Our trip to Paradise

In a nutshell, our trip to the Bahamas was perfect, except for our encounter with children hating scoundrels whom I shall call Mr. and Mrs. Grumpypants from now on. Post to follow in the next few days.

Can I just say that we took the best approach to this vacation? Not to pat ourselves on the back or anything. Well okay, yes, we will pat ourselves on the back.

When we were thinking about going, we were considering staying at the Atlantis resort. But after a bit of thought we decided that wouldn’t be all that relaxing what with hauling our beach/pool crap and two tired kids all over the massive complex. Plus the exorbent cost would make us feel obligated to see and do everything at the demise of the whole idea of relaxing.

My cousin had a house rented on one of the smaller islands and that sounded perfect to me, especially if it was beach front. So a quick google revealed this sweet little house. A quick phone call and it was ours for the exact dates required.

It is located on a tiny Cay named Spanish Wells (or St. George's Cay) just off the island of Eleuthera. It is all of 1 mile by 3 miles and not touristly at all. Besides us, there were only a handful of other tourists there. The island itself has no hotels or resorts at all, only private residences for rent. The locals were nice and we tried really hard not to be the ignorant tourists. Afterall, this is their home and we are the ones invading it.

With views like this, relaxing was easy.

The kids needed very little entertaining. There was miles and miles of white sand beach to build the castle of the day on.

And the water was about knee deep for miles. I am not exaggerating. Jay and Jack tried to walk out to where we could see the waves breaking on the horizon to see how deep it got. They had to turn around before they got there, it was that far. I was starting to panic a bit on shore as they had become a dot and I had no idea if they were still okay (yes, I am a little neurotic like that).

We also spent a lot of time chasing each other in the water. Want a workout? Try running in knee deep water, it gets your heart rate up. And the smiles on your kids faces are SO worth it.

Oh and remember this?

Given that there was harldy anybody else on the beach, I wore this little black number Jay bought me at Christmas. It takes so little to please him! Thanks to Anna’s suggestion to use Arbone cream on my stretch marks, I was not revolted by the sight of me in it. Not that I think Sports Illustrated will be calling but the fact that I am comfortable posting this here is huge progress folks!

We also figured out that we have it all wrong. We are always trying to buy our kids the next big thing in toys. You know what keeps them happy for hours? Time with you and a grand total of two shovels, two pails and two trucks.

There was absolutely no whining about having nothing to do. None.

The only whining was regarding the fact that we had run out of rum for Pina Coladas AGAIN. Damn my mom makes a mean Pina Colada.

And at the end of the day there was a beautiful sunset. It was perfect and the MOST relaxing vacation I have ever enjoyed. I highly recommend it. The only mistake we made was not staying longer.

Thanks to Mom and Dad for joining us, it wouldn't have been the same without you and not just because of the Pina Coladas!