Mothers' Day

I had a great mothers' day this year! It started with my kids ever so gently waking me up at the side of my bed whispering "happy mothers day." They had helped Tyler make breakfast for me and led me downstairs. Tyler didn't have to go to his early meetings so that was a present by itself :)

At church the Young Men & Youth took over the Primary & Nursery so the leaders could go to Sunday School and Relief Society for a change. It was supposed to make a stress-free mothers day but as primary president it stressed me out quite a bit haha! Well especially at first, walking in and hearing that about 5 youth were gone that were supposed to teach classes and the nursery was total chaos (including my own crying Abbie) but after the first 20 minutes or so I think we got it all put together and it was fun to go to Sunday School where Tyler just happened to be teaching that day and RS.

Tyler made my favorite Greek food for dinner and the kids and he made milkshakes for dessert! Jackson had made me some presents at preschool that he was excited to give to me and my present from Tyler was a new Petunia Pickle-bottom Diaper Bag. I had hinted a bit since my old one's zipper was broken and just getting a little grimy after 4 plus years!

My milkshake makers!

 The main event I guess you could say was the following weekend when I went on a girls trip to NYC - or as my kids liked to call it, "A Mama's Trip." I went with Alarie, Emily and Jeanette and it was a mothers' day present for us all. Tyler actually organized it and we were able to use a free night hotel he had earned from work traveling :) We drove down Friday afternoon and stayed at the Marriott Marquis Hotel right in Times Square Friday night. It was a trip all about food and relaxing :) We had dinner at a Bobby Flay place Friday night then went to Matilda on Broadway that night!

The view from our room

Fancy Fried Chicken :)

The girls at the play

 The next morning we ate at Norma's Cafe and spent probably 30 minutes trying to figure out what we wanted to order, it all looked so good. We were trying to figure out what to share and kept going back and forth and ended up getting things we wanted. Probably the best thing was Emily's fruity french toast but I was pretty fond of my savory choice too :)

Heuvos Rancheros

While it had been raining all of Friday, we had woken up to beautiful weather on Saturday so straight from breakfast we walked through Central Park and made our way to the Met.

My tiny friends and my huge tummy at the Met

Afternoon in Central park

We had a picnic in the park for a late lunch and then headed over to my favorite cookie place at Levain Bakery. Tyler's only request for the trip was that I brought him home a chocolate cookie from here, so he was anxious to see the picture I sent him.

We ended the day doing a little shopping and trying BabyCakes Bakery and then got stuck in really bad traffic trying to leave the city. As soon as we got on the freeway we were fine, but as the navigator for the whole weekend, I felt bad for being slightly responsible. 

All in all it was a quick but great weekend, Tyler and the kids had fun at home hanging out with the other motherless families :) I think it also gave him a new appreciation of what I do each day :)

Home again

After an amazing cruise, our time away came to an end when we got to Puerto Rico. Our flight didn't actually leave until the late afternoon so we had all day to hang out. We chilled on the boat for a few hours and then stored our luggage at a hotel and wandered around Old San Juan for a bit. We had been to Puerto Rico together back in November, 2010 when we went with 8 month old Jackson. We finally did a little shopping and got presents for the kids, the highlight being a cute dress for Abbie. We attempted to eat at our favorite sandwich place, St. Germain - but sadly they were only serving a Sunday Brunch so we decided not to go. We ended up at another favorite of Tyler's that he tried on a work trip - the Parrot Club. The Plantain Nachos were amazing, originally recommended by Jamie & Nick.

Windy afternoon at El Morro

Then we got to the airport and at that point was super anxious to just get home and see my babies. But they really had so much fun with Grandma and Grandpa. It was great to see pictures throughout the week of our kids having so much fun with Grandma! And Grandpa got to Connecticut on Friday which just doubled the fun for them over the weekend.

Showing off his new Superman Shirt!

Abbie flirting with Grandpa before Stake Conference

This boy is obsessed with his Grandpa

These two love each other

Three Generations of Jennings men :)

While it was overwhelming to think about leaving my kids for a week, it all ended up being such a great experience. Tyler and I had such a great week and I know the kids had so much fun bonding with their grandparents. Thanks so much to Vicki and Terry for coming out and making it all possible :)

Cruise Day 7 - St. Maarten

The last day was a stop in St. Maarten - this was another stop we had visited on our honeymoon cruise and we had fond memories of visiting Orient Beach that trip. We considered a few different options for this day but never really went through with anything. Since it had been a busy week with island after island (rough life i know) we went for a very relaxing day this time. We just asked around and heard that Little Bay was a nice beach only about 10 minutes from the cruise terminal. So we took a taxi there and got dropped off at a resort that didn't even charge us anything to have access to their facilities. We had looked into others with a $50 resort fee so finding this was awesome. It wasn't a huge fancy resort but still very nice and we had a great day.

