our christmas getaway!

...well, no, its not christmas... but our vacation was our christmas present! (thanks, dad!)... any hooooo...

lee and i had a MARVELOUS time... lee's first time cruising (my 2nd). we were sad to leave our babies, but knew the time together would be beneficial for the entire family.

we spent a day in miami. went to coconut grove and stopped at the local bookstore to pick up my latest read: "skinny bitch" (i'll be blogging on that subject later.)... the clerks were so nice to recommend some fabulous LOCAL places for us to eat and enjoy while we were there. greenstreet cafe & scotties landing. delish.

then, we boarded the cruiseship in miami and spent the next day at sea. our first stop was ocho rios, jamaica and our plan was to see the "highlights" of the town and to climb dunn's river falls. seriously, these pictures don't do it justice--if this place isn't on your bucket list--PUT IT THERE. outside of seeing everything snow covered, one of the most beautiful natural things i've ever seen... and fun to boot!

here we are in the bus getting ready to tour fern gully and see the rest of ocho rios before climbing dunn's river falls:

when you get to DRF, you climb DOWN a lot of steps to the beach. you start at the bottom and climb UP the waterfall. yes, even more awesome than it sounds. this is a peek of DRF as we were going down the stairs at the park. (all the white you see thru the leaves is water... really a terrible pic, but hopefully you'll get the idea):
at the bottom... the beach!
the guides were so nice to carry our cameras for us (to keep them dry) and take pictures of us along the way... this is one of my most favorite pictures of lee & me.:
so, they said the attire was "wear something you wouldn't mind getting wet"...while other excursions said "wear your bathing suit"...i thought those were two different things. apparently not:
love my keens!! (thanks, mom!)
then we shopped around jamaica for a while--got an AWESOME wind chime, went back to the boat and after enjoying our evening, we woke up the next morning in GRAND CAYMAN! ...georgetown to be precise.
the weather was MUCH warmer here... the beaches were beautiful.
as we went back to the boat, the bus driver spotted some iguanas sun bathing on the bridge as we drove by.
see our pretty boat? ...no, not the one in the foreground ;-P
headed back to the boat... we enjoyed another day at sea the next day before haulin' a$$ back home because we both missed our babies so much! (we were able to get an earlier flight home and see our babies over 6 hours sooner! yippeeee!)
in addition to seeing the sights and enjoying the cruise, lee and i were able to rest. just rest. and enjoy an adult beverage. and then rest some more. we really took advantage of this time to just relax. and rejuvenate.... and i feel great!!! so refreshed!
some of what made the vacation so restful was the fact that we were nearly totally unplugged. no facebook. no internet. only spotty texting. on the last night of our cruise, i a.l.m.o.s.t. broke down and bought the package internet minutes from the cruise... but i didn't. whew. i was starting to get the facebook & blog withdrawls.

...you wanna know how bad my "withdrawls" got? i read an entire book (skinny b!tch, remember!?). i know, go ahead an pick your jaw up off the floor. TWICE. i read a book twice. wow.

and not to complain or put a damper on things, but i VERY seldom get to listen to my ipod (you know, with my 6 block commute to work...)... so, i updated everything and was loaded to go--when we get to miami... and my iPod says "no content". so lee, in his quick resourceful thinking said "just download a couple of albums to enjoy on the trip... so i did. only for them to charge my credit card and disappear into the iAbyss. apple care was so helpful and told me they'd be able to fix the problem almost immediately as soon as i could hook it up to my computer. stoopid.

i know we've thanked each of them personally--but i wanna give a blog shoutout to nana and kiekie... they both took turns staying here at the house taking care of our babies. a selfless gesture that made the trip all the more enjoyable... thank you thank you thank you... even though i really can't thank you enough.

and eden... sweet eden... she did so much growing while we were gone!! she's certainly losing the "baby look" and looks an awful lot like a toddler. she's expanded on the squealing game... she loves to squeal with excitment... and by golly, the girl has gotten VERY squirmy in the last week. i think we're saying "so long" to the baby days and hello, toddlerhood. she had her first sippy cup of milk with her dinner tonite and seemed to like it. and her papa got her a new nightlight (that seems to be doing the trick)... [sigh] where's the pause button?

so, what did we conclude from this trip?

we love cruising and will certainly go again.

we likely won't go down a day early next time unless we have intentional plans for the day.

we may not go on another vacation without eden for a long time. like, a really long time.... how long were you thinking? multiply it by 3. we missed her terribly. nershi, too.

since we apparently go on a vacation (like a TRAVELING vacation--not to the nc beaches.) every 4 years, we're thinkin' next stop: DISNEY! :)

that's all i can think of right now... next up: the food challenge update.