Jamaican me crazy!

While you were here:


We were here:


Nah, I'm not rubbing it in. Honestly, what I found out is that there's benefits to both places. Here's a little rundown of our Jamaican adventure this week...

We left on Wednesday morning, slipping out into the night at 5:00 a.m. to catch our 7:20 flight. I had an intense moment or 20 saying goodbye to Noah who was fast asleep in his crib. We selfishly picked him up—both of us—to hold our little man one last time before we left him behind for four days. I surreptitiously switched his blankie at the last second so I could take one with me that smelled a la Noah.

Tears flowing, we left anyway (David's mom was asleep in the guestroom, waiting to pounce the moment Noah woke up later that morning) and managed to stay awake during the hour to the airport. We got all checked in and boarded our flight, excited to be getting our vacation started together—just the two of us! It wasn't meant to be. After the rest of the plane was seated and situated, a harried woman with two kids came chugging down the aisle, looking frazzled and desperate. Turns out her family's seats were scattered about the plane—not conducive when you have two little ones (probably 5 and under). So my gallant husband gave up his seat to the mom, who could then use the two seats across the aisle to strap in her kids and keep them (sort of) under control.

She was ever so grateful, and I was a tiny bit wistful that I couldn't cozy up to my hubbie (and use his shoulder as a pillow) for the first leg of our trip. No matter, just an hour or so later, we landed in Memphis for our short layover.

Feeling rested from our naps, we decided to get the ball rolling on vacation—straight to the bar! I admit, I hadn't had alcohol that early in the morning since kegs & eggs with Zeta at the brick house at Otterbein. This time, it was 8:30 a.m., and I couldn't even think about beer. I settled on a fuzzy navel instead (orange juice is good, right?), and felt myself starting to relax for the first time in months. We marked the occasion with this picture:


With a celebratory cocktail under our belts, we boarded plane No. 2 and discovered we weren't sitting next to each other yet again. But, we were across the aisle from one another, and we enjoyed picking on each other (our odd form of flirting) for the better part of the flight.

A hop, skip and a jump later, we landed in sunny Jamaica! I could feel my skin start to shout, "Bring on the sunshine and humidity! Hot damn!" Our view from the runway reminded me that Jamaica is all of those things... and rural and tropical and fabulous!


After the customary trip through immigration and a trip to the bag carousel, we sauntered into the SuperClubs lounge and bellied up to the counter to check in for our bus transfer to our hotel.
Even thought the ride is at least an hour and a half, I love it. For the better part of the way, you get to keep one eye on the colorful countryside and one eye on that holy-cow-it's-blue ocean.


The bus always makes at least one pit stop on the way. It's a terrific opportunity to grab your first Red Stripe and to get harassed by the locals to purchase ALL of their best exports. And the view's not so bad either.


I was all about the picture-taking...


Sadly, this is the last picture I have of David and I together for the rest of the trip! I took my camera out the second morning we were there to capture the rainy view from our window, and I put it on the couch and I didn't see it again until David found it the morning we left. I thought it had been stolen...

Anyway, we did finally make it to the resort, and here is the beautiful, relaxing view we were greeted with out of room's window:


Yeah, baby! Yes, that's the ocean in the background, which thanks to tropical depression 16 sounded loud and proud each night we were there (much to my delight!).

The rest of the trip went by in a blur. Day No. 1 we parked ourselves at the swim-up bar in one of the three pools and my hubbie immediately nominated himself social chair of the crowd around him. He has a way, when we're on vacation, of talking to everyone he sees. By the time we left, he'd made friends with everyone at the resort (and since it was operating at 17 percent capacity, that wasn't so hard to do).

What else were we to do on vacation? David played pool volleyball (after just one attempt at serving, I retired into the safety of my rum punch on the pool's edge). I read my book one rainy morning. We met great, great people. We laughed harder than we have in months. We discovered that it took one full day before we knew how to talk to each other again (without the help of Noah and home distractions). We sang along at the piano bar until I lost my voice. We ate yummy food. We drank an amazing rainbow of fruity, tropical concoctions. We meant to eat jerk chicken, but we DID eat jerk ice cream (and it was good!). I made a fool of myself on stage dancing Jamaican style before running away at the challenge of grooving like the saucy entertainment coordinators. We won a bottle of rum, and we were gifted another. We huddled like wall flies in the disco (I was too pooped to boogie!). We sat in one of the resort's hot tubs while the Caribbean skies poured on us. We learned how to play "left-center-right," the easiest drinking game ever, while we were in that same hot tub in the rain with couples from at least three continents. We called Noah every day, and I cried each time he said "hi, mommy" or "love you." We slid down one of the fastest waterslides on earth...

And finally, we had fun.

Overall, I'm so glad we went, but I was even happier to come home. When we got off our last plane ride of the day (which we almost missed due to a delayed connecting flight and literally sprinted through the airport), our little boy was waiting there to meet us. He didn't know what he was looking for at first (or why he was there, I'm sure), but when his eyes finally connected with ours, the biggest smile I've ever seen spread wide across his face. And then our little man RAN to us...and right into Daddy's arms (and yes, I was a little jealous). But then he rewarded me just 30 seconds later by giving me an enthusiastic kiss, wrapping his pudgy arms around my shoulders, resting his head in the crook of my neck and sighing.

That was, hands down, the very best part of the trip. Never in my whole life have I been so happy to be home!

Since we didn't get back to Mount Vernon until 11 p.m., it's taken us all day to rest (napping while Noah napped) and to think about beginning to unpack, that sort of thing.

Tomorrow, we jump back into reality. David starts his new job with Finsilver/Friedman, and I'm going back to work... but just for one day. Since I wasn't supposed to go back until Tuesday, I'm going to take Tuesday off to do laundry and hang out with my little man. Wednesday it will be back to business as usual. And despite the craziness of my "usual," I'm delighted to be back in the thick of things.