This was actually the one day that we had non-perfect weather. When we got off the boat it was very overcast and it had been raining overnight. It actually rained on us for about 20 minutes at the resort, but we stayed on the patio at that time. Then it cleared and was perfect for the rest of the day!

The resort had a couple pools we were able to hang out at in the morning. The place was pretty empty honestly so it was really nice. It was a Saturday, so I think a lot of people were checking out or in that day. We spent some time trying to get a good picture of this parrot to show our kids, then all of a sudden it walked over to the pool to get a drink. Or maybe it just wanted to have a chat with Tyler?

Tyler chatting with his new friend

Not too bad of a view from the pool!

After taking this pic, I hopped in the hammock too :)

The water temperature was totally perfect and I probably spent more time in the ocean here than any other island. We then were able to go snorkeling here too, once again - glad we brought our snorkel gear :)

About to  head out to snorkel

View of the resort from our snorkeling spot

 

We didn't get as many snorkeling pictures here but there were some really colorful fish here too.

About to leave our last island.

Panoramic View of Little Bay

All the islands were so great, this was probably the most relaxing - a perfect end to our week!

Cruise Day 6 - St. Kitts

After feeling carsick after a long tour day in St. Lucia the day before, I wasn't so sure about going through with our next tour in St. Kitts. We were going to make a decision the morning of, well I woke up feeling great so we decided to go with it! It was a much shorter tour, and once I saw that we were in an actual mini bus rather than just a 12 passenger van, I felt better about that too. Also, Tyler was able to recruit a few other people to join our group because there were some empty seats. He worked a deal with the driver and while waiting for all the people to board, he met some people with no plans that day. This was able to knock about $50 off our tour price which - made it even that more enjoyable for Tyler haha.

In our initial planning for St. Kitts, I really wanted to visit Nevis. St. Kitts and Nevis are two neighboring islands that are actually the same country. My parents visited this resort in Nevis back when I was young and it was their first big trip away from Paige, Michael and I. I remember them coming home and seeing pictures and hearing about how amazing the Caribbean was, I always wanted to go there some day! But with a little research, although Nevis is only 2 miles away, it would have taken a long time to travel via taxi and via boat just to make it over there. And then the hotel was not so cheap if we wanted to get a day pass there, so we opted not to go but just seeing it was fun :)

We booked a tour that would take us to two really neat historic places on the island, the first was Romney Manor. It was a beautiful garden with grounds and ruins from the estate of Sam Jefferson, one of Thomas Jefferson's great grandfathers. We both loved the huge beautiful tree that was over 350 years old.

The one thing a little random about our tour, was the guide - he was a character, totally likeable guy but he was totally into botany and stopped to show us every plant and flower. We learned a lot but it was getting a little old after a while... A couple times he stopped to pick flowers for the ladies on the bus, then handed out some leftovers to some ladies we saw at later stops. Quite a character for sure, he'd honk and wave at people walking by, we thought he knew them, turns out he was totally just flirting.

Roosevelt our tour guide, at the start of a botany lesson :)

The next landmark (and honestly the main reason Tyler wanted this tour) was Brimstone Fortress. At the top of one of the tallest hills in St. Kitts is a fortress used as a lookout from the 1700s. The views were incredible from up there!

At the bottom of the fortress, looking up to the main structure above

View from the tippy top!

amazing views

The whole east side of the island is a rain forest, completely green and tropical, but the popular beaches are all on the west side of the island, which overlooks to Nevis. Tyler and I both agreed that the west side reminded us of Southern California coast - a little more dry but then hills and cliffs drop off the a beautiful beach. Our tour guide drove us back over to the west side and dropped most of the tour group off at a beach for the rest of the afternoon.

View from the cliffs on east side, before we drove down to the beach

 We weren't really sure where he was dropping us off, but it was a really fancy Carambola Beach Club. It served nice but overpriced drinks and food which we had none of but enjoyed the fancy lounge and access to the beach. We brought our snorkel gear, just in case, and I'm so glad we did because there was a great reef just off the beach. We ran into some friends on the beach and left our stuff with them at their cabana and took a walk down the beach for a while before getting in the water and snorkeling all the way back. I saw about 7 starfish, lots of sea urchins, cool coral and plenty of colorful fish.

Nevis is behind us, over my left shoulder

We then chilled in the shade for an hour or so until we got picked up. I brought my book, "The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet" for my cruise read. Tyler brought "The Start-up of You."

