First off… I want to say that I was planning on doing a “Christmas Letter” type thingy… But, its been such a whirlwind, that I dont even know where to start.
A couple of thinging stick out for me….
First. We finally went out to Denver to see Don, Dawn and Johnney. How pathetic that we have not gone out there before! We never made it into Denver… But we did travel to Estes Park, Mt Evans, Garden of the Gods and whereever our excellent travel guides took us. It was amazing to see a radically different typle of landscape. We REALLY enjoyed it. The kids were even digging the mountains! Which is great… Becuase getting them to “want” to take a hike or a walk around here is like pulling teeth. It was truely an adventure for them.
Denver was so great that we dreamed for a few weeks about moving out west. I tried to convince Dan to move, that way we would have an excuse! To my knowledge. It hasnt worked on him yet. Then again, he needs to visit Denver first!!!!
Second highlight of the year. Our big family vacation was to the Carribean island of St. Lucia. I got a heck of a deal on a waterfront room through Travelocity. So, we took 7 days and lived the island life. It was a departure from our normal “frantic” style of vacationing. We put ourselves in “low gear” and relaxed. It was probably the most relaxed I have been… EVER! I loved having the kids with us on their first international trip. It was great to expose them to new foods, people and culture in general. You can never have to much of that at a young age. Hopefully this is the first of many adventures abroud for them. We did the island touristy things, and pretty much reserved ourselves to big decisions like, “Should we go to the beach or the pool first today?” It was rough!
Looking back to when I was a kid… I was sure that I wanted to have a job that involved the ocean in some way. It was my dream. So, when I was snorkeling under the water in St. Lucia for the first time… I was kicking myself (hard to do with flippers on) that it took this long to accomplish a baby step of that goal. Growing up, we went to Florida every year… Then living in Fort Meyers… I had become accustomed to the gulf coasts murky waters. Seeing crystal blue waters was a new experience for me. I do remember hitting South beach and Key Biscayne a few times… But we never really “played” in water like this.
This spring we are taking a quick cruise with the kids out of Ft. Lauderdale. We will hit a few islands and Key West. Believe it or not… Even with living in Miami, I have never been there!!! I am hoping that we have ideal conditions for more snorkeling!!! I may drive the rest of the family nuts with this. Hope they dont get sick of it!