Island Hopping: Spanish Wells Part 2

After a fun evening in Spanish Wells we woke up to a picture perfect morning. 

We made a quick trip to the store and  were headed to the beach by 9 a.m.  Allen took the boys in the kayak to the sand bar that was just out from our beach.

There were sand dollars and even a giant starfish to keep them busy on the way.

Jackson took a turn at the kayak and did well

Our friends came and joined us on the sandbar

The guys headed out to go fishing and Margo and I took the boys for a nice long walk on the beach.  Where Miller found some seaweed and declared it Michael Jackson hair!

While they were out fishing we went to get a local dinner of fish fingers. Didn’t know fish had fingers, but boy are they delicious! I also had some cracked conch that was really good too.

Then guys had a successful fishing trip.  Besides this wahoo they also caught two yellow fin tunas!

After a day full of fun in the sun and sand, we were again ready for bed. 

Island Hopping: Spanish Wells Part 1

Last weekend we were able to go with some friends to another island.  Our friends have a cousin who lives in Spanish Wells, Bahamas and they were going over for a little trip and invited us to join them.  We rented a house just down the beach from them.  The location was ideal.

The house we rented was very simple, but absolutely perfect.  It wasn’t the house that we were there for.  It was the beach and water.

Yep, that was the view that was steps from the house.

But I don’t want to forget a thing, so I am going to have to start at the beginning. 

We got on Scott’s boat on Friday afternoon, swung through downtown and picked up Margo and hit the open water.  it was about an hour and a half.  It was a little choppy in the middle, but the boys loved every second of it!

We got there, unloaded, we headed to our house, they headed to theirs and we met back up with them at dinner.  Margo's cousin,  Vicky, was nice enough to host us for dinner that evening.  She is doing renovations to her house and it is already wonderful.  I hope to see it again when it is all done.

Her house sits back from the beach a bit more, and the beach there is protected by sea oats. 

We had a delicious dinner and headed to bed.  We had big plans for Saturday!

I’ll be back

I have not gotten lost at sea, but we have had a really neat island adventure.  I’ll be back soon with stories!  And Pictures!

What the Heck Wednesday? Tourists

My smart husband has been known to say, “Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason.”  He is absolutely correct.

It doesn’t take too long to live in a vacation destination before you get a little weary of the tourists. We are just as guilty as anyone else.  I am sure if I flew to New York City tomorrow I would get a lot of eye rolls from the locals.

You see when we think of ourselves as tourists, we think we look something like this.

In reality we look like this

In order to make it more fun I’ve stared naming the tourists…according to the stereotype.  Of course it can be difficult to get photos without being too obvious!  But I have rounded up a few from my files!

Cruise ship families.

College age partiers

The “oh so typical” type.  Oh wait, that is my brother!  I think he gave his wife the fanny pack by this time!

The Brazilians

The Asians also known as “I will perish before sun ever touches my skin”

The “my sunburns turn into tan” type.

The “I’m too sexy for me to notice your kids splashing me” type

You can look at it a couple of different ways.  These people are coming here to experience new things and yet they are so much of what they are in their world, that they become a stereotype.   or you could say that these tourists bring valuable money and resources to a place with little of either.  We love tourists!

What kid of tourist are you?

The Chocolate Factory

This week Miller went on his first field trip.  They went to a chocolate factory.  All future field trips will be known as “pitiful” after having such an awesome time for his first experience! This chocolate factory is new here.

I wasn’t able to go, so I was so pleased that another mom was able to send these to me!

Would you look at that cup of chocolate he had?  I guarantee he had no ability to listen when that was placed in front of him.  So I decided to see if he recalled anything!

Miller Says, “I made a chocolate bar. I even made chocolate stuff: chocolate marshmallow, chocolate strawberry. I even get to eat some coconut {pause to suck up the saliva} and strawberry. I digged for chocolate like shells in white color. It was white chocolate mommy.”

When I asked him what he learned he said, “I learned I wanted to make a chocolate roll for Jackson, Daddy, Mama and me. I learned I wanted to make a chocolate bar.”

           

When asked if he knew anything else about chocolate he gave me this: “I know chocolate is for dessert.”

We obviously need to teach him quite a bit more about chocolate!                 