It was really a great day and just as all the other days had been, perfect weather!! Roosevelt had brought some local fruit for us to eat in the bus, and I had brought some snacks from the ship. But at one of our stops I had to break down and buy some SunChips because sorry they just sounded so good. But other than that, we never once paid for food or drinks that week! We got back to the cruise terminal and got right back on the ship for a late lunch! We were able to facetime with the kids who were getting excited for Grandpa to make it to Connecticut that night :)

Cruise Day 5 - St. Lucia

St. Lucia was our middle island, 3rd of 5 - but was the one Tyler was most excited about. After seeing pictures of it, he always wanted to visit this island - he had even looked into doing a honeymoon there or this babymoon there even! The main reason, the Piton mountains that just set it apart from all other Caribbean Islands :)

When we found a cruise that visited St. Lucia and worked out best for our Sunday - Sunday schedule, it was a done deal :) Anyways, we decided to book an island tour for this day so we could make sure to see all the sights. Tyler booked through Cosol Tours which had incredible reviews on TripAdvisor. Turns out lots of people on our boat booked through them, we met several other people earlier in the week who mentioned they were on our same tour. They had about 7 large vans of tourists on the tour and we saw many of our new friends along the way.

We stopped at several different locations for pictures along the way but there were 6 major stops. The first stop was at a banana plantation, which is the major industry on St. Lucia. We got to sample fresh bananas and learn more about the process, their bananas are all shipped to England.

The next stop was for a brunch at a scenic building. This was the only time we were at the same place as all the other vans of people and it got a little crowded. But they had tables of several different local foods for us to try, some of our favorites were the fresh mango, pineapple, passion fruit, and fried fish with different dipping sauces. They also had water bottles, sodas and the local beer for everyone to try. I guess we were too busy eating to take pictures, but it was near this view :)

We drove through several little villages and fishing towns and it was neat to be able to see so much of the island and how the people lived. The next stop was the waterfall, the water was pretty cold so I opted not to get in. Tyler stepped in the water but also opted not to get in the freezing cold polar plunge. If we had stopped later in the day when we'd been wet already or had been in the sun, I might have done it - but just pictures were good for me :)

From here we drove to the highlight of the trip  - the Pitons! We got out of the van and transferred into a water taxi that took us to a beautiful beach in between the two Piton Mountains. In all the pictures and even from the other side of the island, the two mountains appear to be right next to each other, but in reality they are a couple miles apart. So we were able to go snorkeling between the two mountains. They allowed us one hour over on the beach, and the only regret is that we didn't have more time there. The snorkeling was pretty good, we saw lots of Sea Urchins, Coral and colorful fish, something unique was a sea snake! The beach we were on was next to a very nice hotel where Matt Damon and his wife renewed their wedding vows recently. Our boat driver told us they rented the whole hotel and made it a private event for celebrities a whole week.

The views were amazing on the boat ride over.

Snorkeling between the Pitons!

A first for both of us, seeing a sea snake!

beautiful shades of blue

say cheese!

View of the beach, down by the fancy hotel

Here I am!

"sittin on the beach with our toes in the sand"

 Our last tourist stop was at the extinct St. Lucia volcano, just about 10 minutes from the last stop, called the sulphur springs. It was described as a hot mud bath, in a natural hot springs. I had slightly different expectations for this place before we got there. Like the water is actually really really hot, hotter than a hot tub and probably too hot for a pregnant girl to get in. And even if you get in the water, the mud doesn't really stick to your skin unless you rub it all over yourself from the mud puddles upstream. So we decided to just go wading through the stream and try to get some mud on us the memory and for photo opp purposes. Tyler got pretty far down the stream, but once again - the water was way hot! And without shoes the rocks were killing my feet so I just let Tyler get some mud and he helped me get it on part of me at least :) I think it is supposed to rejuvenate you and have healing properties of some kind - not so sure about that... Then we rinsed as much as we could off and headed back.

The boiling hot sulfur water

Not quite covered, but stinky enough!

Very surprisingly, Tyler was bothered by the smell way more than I was!

It really was a fun day and if at that point I could have snapped my fingers and been back on the boat, I'd have had the perfect day. But now we had a 45 minute ride back to the cruise terminal through the winding roads and I did not do too well. Luckily we had been sitting in the front row of the van, and I was in the middle so I could totally see out, but I was so grateful when we finally stopped at our last stop. We didn't even know where we were headed but he took us to this beautiful home where we had our last food / drink offering of the day. We got fresh baked bread and cheese and it totally hit the spot! We used the bathroom in the house and those in our van just wanted to spend hours in this place. It was kept perfectly clean and had amazing views of the mountains and water. I didn't realize until later that it was the lady's house who had prepared all the food for our brunch and had baked the bread.

It's silly but this bread and cheese made me so happy - and what a fun shape of bread, kind of like a turkey leg.

 Anyways I felt so good and refreshed after that stop it was hard to get back in that van, but it was only about 25 more minutes until we were back at the cruise terminal. We had an hour or so before we had to be back on the boat - so we called home and were able to facetime with Jackson for a bit, Abbie was still sleeping. But then I headed back to the boat to lay down while Tyler hung out off the ship for a little bit longer.

So Tyler calls this his favorite day of the cruise whereas I can't make up my mind about the favorite! I probably would have liked this one but that van ride back kind of put a damper on the end. I never got sea-sick the whole week luckily, so I guess a little car sickness as the only ailment of the trip isn't too bad though!