Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Home...for now

I'm home!

Well, I'm home for a couple days anyway. We're heading to the big city tomorrow after school to get to an appointment for Finny and to do a bit of Christmas shopping over the weekend. Then the week after, I'm planning on taking another trip with the two younger kids. So, I'm home for now. It looks to be a pretty busy month.

Much more interesting than my domestic travel plans, however, is the week and a half I just spent in warm and beautiful Jamaica.

Here's the beach at the beautiful resort we stayed at. Beautiful, just beautiful. Exactly what we'd hoped. Exactly what we wanted.

Here are Brian and I on a boat ride.


Here we are waiting for supper...not worrying about keeping our kids quiet and well behaved.


Here we are enjoying our last evening there.

Here I am, sunbathing. Seemingly innocent and very white and pasty. But looks can be deceiving. Look at my other side.

Really and truly? I was horribly sunburned on one side of my body. Careless. Bad sunscreen application. Allowing the sun to stay on one side of my body...all day. Lovely. Well done. And sore. These pictures were taken within seconds of each other.

After 2 days of being there...Hurricane Paloma travelled through the beautiful Caribbean waters west and then north of us. Thankfully, we were not hit...but we did have our fair share of damage.
It was very windy one day.

Remember this little hut in the first picture? It had lots of beautiful sandy beach in between it and the water. People would lounge there all day. Except not this day.

This poor little tree wasn't used to being treated so harshly by the sea. One minute wind blown with roots exposed.

The next minute, windblown and fighting waves.

And you only sat in the hammocks if you wanted to get your bum wet.

And yet, being the poor Northern Canadian girl that I am, I was determined to get in all the sun I could. So I set myself up at the pool and allowed the wind to batter my head for a few hours until I grew tired of it.

On our last day of vacation came the clean up. Can you see something in the picture below that just doesn't look like it belongs? Hint...it's not me. Perhaps it's the tractor collecting the masses of displaced seaweed? Ya, that's it.

Despite the weather, we really did have a great time. I'm so thankful for our time away. I was just me for 9 whole days. Rain or not. Wind or not. Storms or not. I ate my meals uninterrupted. I slept uninterrupted. I showered, did my hair and applied my make up...uninterrupted! I read 4 books. I was never cold, a little chilly at times, but not cold (like I am right now as I type this post). I met interesting people. And I fell in love with the Jamaican people and countryside.

No problem, mon.

And, I gained 10 pounds. Nice, hey? I'm okay with it. I weighed exactly 175 this morning. No problem. My clothes all still fit...though some are tight. But, I'll get things back under control soon. And something to be a little bit proud of? That little building you see below is the gym. It had weights, treadmills and all that other stuff you might expect too see at a gym anywhere. And I used it...twice.


Imagine what the scale might have looked like if I hadn't.

6 comments:

  1. Welcome back. It sounds like you had a fantastic vacation and one that was well deserved.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh it looks like it was awesome! Welcome home! How did your kids do without you?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Looks wonderful, wind storm and all. I too would have been soaking up any bit of sun that I could find! Oooh, this makes me even more excited (if that were possible) for our trip in January!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. oh, glad you are home. that sunburn looks painful! ouch. i am so glad that you got all of that uninterrupted time including the gym time! and the 10 lbs...that screams GREAT TIMES to me!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm so glad that you had such a good time! You deserved it. How's the sunburn? Ouch. One day Colin will take me on a vacation to a hot beach with endless margaritas...I dream of the day.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Welcome Home!!!! I missed you but kept picturing you taking your time getting dressed, putting on make up slowly and taking long quiet swims and uninterrupted reads..

    and you did!! YAY!!!

    the 10lbs? my bet is alot of that is water..air travel makes me bloat out like a whale...

    I'm so glad you had a good time and that you are back:)

    xo

    ReplyDelete