Student of the Week

Jackson was named Student of the Week again.  We couldn’t be more pleased.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  I really love their school.  It is old fashioned, but also really sweet.  The children are generally very well mannered and polite.

They say a prayer in their school that I think everyone should say, “Make me dear Lord polite and kind to everyone, I pray; and may I ask you dear Lord, how you find yourself today?”

So his teacher gets up to announce her student of the week.

She said something to the effect of:

“My student of the week is such a hard worker. Every morning he comes in and not just un stacks his chair, but also the chairs of all his classmates. We recently had a big reading test that was hard. He really worked his…… off ----UMMM, well he worked really hard!”

Then she turned 3 shades of red.  See the big kids in the back smiling?  They are saying, “Did she almost say “a** at assembly?”

We’re so proud of him for working his bottom off every day!

Mother’s Day Memories

This year my beloved firstborn told me that for Mother’s Day he would like to take me to Atlantis for my present.  He sealed the deal by saying, “I have $16.”  How can we say no to that?  If Atlantis is paradise in his mind, it must be paradise to mine, right?

Of course Atlantis is super fun, but it is it my idea of a relaxing, carefree day?  Apparently the correct answer is yes!  I got busy making us some reservations.

I kept it all rather hush-hush because my boys have been known to ask me roughly 684 times {in an hour} if it is time for XYZ yet!  So Saturday morning we got up and I went to get a pedicure.  I felt that if I was going to be bopping around a resort for the weekend, it would be rude not to have one!

When I got back from that great pedi, we told the boys to get ready for a day at the pool.  They didn’t notice that were were bringing several extra bags with us.  Love their innocent minds.

After we drove to the other side of the island, and went over the enormous bridge leading to Paradise Island and they still hadn’t guessed where were going, we let them in on it!  We quickly checked in and headed for the pools.

The day didn’t disappoint!  We had an absolute blast!

Jackson amazed us by begging to go up the steepest and scariest slide at Atlantis.  You have to be 48 inches tall.  Guess who is 49 inches tall?  He was not at all shy to let the folks there know it too!

So we thought he would get to the top, chicken out and walk back down to the slides that regular people do.

Yeah, that didn’t happen!

Allen was a good sport and did it with him each time.

 

I kid!  He seemed just as excited as Jackson! Look at Jackson waiting to give his dad a high five at the bottom!

In case you didn’t know it, this is the slide that was on the Amazing Race.  The same slide that a grown woman was too terrified to go down, so she lost her chance at the million dollars rather than go down that slide.  My guys did it for zero dollars and aero cents!

I went through a few of big slides that are still pretty intense.  I sure do love that boy!  We did all the Power Tower ones together too!

I did The Surge and  it almost killed me.  In my defense, the whole thing was in the dark.  I have a picture.  It will never be shown!

OK  I’ll show you!

I had to blur it. Couldn’t show you all my bits that shouldn’t be shown. Seriously though, it was that fast.  No way to get a picture the slide is so fast!!

Here is a review I read about The Surge:

^{The Surge slide is by far one of the most thrilling ever. Located atop the Power Tower under a crypt-like coffin, you know what you're getting yourself into before you slide to your doom. The Surge is definitely breath-taking, so it's not a slide for the faint of heart. As soon as you position yourself at the top, you're plunging at a complete ninety-degree vertical angle straight to the bottom, where torrents of water flush you out into a dark pool surrounded by an aquarium cave. There are lifeguards at the bottom just to make sure you made it out alive.}

See how blurry they are?  It’s because they were going so darn fast!!

We tried keeping him on slides like these.  No dice.  He wanted that rush!

Miller had his heart broken repeatedly.  He wanted to do those slides!  Soon enough little dude!

He watched the sharks waiting for his dad and Jackson to come through that slide.

There was lots of Lazy river action.  Nothing lazy about that river!

 

At the end of the day, we had a nice dinner at Carmine’s.  Came back to the room to chill and zonk out for the night.  So we could get up and do it all over again.

You know what?  Jackson ended up planning the best Mother’s Day after all.  Sure it was as restful as running a marathon-two days in a row- but we were together and happy!

Thanks for the memories! Especially to Allen who worked so hard to make it all so much fun.