanne immediately and then just wait to board.  They start calling boarding and because Dwayne and Lea have Avery, who is 3, we are going to try to piggy back on them when they say "We are now boarding passengers needing assistance and passengers traveling with small children"..I turn to the girls and say "If anyone asks, you're 5" and they say "but no, we want to say we're 6?!?"...hopefully no one asks...

We arrived in Barbados about 2:30pm this afternoon after a fairly uneventful flight.   Jay and I had been arguing, pretty much since we booked the trip, that we didn't need to upgrade to business class for us and the kids for the 5 hours flight ESPECIALLY since the business class seats were pods.  He's been trying to convince the girls how cool the seats would be and would think he had them sold when I would say "So what this means is you can't see or touch Mommy or Daddy for the flight and you're basically flying alone" and they would shrivel into themselves and say "Uh Uh, Mommy and Daddy"...understandable, I mean they're 6!  We got on the plane though and the girls saw the seats and said "I want to fly in one of those!" Oh my God, they're their fathers daughters after all!  Though I still think it would have been a big mistake.  The girls and I are staying in Barbados for 2 weeks, while Jay is only staying for 1 week, so he's flying home on his own in a pod, so he gets that anyway.  And we had paid the extra $40 per person to be at the bulkhead and had TONNES of room, so no complaints there at all...also the bulkhead seats we had were 2 and 2..so no strangers near enough to feel, hear or smell, so Jay was happy.

We had a bit of a mix up with customs and immigration once we arrived in Barbados, or well Dwayne and Lea did - they finally had all their bags and I said "What about your stroller"..."Thanks Dana!"  they forgot to pick up the stroller as they left the airplane, so Dwayne went BACK out past customs to the tarmac to get it (since down here you get off the aircraft on stairs straight to the tarmac) - so then there was a bit of a debacle with Dwayne and Leanne being separated..so Jay, Trevor and I went to the car rental place to start to get the car settled.  Dwayne and Lea met up with us and got Lea all sorted with her spot as a driver and off we went..kinda.  Then there was a hiccup with the rental cars not having anchors for the boosters, though Leanne took that pretty well - their precious Avery would have to travel in 5 point harness comfort without the added security of anchors while the girls are in their top of the line $19 booster from Walmart and just a seat belt - haha!   No, really, it was fine.

We got 2 rental cars, an 8 seater for when we all want to travel together and then a 4 seater for when we're splitting up on activities.  So Lea and I took the kids and hopped in the 8 seater with Dwayne, while Jay and Trev packed all of the suitcases in the Kia and said "See ya later suckers, we're going to follow the directions, see you there, its a race"..we opted to have the rental car rep input our final destination in the GPS, which took a few extra minutes of figuring.   We got about 10 minutes (I'm not sure it was even 10 minutes) down the road and all of the sudden Paige says "I think Daddy and Uncle Trevor are behind us!"  I had just joked with Dwayne and Lea that the directions were completely ridiculous since none of the streets have names (except the directions told you which turn to make at each roundabout by name ie - at Haroldson take the 2nd exit, but NONE of the streets have signs indicating their names) and that if we see Jay and Trev at the side of the road we should slow down at least!  Anyway, they followed us safely to the house.  Driving is on the left side of the road, so quite a few times I turned on the windshield wipers instead of my indicators!

We got to the house and its gorgeous, just like the pictures.  We're staying at a place I found online called Capri Manor.  

Our concierge greeted us and she introduced us to the cook and the housekeeper, gave us some pertinent information and then headed off.  Dwayne asked where the nearest hospital or clinic was in case of a medical emergency..I have never thought to ask that when we rent a house!  lol, worrier vs non-worrier? 

The girls got changed and went for a swim with Jay in the pool while Leanne and I talked to the cook about the plan for meals.  They'll cook 2 consecutive meals a day, either breakfast and lunch or lunch and dinner.  I said 'we'll probably do lunch and dinner each day and just do breakfast on our own' - HA!  The cook said (in her own words but pretty close).."Lady, I've been doing lunch and dinner for the last 2 weeks straight and I have problems with my feet, I want you to mix it up a bit and do some breakfast and lunch (and you look like a bunch of push overs from Canada and not some hoity toity bit*&es so I'm pretty sure you'll do what I say)"  So we'll do a couple of breakfast/lunch shifts too!  lol.. She's coming early tomorrow morning to do a meal plan and then go grocery shopping with us to buy what we need for the week.  So we said that Lea and I will likely do a grocery shop anyways tonight for breakfast tomorrow and snacks and she thought we were CRAZY since we have to go to the store tomorrow with her and its about 15 mins away.  But, she didn't know that I wanted fresh limes for, that's right if you remember Costa Rica, tequila sours (so good)..and of course some snacks for the kids.  Plus, Lea is pregnant and you DO NOT make a pregnant woman, let ALONE Leanne, wait for breakfast until after the shopping in the morning!  I said to Lea, "She's going to come in in the morning and see all the groceries and be like 'Silly Ladies, I can't believe they went out last night and have to go again this morning!'"..but those tequila sours were worth it..and Leanne may or not say the same about her pre-bed snack of bran cereal!  HAHA.

The cook and housekeeper made us a nice dinner of pasta, salad and bread and then Jay and Trev went out to get gas and beer in the little Kia while Lea and I went in the van to do groceries.  We got back an hour later (20 mins there, 20 mins shopping and 20 mins back) and Dwayne was apparently ready to send out a search party for us!  I'm beginning to see another side to Dwayne!  Too funny.  We were fine..though Lea is a bit of a nervous navigator..I'm a bit of a ditch hugger driving on the wrong side of the road and she keeps saying "ok, slow down.." and "we are definitely touching the bushes over here.." in a very calm voice..but then deep breathing a bit like she's having contractions!  She CAN not drive with Jay or this baby might just be a Barbadian citizen!

We got home and immediately made a simple syrup and squeezed some limes for the tequila sours..then 2 drinks each (for Trev and I) and half a 26er later (how is that even possible) - we're in bed.  Oh, but...Paige wanted me to tell Leanne and Dwayne the story about the Cortizone cream..so I told them what happened this morning, pretty much as I wrote it above and Leanne laughed..and peed her pants.  haha..so then we were all laughing that she peed - and Trev said "Ok, that's Leanne's chair this trip" and this is a beautiful outdoor patio with 4 big chairs and a couch..and then he says "I didn't know we could mark our territory" and stands up and proceeds to pretend he's peeing all over his chair..well, the girls went CRAZY laughing.  It was so funny.

We're sitting outside and laughing and listening to music and Dwayne says "what time is it anyway.." - oh, its 9pm, almost bed time..we'll put the kids to bed, go to bed ourselves and then get up with the sun and play all day -  - "I love it!"...yeah, I think we'll travel well together!