A Dream Vacation

Sean and I spent the last 8 days away from jobs, school, kids, home, and responsibilities. We flew to Puerto Rico, caught the ship Jewel of the Seas, and sailed to the Caribbean. Oh it was a fabulous break and a wonderful vacation.

On the airplane we tried to stay entertained on the long flight across the country.

 View from the clouds

 

The first stop was St. Maarten. It's the smallest island in the world that is owned by two countries. Half is British, half is French. We took a water taxi to a beach and lounged and swam all day. The water temperature was absolutely perfect--and I'm a wimp when it comes to cold water. The Caribbean sea is so clear, blue, and warm--what's not to love?

 This is my nerdy "selfie" because Sean was busy catching up on rest.

 And here's the proof.

 Looking out from the pier into St. Maarten

Next stop was St. Kitts. This island has a lot of green hills but the weird thing is, there are almost no beaches to be found. The water touches rock and then turns into hills--no sand at all. So here we took a land tour on an open-air jeep all the way around the island and saw different scenic stops.

 We visited an old sugar mill. Sugar used to be the island's number one resource but now, it is tourism.

 We then visited a botanical garden. It was very manicured and beautiful.

 We also stopped at the coast and saw the lava rocks from an ancient volcano. See what I mean, no beaches.

The third island we visited was St. Lucia. This island is thick, rainforest, mountains and is very beautiful. We booked a jungle tour by jeep but unfortunately the roads were extremely curvy (like switchbacks up a mountain) and I got really car-sick. I still enjoyed the stops though. Anything to get out of the jeep. =)

A view of our ship from the mountain.

 The beautiful Piton mountains for which St. Lucia is famous.

We stopped at a neat waterfall off the side of the road. The only problem was this water was freezing!! It was literally the only cold water I felt the entire vacation. Sean dragged me under the falls for this picture but I was shaking with chills. =) He swears it wasn't that cold.

Next stop, warm, mineral water falls that felt like a bath. These were awesome. They were supposed to have healing powers and make us come out 10-years younger. Not sure they worked. =)

More of the hot springs

The fourth island was Antigua. This place is incredible! There are literally 366 beaches on the island and boy are they gorgeous. We booked an Eco tour and really enjoyed the speed boat, the hiking, the snorkeling (with jelly fish I might add), and the kayaking.

 After the kayaking we found a sea urchin and this is Sean holding it. It wiggles all over and I didn't want to hold it.

The fifth and last island we visited was Barbados. We can safely say this one is our very, very favorite!!! Go there if you ever have a chance. We took an incredible catamaran out sailing on the ocean. They took us to two snorkeling stops--one with sea turtles and the other at a shipwreck. The turtles were amazing. Our guide was feeding them so they came right next to us and we touched them and swam all over with them. There were 4, a mom, a dad, and two tiny baby turtles. Precious! We don't have many pictures here because we were in the water as much as possible.

After the snorkeling we had a delicious lunch on-board the catamaran and sailed to a deserted beach where we did more swimming and tried to collect sea shells for the boys. The weird thing about the Caribbean--I didn't see any sea shells. After the sailing was over it was back to ship with long faces. We didn't want this excursion to end.

The final day was a "sea day" where you stay on the boat and sail back to San Juan, Puerto Rico. This is the view from our balcony. I just can't get tired of this view.

 The people we sat next to at dinner turned out to be LDS and we got to be good friends with them. Here we are with Dennis and Julie Taylor.

Well this trip was exactly what we needed ---a break. now it's back to real life and that's good too. We were both ready to see our boys--we missed them so much! Thanks Norine and Glenn for babysitting! Our boys were spoiled and had a fantastic time while we were gone.