Still alive

But we're traveling, so posting is spotty. Plus I need to solve some technical issues (portable keyboard struggles with a period and parens, plus my camera's SD card is too big for the tablet). So right now, I type the periods with my touch screen and most of the words with the keyboard. Apparently I'm not the only one to have this issue. I may  just need to break down and call customer service, I guess. Or just get used to using a combo approach to typing.

Tell me why you're going again?

"For fun," I said. I was talking with my mother during one of our regular Saturday morning phone calls.

We're leaving today for a very quick trip to London. How quick? We fly home Monday. We've been before so we're not trying to see and do everything in two days. That's a good thing since we'd have to stay up the entire time and we'd still miss things.

Our goals for this trip are three-fold:

• Shop for fabric
• Eat Indian food
• See my sister and her daughters

It's a quick trip, but we'll have a good time and we're really looking forward to it.

What I did on vacation

Do you remember having to write those silly essays the first day back to school when you were in grade school? Here’s what I did and didn’t do while I was gone:

• Didn’t get sunburned. It helps a lot that I married a redhead who only burns. We are diligent with the sunblock and shade.
• Sat on our balcony a lot. That’s because it was extremely windy at Ocho Rios. In fact, none of the normal water activities occurred last week—no sailing, wind surfing, no catamaran cruise or glass bottom boat trips or even scuba or snorkeling. The seas were pretty rough and the wind was relentless. We felt sorry for the people who chose that resort so they could go out to the little island where nude sunbathing is allowed. The island was only open for half a day on Thursday and again on Friday. Plus it rained a lot. Rain in Jamaica is still better than winter rain in Boston.
• Got sick. Yep, I got a stomach virus that required staying in for a good day and a half. Rotten timing.
• Sat on the beach when it wasn’t raining and I wasn’t hanging out in the bathroom. I love watching the ocean.
• Read eight books. I’m so thankful I have a Kindle because I wouldn’t have carried eight books with me.
• Ran into the same two awesome couples we had dinner with two years ago on my birthday. We made sure we had dinner again with them this year and just generally enjoyed the heck out of seeing them. Kent and I have decided we want to be like June and Charlie as we grow old. Now we just need to find a Peggy and Joe to hang out with us.
• Had dinner our last night there at the restaurant that’s built out over the water. That was both the best food we had there and the coolest view.

Getting home was a chore, I won’t lie. The weather was bad enough that our tiny plane from the Ian Fleming Int’l Airport (their spelling) to Montego Bay ran 40 minutes late which cut things closer than I would like getting cleared through Customs and security. I told Kent he can expect as I get older that I’ll want to get to the airport earlier and earlier and probably when I’m in my 80s, we’ll need to get there the week before. Plus it was pretty bumpy—not the worse turbulence I’ve ever felt but it’s somehow scarier in a tiny plane.

As I was boarding the plane to head back to the US, the retractable handle on my suitcase decided now was a good time to quit working. It’s still broken and will go off to the repair shop shortly (so glad for a real life time guarantee). Then the pilots for our flight from Montego Bay to JFK couldn’t get into the cockpit (security code didn’t work). That problem was resolved the old fashioned way, with brute force.

Anyway, I could go on but I won't. We’re back and it was a decent vacation. The best part about it was spending all that uninterrupted time with Kent. He tells me he wishes I could relax as much at home as I do when we go someplace else. I do too, but I think that’s not likely to happen. So I will take the vacation with him whenever I can get it and turn into a jellyfish then.

Home again

Here are some pictures from our ridiculously picturesque hotel:

On vacation

We are off to Jamaica (same place as last year) where we hope to see this view again.

See you next week.

More about Jamaica

We got there too late on Monday to sign up for any of the things that required sign up a day in advance, like snorkeling or the glass bottom boat tour. So Tuesday we took a sailing lesson instead and then went sailing in the bay for a while. I also went to yoga late that afternoon—that’s about as close as I’ll get to bikram yoga since it was held outside on a shaded deck area. While it was warm, the tropical breezes kept things pretty comfy and being outside was really nice. I found I didn’t want to be in air conditioning while I was there, except to sleep.

