a nice break from the chaos

The past several months have been really challenging and stressful and after John finally was able to take the national board exam for nurse anesthesia, and PASS :) we decided that we wanted to take a family vacation before he started his new job in Illinois. So, we found a resort that was 65% off the regular price, and we used our skymiles with Delta to get a free flight and we took off for Jamaica!

We had a lovely time, really fell in love with the people of Jamaica. They were such lovely people, like physically really beautiful (long, lean legs, narrow hips and tall -- you can tell why they are a country of olympic distance runners!), as well as friendly and fun. Truly, they seemed to believe, "Don't worry, be happy". In fact, Hayden (and us) were sung that song at least 5 or 6 times on the beach and it sounded great each time.





The resort was a "family resort" so they always had Sesame street characters running around playing with the kids. I was worried that Hayden would be scared of a huge, blue character called, "Cookie Monster" but I would be wrong! She was curious and intrigued. In fact she followed him around the lobby after he left her side. I would show you pictures of them together, but the resort took the pictures and they cost $16 a shot -- so you'll just have to take my word for it :)



At night, they had great shows with lots of dancing, fire-eaters, snake charmers and many more things. We missed out on a lot of it because all the festivities started after we headed to bed, but a couple of nights one of us snuck back to watch some of the shows.



The best part was being able to get away from the cold, snow and stress of moving, packing, test-taking, etc... in Greensburg, PA and enjoy sun, sand and new memories with Hayden. It was fun to watch her experience sand for the first time and feel the waves wash away the sand from under her feet. We were extremely diligent with the sunscreen and were so happy that Hayden didn't get any sunburn at all!









There were lots of sting rays around, and several that came up close to the shore where we were swimming. It was a little freaky to see a huge black 8 foot in diameter circle getting awfully close to you.




Our resort had a "sister" resort that was just a 5 min. shuttle ride away, and man-o-man that place was awesome. The pools were amazing, the grounds were super lush and tropical and they had an amazing waterslide park. We ended up spending several days lounging by the pool and playing in the lazy river with Hayden, that was her favorite.





The resort offered free babysitting if you wanted to go do things and so John and I took advantage of that and went scuba diving a couple of times. It was lots of fun, and great to be back in the water together again, but the reef still doesn't compare to Cozumel and the rest of Mexico. Things are still the same, my head is always buried down close to the reef, checking under rocks and peeking inside cubbyholes, while John swims about 10 feet above me scouting out strange fish that might be lurking around.




And while we were there, Hayden celebrated her one year birthday! We realize that we have set the bar high for year two :)




Each morning after breakfast we found "our" hammock and swung for awhile. It was the best!





We will miss you Jamaica!




Here are some pictures of the resort: