Bahamas!

I was able to have 4 days off from my every-day life and spend some quality time with my best friend. We both hadn't 'gotten away' since our last get-away together in the winter of '06 when we went to Charleston for a weekend...while I was pregnant with Mallory. I hadn't seen Kristin in almost 2 years and we both just needed girl time. I was getting very bogged down with stuff plaguing my responsibilities as a wife and mother. I felt so overwhelmed and just longed for a break. My husband lovingly took on my responsibilities for a few days as he saw my need and selflessly met it. Kristin was just finishing up a crazy semester of school and was about to start an intensive schedule in her first semester of Nursing school at UNF and wanted to get away from her responsibilities before life went into overdrive. Our situations peaked at the same time and we were able to coordinate our calendars for 4 days together.

I flew down to Jacksonville on Thursday night, April 30, and then we left on Friday morning, heading south towards Cape Canaveral where we boarded a Royal Caribbean ship and sailed away for a few days in "paradise". The weather was perfect...low '80s, sunny with a glorious breeze off the ocean. We dined, we slept, we ate, we sunned, we walked, we shopped, we talked and talked and talked. We read little, though both of us had brought two books. We slept a lot, heading to bed each night a decent time to get a full night's sleep and even napped one day. We enjoyed the beach in CocoCay, basked in the glorious sunshine and marveled at the beauty of God's creation. Oh, what we saw and experienced down there in the sand and sea TRULY showed what an incredible Creator we have!

I have so many little stories, but it would take me lots and lots of time to write it all. BUT, to name a few:
1. We stopped at a McDonalds on the way down to use the restroom and while we were there, a child came in a threw up all over the bathroom floor.
2. We walked behind an old guy in the ship who was flatulent
3. We got placed at a table for the duration of our cruise that had 3 small children. We quickly asked for another seating arrangement, which was pleasantly granted to us.
4. Our phones were connected to a satellite that displayed it being mid-October 1999 and the time was about 3 hours off what the actual time was; it caused for a very confusing night as we really tried to figure out what the time REALLY was (thinking it was 5 am when it was really 8 am)...
5. We had room service every morning except the last. We sat in our beds, sipping our tea and coffee chatting about vast arrays of topics for at least an hour before we dressed and met the day.
6. We never conflicted about where to go, when to sleep, when to eat, when to shop, when to sun...it was so relaxing and perfect.

I can't wait for our next venture. I'm so blessed to have such a good friend and am so thankful to our husbands for keeping our kids and holding down our respective "forts" so we could be together.

To see more pictures, go here.