Wednesday we took a wind surfing lesson. If you’ve never tried wind surfing, I will say it’s pretty tough. You balance on the windsurf board taking into account the pitch and yaw of the water plus you have the mast, boom and sail which can move in any direction at all (except of course directly under the windsurf). I was very proud we tried and even though I didn’t master it, I sure had fun.

We booked a couples massage Wednesday afternoon which was perfect timing after the windsurfing that morning. Like the yoga, the spa area wasn’t air conditioned and it was very pleasant with the breezes. We were both pretty dopey after that.

Wednesday night we had dinner at the one restaurant with a dress code which also required reservations. The restaurant had a few two-top tables and then some four- and six-top tables. When Kent made the reservations, he was asked what we preferred for seating. My husband knows me well so he asked for a six-top table. He figured a four-top was sort of a gamble because we might end up sitting with two very shy people, but with a six-top we would have a better chance of having good dinner companions. And we really lucked out—we had dinner with two couples from New Jersey. June and Peggy have known each other since kindergarten, and in fact June and her husband Charlie set up Peggy with Joe. They really made my birthday dinner very enjoyable—we laughed so much and had such a great time with them. The picture is of the birthday cake our server arranged once he realized it was my birthday. I also got another cake in our room, so we had plenty of cake.

Thursday we took the glass bottom boat tour in the morning, and then that afternoon we went snorkeling. The water was pretty choppy by then so we both got water in our snorkels a few times which was disconcerting. We got the hang of things pretty quickly and saw all sorts of fish and coral and sea urchins plus a small stingray. Others who snorkeled with us saw some barracudas too, but we weren’t snorkeling where they were so we missed it.

We didn’t take a lot of pictures while we were there, mostly because we were so busy doing nothing. You’ll just have to take my word for it that we had a wonderful time and we’re already trying to figure out how to go back.

Fantastic

Sadly, we returned to reality late Friday. I’ve never gone to an all-inclusive place before, and wasn’t sure what to expect. All I can say is this was the most relaxing vacation I’ve ever had, and part of it was being at an all-inclusive.

I’ve heard that some all-inclusives don’t really include everything, but this one did. Sure there were two or three additional activities that cost more, but they were clearly different. For example, snorkeling was included—and if you wanted to go on a night snorkeling trip, that cost $35 extra per person. But the normal snorkeling didn’t cost anything extra. If I recall correctly, fees for scuba diving didn’t kick in until you were scuba diving for certification, otherwise that too cost nothing.

So we took full advantage of the water sports and went sailing on a Hobie Cat, took a wind surfing lesson on Wednesday (very hard but very fun), went on a glass bottom boat tour, and snorkeled. We also got in plenty of time at the beach. We were prepared to stay pool side if that’s where the better shade was, but the beach had trees which cast good shade while the pool’s umbrellas were pretty small.

I’m off for my first day of work today so I’ll post more tomorrow about our trip. Just know it was an amazing vacation and we hope we can go back sometime.

Progress

Reconstruction continues on our apartment. In the last couple of weeks we’ve:

*Ordered the kitchen appliances and cabinets.
*Ordered the new flooring—we are putting in engineered wood, which is wood veneer on top of engineered wood.
*Bought the tile for the bathtub.
*Picked (but haven’t yet purchased) a new vanity for the bathroom.
*Decided we did want to put in the split ductless heating/cooling system.
*Bought a new hot water heater.

And our general contractor has made a lot of progress too.

*All the ruined dry wall has been removed through out the apartment.
*The tile from the tub/shower was removed.
*The marble tiles in our hall and office areas have been cleaned and where necessary, regrouted.
*The new closet in our bedroom has been framed out (hurrah!).

There’s probably more but I’m not remembering all that at the moment. Instead I’m busy packing for our trip to Jamaica. I may post a picture or two this week but then again, I may be busy doing nothing.

See you next weekend!