Archive for the ‘travel’ Category

I’ve been working on the first few chapters of my book as part of my book proposal and it has brought back some really fun memories from the early years of my marriage, including this story from my honeymoon!

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Unlike our wedding day, the honeymoon seemed to last forever.  We spent the entire time on the beaches of St. Maartin in the Caribbean, some days only moving when we walked out to the water for a dip.  We did venture out one evening on a sunset booze cruise around the island.  There were a lot of college kids partying it up on the main deck of the boat, so Chris and I went up to the second level where the boat captain was perched not far away.  We struck up a conversation with him about a life as a boat captain.  He said he was from Seattle, but spent his summers down in the islands giving charter cruises to honeymooners.

“What you guys really need to do,” he told us, “is have one of the locals take you to the strip beach.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Its this small beach only accessible by boat.  Not too many tourists know about it, so you have to find a local with a boat who can take you out there.”

The next day as we took a lunch break from sitting on the beach, we asked our waiter who was a local boy about eighteen years old if he knew about the strip of beach the captain had mentioned.  He knew right away what we were talking about and told us about a dock we could get to by taxi.

“You take a cab there and a boat will meet you,” he said in his heavy island accent.

So we left the restaurant and caught a cab to where the boy had described.

It was in the middle of nowhere. I mean, nowhere. There were sand dunes and seashells and that was about it.

Oh, and there was a little dock.  A tiny, little dock that looked like it might fall into the ocean if someone stepped on it.  Cautiously, Chris paid the cab driver, who laughed at the horrified looks on our faces and drove away.

LEAVING US STANDING ALONE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.

“This is how stupid Americans end up on the news back home, you know,” I told Chris.

But before he could respond, we both looked out to the water as the sound of a small boat drifted up to us on the dock.  Inside the boat was a little boy.

Seriously.  He was, like, ten.

When he docked his boat, he didn’t even ask us where we wanted to go.

“Twenty-five dollars,” was all he said.

Chris groaned and started to complain, but I shot him one of those looks.  Those looks that say, “Don’t piss off the only person who knows we are alive at the moment.”

We carefully stepped into his boat and attempted to tell him where we wanted to go, but he had already started moving away from the dock and it was obvious that this boat had only one destination.

Fifteen minutes later, as we turned a corner into a small lagoon, I actually gasped out loud at what I saw.

There it was.  A strip of beach, just like the captain had said.

It was nestled along this small island about half a mile off the coast of one of the most popular beaches on St. Maartin.  This beach had no tourists on it.  In fact, it didn’t have much of anything on it.  There was a small little cabana with an old refrigerator, an old grill, and an even older bar tender.  There were also about ten large, covered beach lounges that were available for rent at the cabana house.  And that was it.  No restaurant.  No bathroom.  No hotels.  And no tourists.  It was just us.

And about fifteen women.

Fifteen strikingly beautiful women.

Fifteen abnormally tall, thin strikingly beautiful women.

Fifteen naked abnormally tall, thin strikingly beautiful women.

Aw, crap…

Chris’ mouth dropped to the beach sand as he realized who our beach neighbors were.

“Th…th…those women aren’t wearing any cl…cl…clothes…” he stuttered.  Like an idiot.  Like an idiot who was on his honeymoon with his brand spankin’ new wife.

“Oh, really?  I hadn’t noticed because my eyes were blinded by the sun bouncing off of their INCREDIBLY LARGE BOOBS.”

As Chris and I settled into our rented beach loungers, I did anything I could think of to avoid having to take off my bathing suit cover up in front of these Amazon beauty queens WHO WERE NOW FROLICKING IN THE WATER TOGETHER.

Perfect.  Just what every newlywedded woman wants to see on her honeymoon.  Perfect specimens of the female sex frolicking naked in the water in front of her new husband.

Finally, I stripped down to my bikini and quickly jumped into my chair to hide under my ridiculous over-sized sunhat and over-sized sunglasses.  Not that it mattered.  I could have shot off flares on that island and Chris wouldn’t have even noticed.  He would have continued to sit there in his beach chair, “reading his magazine.”  Upside down.  And in French.

Typical.

After an hour of baking in the hot sun, I decided to jump in the water for a little bit.  Chris and I swam out to a close sand bar and sat down, burying our feet in the sand and enjoying the cool ocean water lapping around us.

“So…do you wanna go skinny dipping?” I laughed.

“No!” he responded, completely serious.

“Oh, come on!  Why not?  Those women don’t care!  Look at them!”

Chris looked back in time to see one of the Amazons rise up off her beach chair and shake out her towel before laying back down on her stomach, leaving her perfectly round cheeks glowing in the sunshine.

