Another Brown Joins the Old Married People Club

Today my brother got married to his lovely girlfriend of 3 (I think) years. The ceremony was on the beach at their resort with my parents his bride's parents, me and Joe and my sister and her husband. Joe took the wedding photos and I am sure that they are going to turn out great. It has turned out to be a very long day though. The girls got together this morning to have a spa day and the guys went golfing so we had to take a taxi to their resort at 9am this morning and we just got back at 10:30. The massage and pedicure at the spa was lovely and it was nice to have that time to hang out together.

I am really missing my kids now and am looking forward to getting back to Rock Springs to collect them from Suzy. I have been in contact with Suzy by email pretty much every day, but since it costs $3.25 a minute to call there we have only been calling to talk to the kids every other day. Today was that every other day, but with the 3 hour time difference we got back to the hotel just at bedtime so I hurried to the room to call and luckily they were not asleep yet and we got to talk to them. Suzy assures me that they are doing fine, but I will be so glad to hold and kiss them again Monday night.

Tomorrow is our last full day at the resort and I am planning on just being lazy and relaxing all day. Joe and my dad want to go snorkeling and I am going to let them do that together, all I want to do tomorrow is sleep, eat and maybe I'll work up enough energy to go for a swim.

More Pictures

Here are some more pictures from my very tallented husband.

A Calypso Christmas

When we got here one of the first things that I saw was a Christmas tree in the hotel lobby. Yesterday on the catamaran cruise they were playing Calypso Christmas music on the radio, and this afternoon when I walked out of the hotel after changing into my swimsuit for lunch there was a steel drum band playing a Christmas song. It took me a second to realize that was what they were playing, I am so used to the way I normally hear the songs that they sound like a completely different song. It is hard to think that it is December and getting closer and closer to Christmas when we are down here in this humid 80+ degree weather. In Phoenix it is often in the 70’s and 80’s all the way into December but it is never humid like this, plus I just don’t associate beaches and sand with Christmas.

Today the family took a cab to the marketplace and duty free shops (right next to where they dock the cruise ships). I wanted to find some fabric to bring back to my quilting friends but didn’t see anything good. I did find a nice t-shirt for me and then one for Alex and his two Wyoming friends and a beach wrap for me.

The internet here can't really handle the upload of pictures so they are going to have to wait until we are back in the states. Joe has been getting some good ones.

A Boat Trip

Today Joe and I, my parents, my sister and brother in law and my future SIL’s parents all went on a Catamaran tour of the island. We left in a bus at 8am to go to the dock and then took the boat for about an hour and then docked and got into another bus to tour the volcano and the botanical gardens. The garden was really cool because it had all kinds of great tropical flowers plus cocoa and nutmeg trees. I have never seen nutmeg fresh off the trees. After those two stops we went to a local restaurant for lunch and then back on the boat for a short trip to a snorkeling and swimming area. We are now back at the resort and I am desperately trying to get on the internet but it doesn’t seem to be working and I am very frustrated. Oh well as they say here no pressures, no problem. Here are some great pictures that my husband took last night. I have a couple more pictures but they are going to have to wait since the internet here is too slow.

On Island Time Now

December 9, 2007

On Island time now

Wow what a whole different world this is. The airport here is something that you would see on a TV show and not really believe that it existed. We landed at this tiny little airport with probably the shortest runway that I have ever seen and then we used stairs to get off the plane right on the tarmac. There were a grand total of two other planes there. Then we were herded into customs were we waited in line to show our passports. The inside of the airport was very rustic but the outside was even more so, you walk out the double doors of the airport into an open air patio where the resorts just back their shuttle busses right up to the curb. There were all kinds of people waiting at their cars presumably to pick up people that had just landed. It was so very different than the airports that I am used to. After boarding the bus we took a 2 hour drive around the outside of the island (the only main road I suspect) to our hotel. The road was one lane in each direction and motorcyclists and other cars routinely passed us at breakneck speeds. I was sure that we were going to witness an accident, but luckily that was not the case. I am sure that they are used to this type of driving and have learned to be more defensive than I am used to. After getting into our rooms we (my parents, my sister and BIL and my brothers future in-laws) went to dinner in the English themed pub here. The food was good and plentiful but the service was on island time, luckily the drinks are free and plentiful. I suspect that there will be more than one person in our group with a headache tomorrow. We have now come back to our room in hopes of catching up on the sleep that has been so sadly lacking over the last week, but no such luck as of yet. The air conditioner is not cooling and we have a very nice man from maintenance in here trying to fix it for us so that we can cool and dehumidify the room for more comfortable sleeping.

Joe wants me to mention the fact that there is a bird or some such other creature outside of our room that is making a rhythmic squeaking noise and that his preferred activity for tomorrow is bird hunting. I suspect though, that as soon as the air is fixed we will be so ready to sleep that the noise won’t be an issue.

Another tidbit from the trip that I forgot to mention earlier is that when we were driving through Wyoming to get back to the airport in Salt Lake we passed the first JC Penny’s store in a little Wyoming town. It was super small and unimpressive, funny to think that such a big chain grew out of something so small. Also, last Friday morning I won another prize from Prizey, a cool set of bows for my Abbie girl.

December 10, 2007

Well the air conditioner took 2 hours to fix last night and it is not completely fixed, they told us that they were going to have to completely replace the unit some time today. After the air was finally fixed we went to bed only to have the smoke detector go off at 2:45. We called the front desk and their solution was to come and take the detector out of the room (they still haven't replaced it). This morning we woke up about 9 and went and took the tour of the grounds. After that Joe went and took a nap while I went out with everyone else on the small sail boats that they have for the guests to use. It was very fun and nice and cool on the boat. Tomorrow we are going on an all day catamaran trip around the island.
I miss the kids greatly but I am hopefull that this break will allow me to be a more patient mom when we get back. If you want to read about what they are up to go to Suzy's blog and read all about it. Suzy is my saintly friend that agreed to watch my kids so that my husband and I could attend my brother's wedding.

Now I need to go to the room to cool off for a while. Well maybe not, Joe just came out and said that they were cleaning the room.