Christmas Break Vacation

If I could plan it out, we would never plan another vacation the week before, during, or after Christmas again.

We moved the week of Thanksgiving, so while I'm still unpacking and organizing the house, I'm also having to do Christmas shopping, and also plan our Christmas vacation, and shop for last minute items for that, and wrap Christmas presents, and prepare for what foods to bring to our several family Christmases.  It was so stressful and exhausting.  Since our trip, we decided we are not planning anything for a while. And it's great! our 2017 calendar is BLANK..   (well, except for my cruise I'm going on in less than 3 weeks with Candis and my momma. :) )

But, it was still a blast. We drove to Red River, NM, and also took his niece along with us.  Car ride wasn't so bad with Netflix, thank goodness.  Me and Hailey skied for three days, the other two skied only one time down the mountain the first day and quit. We went sledding down a hill, we had snow ball fights, we made homemade snow ice cream, we semi-snowboarded down a small hill, we went snow-mobiling during a big snow storm in like 15 degree temps outside (by FAR the best part of the trip), we drove a 4-hour drive that lasted 10 during horrific icy roads coming down the mountain the dark and SURVIVED, and we made a lot of new memories with Cody's dad and the kids.

Loving this life with this man and these people. 

Beach 2015

Well the family wrapped up another year of our annual BEACH vacation at Surfside.  Like all the others, this one was great.  We set up a volleyball net this time and most people who wanted to play did.  This was our first time doing that.  The boys all spent the entire weekend digging giant holes… It kept them entertained.  The adults didn’t want the kids going on the water because they didn’t want anyone to get the flesh eating bacteria.  By the 2^nd day, I was in the water with all the kids 11 and under.  The teenagers decided not to get in and they are the ones that dug the holes.  Talks of next year going to float the river somewhere and leave the beach behind… but WHYY??? I’m not a fan of change, and we have been renting a beach house and doing this for well over 15 years.  

Jamaica

I love islands. I used to wonder if I was more of a Mountain person or island person and never could decide. I love the mountains. They are so beautiful covered in snow. But then in the summer its rocky and/or green with grass and trees. Not a big fan of the grass part of it. But an island!!! Beautiful ocean view year-round, even if it's cold. Hot sun beating down on you in the warmth. Depending on the location, it may never get too cold. You get a deep dark glowing tan. What's not to like?

I'm an ISLAND girl. This year, in June I got to see another island. Jamaica. Of course it was beautiful. 

Me, my Aunt, my beautiful 18 year old cousin, and mom all went for Alivia's high school graduation trip. We were going non-stop from wheels down to wheels up. 

We listened to live bands at the hotel. Laid on the beach drinking island drinks. Watched life entertainment taste-testing random deliciousness of sweet drinks. I'm surprised my aunt had some alcohol and never once made s comment about Alivia drinking. 

For the first time, we did a canopy tour up the mountain, Jamaican bobsled through the mountain, then zip lines down the mountain. We took a catamaran boat out to snorkel. The climbed up Dunn's River Falls. The catamaran turned into an hour long party bus and then ended with lunch and more dancing and partying at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. We took a bus ride into the town to shop at the market. I got hit on by 3 Jamaicans, and mom thinks a girl hit on me at Margaritaville... Pretty sure she was just drunk trying to make s friend. 

Wow loved it! 

Here's my review on Ocho Rios, Jamaica:

The guides for the zip line were hilarious!!!! They cut jokes all the way down. They freaked us out and had a great sense of humor. Did you know in the zip line course one of them is a straight down vertical role?? Yes. Um.... Yea some of us freaked out. Not me of course. :/ I did tell our guide each time he would have to actually push me off. He had no problem. 

Catamaran was great. The workers made the party boat so entertaining. They got everyone involved and laughing and dancing and partying. 

The guides climbing up the river were great. They video taped and took pictures and had us get under waterfalls and go down a mini rock slide and leap backwards into a pool of water.

The market was awful. I would never suggest to anyone to venture off the resort for shopping. Unless you are really equipped to handle it. Really rough. 200+ little shops all selling the same thing and each person saying "Julie come here. Julie come look. Julie buy from me"! Yes Julie. I told one person my name and it traveled like wildfire. Me and Alivia had panic attacks. Alivia left. I couldn't get out of there. Omg. No no. Not again. 

HotelRiu Ocho Rios: beautiful. Wonderful. Every single staff was friendly. Even the one who offered to marry me and take my last name. He was cute too. Loved the Jamaican accent. The buffet was ok. The nice restaurants we had to make reservations for were not good. I hate French fries at least 3 times a day. That was about the only food me and Alivia really liked. We would have lost weight from not eating so much if it weren't for the fries. We found real coke and chocolate a couple days into the trip and that made things even better. 

