We took a taxi to the resort, settled in, and headed out for an afternoon on the beach.
the various views from our room
our room
This year Josiah decided that he did, in fact, like the sand. Well, "like" might be overstating it. Perhaps it should read, "tolerated well."
He also liked the ocean. I took him out into the ocean to float, and clearly the crash of the waves, the salt water, and the wind was too relaxing to fight. He fell asleep in the middle of the ocean in my arms. I thought to myself, "now THIS is a good beginning to the vacation!"
I suppose the extent of his rest did not exceed nap time, as I discovered promptly at 6am each day. The sun was out and we (ahum, Josiah) was ready to play! We hit the beach the next morning around 7 or 7:30am. Oh the joys of a toddler! An iguana was out grabbing some early morning sun, so we took Josiah for a closer look.
After that, we got the choice of whatever chairs we wanted! We stayed out all morning and then ventured to town to find some lunch and snacks for the week. We found a great lunch and pricey snacks. Our hopes of cheap meals were pretty much crushed at that point. We headed back to the hotel for Josiah's nap, then went back out in the late afternoon for a dip in the pool. After the first day we realized that SPF 15 was the dumbest idea we had. Our red skin cursed the spray bottle. It became the ugly stepchild as we opted for Josiah's SPF 50 in the following days. The next few days were much of the same...beach, eat, nap, pool, shower, eat, sleep. Here are some more fun pictures from it:
My favorite treat was a banana covered in chocolate, peanuts, and toasted coconut. mmmmmm!
I mean, this kid really has it rough.
Just another nap in paradise.
knocked out by the sun again.
I am especially fond of this photo taken after an afternoon nap. Josiah's expression captures what a sweet boy he is.
Not surprisingly, Josiah's favorite thing to do was play "ball" at the pool. He insisted on retrieving the volleyball and dropping it over the net from one side to the other. One day he marched all the way down the beach because he remembered there was a "ball" court there. He was disappointed to find there was no ball, and I had to haul him all the way back up the beach and up to the pool promising to take him to play volleyball. To say that he is obsessed with ball of any sort is an understatement.
Josiah discovered the wonder of bagels with cream cheese. He loved it, much to his father's dismay. The morning we got the bagel we had to wait an extra hour for the lady running the store to arrive. When we asked the receptionist why the store wasn't open at the posted hours she informed us, "Well...that is the uncertainty of life." This non-chalant (and often rude) attitude was unfortunately fairly consistent among the locals we encountered. However, we thought her response was hilarious and started attributing quite a bit to "the uncertainties of life."
trying to capture the cruise ship coming in to port in the morning.
dressed for dinner one night.
On Thursday we found liberation in a car rental. We hadn't previously ventured far because the taxis cost $6 for a half mile trip---per person! We cheered with excitement as we blew past the standing taxis and around the island for dinner. We ate dinner that night at a little Caribbean joint on the water. A man came up and constructed fish on a pole out of palm fronds and gave them to Josiah. They were going to come home with us until the customs officer took them away, saying all palm goods were infested with red mites.
On Friday we used our newly found freedom to venture to the neighboring island of St. John. We took our rental car on a ferry across, which was exciting. We went to Trunk Bay, a part of the national park that includes a beautiful beach and good snorkeling. The beach was pristine and seriously straight out of a magazine. We traded off turns snorkeling and watching Josiah. I was pretty excited to see (live) squid for the first time while snorkeling. There were plenty of other fish and coral to see, but that just happened to be one thing I had not seen previously.
Jonathan and myself up above Trunk Bay
The boys taking a nap on the beach
Josiah thought he would go snorkeling, too.
The most beautiful beach I've ever seen.
We were headed back for the ferry when disaster struck...we were in a wreck with the rental car and one angry pregnant woman. She was a local and called the police, but she said it could take all day for them to actually show up. Both bumpers were dented pretty severely. After the lady had some time to cool off, Jonathan suggested that she let him just try to fix the bumper, as that was all she truly cared about. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. After a few minutes of effort, the guys were able to make her bumper look like new--actually, better than the other side! We hopped back into the ferry line and still made the same ferry with only one car allowed on after us. Later, Bob was able to repair the rental car bumper with no sign of such accident. Whew. Tragedy averted.
The rest of our evening and following day were very low key, as we tried to soak up as much of the vacation as possible before returning home. I contracted some sort of head cold on the last day, and as we traveled home I was miserably ill. We were very glad to arrive home and VERY grateful for such a wonderful vacation!
No comments:
Post a Comment