But I'm glad I went. I would and will go back. Will stay at the same hotel. Wouldn't change anything- except I would avoid the market. Just shop at the hotel gift shop. It was just as cheap at the market and no pressure. 

some of my favorite pictures from the trip :)

Oren

Romaine

bobsledtime

Dunn's River

My bottoms were falling off

I liked them all

Dancing on the Party boat

How pretty

Note that was slipped under my room

<3  <3  <3

30 days

30 days left and It will be Saturday, June 27.  Why am I waiting so anxiously for a random Saturday in June? Oh, that’s right. It’s because I will be flying to JAMAICA on June 27.  That is correct, my friend. J  My beautiful cousin is graduating high school next week and her grandma (my aunt) wants to take her on a celebratory senior trip.  They were originally looking at London and Paris.  Once my aunt did a tiny bit of research, she realized just HOW expensive this trip is, and that my cousin didn’t know anything about the area, other than seeing the Eifel Tower. That’s a long and expensive trip just to see a tall piece of architecture.  From the beginning, I was included in the plans.  My aunt would love to have someone a little younger to help watch my cousin, and also in case anything happens to her, there will be another mature, responsible adult there (has she MET ME AT ALL??? :P )  Eventually,  they narrowed down to a place and booked Jamaica.  My mom is also going to keep my aunt company. Me and Alivia will be able to venture off on our own and do our stuff and leave the old folks to lay around and talk about old folk stuff.  – ok KIDDING.  They aren’t old. They will probably be right there with us through it all and it will be an amazing trip because I love these ladies so much! 

 

And I need a vacation. I need a week-long break from life and responsibility.  My only hiccup is my aunt will try to put a damper on things by wanting to have real moment conversations and keep me from just drinking away the week… Either way, it’ll be great J

Now if I can just get my butt in gear to work out a tad bit…

Honeymoon to the Bahamas - without the honey

I realized I never posted about my honeymoon. I decided to take a non-traditional honeymoon, and invited my mom and sis-in-law.  I went without the husband.  :P

The trip was in September 2014. 

We had already separated when I got a new job, so I had 2 weeks between job 1 and job 2. What better thing to do during time off than take a vacation?!  I used our honeymoon money and my mom and sis-in-law both wanted to go with. it was a spur of the moment trip, we only had less than  week to actually plan it.  Which was fine, we didn't want to do anything more than lay around anyway.

We went to Freeport, Bahamas.

We parasailed, snorkled, had lots of drinks, gambled at a casino, and relaxed. there was no drama and it was such a great trip with my favorite people. 

The hotel made a drink called "Memories" (which is the name of the hotel) and it was the best dang drink I've ever had! I drank it all week and my 11 AM one day, I was already feeling pretty good. It was great to have no place to be for a week and not a care in the world. It was definitely a trip we needed and we said we would plan a girls trip like that once a  year from now on.

Dancing Across Texas

ok so maybe we didn't hit ALL of Texas, but come on. Texas is huge :) My work gave us 3 days off during the week for the New Year, so me and Pete decided to Dance Across Texas. The week before, I bought my very first Cowboy boots. I am so proud o finally have some of these. 

 

On December 31, we drove up to New Braunfels, and hit Gruene Hall and saw Charlie Robison live. We didn’t get to dance because it was so crowded we were standing shoulder to shoulder to people. It was a great way to ring in the New Year.  We stayed at the Faust Hotel, which is supposed to be haunted.  We didn’t see any ghosts… and the room was ‘European style’ which pasically means it’s not much bigger than the bed itself, and the bathroom is too small to even CHANGE clothes in it.

 

On Jan 1, Pete, the smart man that he is, decided to Skinny dip in the Guadalupe River (Google Skinny Dipping in the Guadalupe River by Charlie Robison).  It was only 37 degrees OUTside, and that water is normally cold in the summer at 110 degrees outside, so no telling HOW cold it was now.  Then we drove over to Bandera, Texas where we ended up running into a group of people we know from Huntsville.  Such a small world! We went two different bars there, closing down Arkey blues for the night dancing away. Me and the girl I knew made a ‘boyfriend’ with this really old man, and he even dedicated a song to us.  I danced a few times with the old man.  It was great. 

 

On January 2, we drove over to San Antonio and walked the River Walk.  We went to Coyote Ugly about 3-4 PM and were nice and drunk within an hour. I had too many shots and ended up dancing  on the bar with the bartenders.  It was great.  When we finished, me and Pete walked (literally in a circle) around a block messing with people. We would randomly dance in the middle of the street to no music at all,  we struck up random conversations with every person we met and we were great playing along with each other’s stories.  It was so much fun.  

 

On January 3, we ended our trip at Zach’s to celebrate my friend, Brenda’s, birthday.  And then we headed back to Huntsville for the night. Planned to dance at Shenanigans but we were both exhausted so we didn’t go anywhere. The following day, we headed back to my place to get ready for the new year. 

Did I mention about the Fire Hydrant that jumped out into my car in San Antonio??!!  Yea… That happened, too.