“No,” Chris said.  “Definitely not.”

“You’re such a wimp.”

“No, I’m not.  I just don’t want to get sunburned.  Can you think of anything worse than burning your…you know… on your HONEYMOON?”

“Hmmm….” I thought for a minute.  “I guess not.  Better keep your pants on.”

“That’s what I thought.”

And I giggled at how easily Chris and I could slip between talking as husband and wife on a romantic honeymoon and talking as best friends who were concerned about sun burning their nether regions.

We stayed on the beach for the rest of the afternoon, alternating between our beach loungers and the sand bar and drinking Mai Tais.  Later as the sun was just starting to lower, our tiny adolescent boat captain came puttering into the lagoon again.  We jumped on-board and caught the most beautiful sunset on our way back to our tourist-filled resort where everyone wore some sort of clothing and all could be right in my world again.

The rest of our honeymoon went by like a dream.  The weather was beautiful the whole trip, but on our last full day the heavens opened up and poured rain all day long.  Chris and I splashed through the rain and puddles up to the small grocery store on the resort property, where we bought two six packs of Caribbean beer and a big bag of pretzels.

We spent the rest of the day in our hotel room, drinking beer, eating pretzels, and watching The Price is Right.  I remember thinking as Chris yelled the price of a tube of toothpaste at the television that this is what I hoped it would be like when we were 80.

On Saturday, Chris, Bean, and I decided to pack up the car, throw Bean in a bathing suit, and get the heck outta dodge!  And where do newly relocated Floridians go when they need to get away?  The beach, of course!

Cocoa Beach, to be exact.

I grew up on the beach, but since moving to Connecticut my beach bummin’ days have been few and far between.  Now that we are back in Florida though, I hope to make up for that.  I love the beach.  It’s such a relaxing, soothing, calming place to spend an afternoon.  Listening to the waves, kicking back with a good book, catching a little nap in the warmth of the summer sunshine…

Wait a minute…

Wait just a darn minute here…

Something seems to have changed.  Because on this trip to the beach, my relaxing book and warm summer nap were replaced instead by sand buckets, sticky watermelon, and a mysterious short little man with a belly who squealed in my ear every time a wave crashed on shore.

Ahh…yes.  Gone are the days of getting cute to go to the beach.  No more bikinis (at least not until I get rid of these stretch marks…).  No more clean beach towels that are just used to dab the sweat on my brow occasionally.  No more coming home with dry, clean bathing suits.

Those things are no more.

Because of this.

See, I thought that I could stay clean and dry this time.  I hadn’t really thought much about the alternative.  But, see that sandy little Bean Bean up there?  Well, sometimes he needs hugs.  He needs a snuggle.  And sometimes he needs those hugs and snuggles about two seconds after he has been rolling around in water and then immediately rolling around in sand.  And when he decides that right now, in this sandy, wet condition, he needs a hug?  Well, I’m gonna hug him.

And when I wrap my arms around his sandy little body, I’m gonna get sand all up my arms and all over my neck, where the sand monkey decided to bury his sandy little face.

But, then I look out from my beach chair where I sit, covered in sand, and I see this…

And even from 50 yards away on the beach, I can hear Bean squealing and babbling and pointing out everything he sees to Chris.  And suddenly I don’t even notice the sand in my bathing suit.

It was Bean’s first trip to the beach.  To say it was a big hit would be a huge understatement.  Bean thought the beach was the greatest place in the entire world.  When we first got there, we set up our little area.  I brought a big sheet and two beach chairs for me and Chris.  We had a big cooler with lunch and snacks and drinks.  And, of course, we had sand toys – a bucket, a sand sifter, and a shovel.  And we had a giant tug boat (thank you to my friend, Sarah, for giving Bean this enormous tug boat that he loves so stinkin’ much that I had to schlep it across the beach all day…).  And a rubber walrus.  And a rubber penguin.

Once we were all set up, we had a little lunch.

Well, not really.  Chris and I had lunch.  Bean spit out everything I gave him as he pointed to the water, crying, “Waaaaa!  Waaaaa!” (which is Bean Speak for “water”).  There was no way he was eating anything until he went out into the water.  So, being the fun daddy that he is, Chris scooped him up and the two of them headed out to the water together.

When they got close enough that the water was actually hitting Bean’s feet, his squeal went up into octaves that only dogs could hear.  He just kept pointing to the water and soundlessly squealing, “Waaaaa!!!  Waaaaa!!”

They stopped walking for a minute and let the water come over their feet.  As the water eroded away the the sand under their toes, Bean sank deeper and deeper into the warm, sandy muck.  And as the water rushed, he dropped his voice all serious-like and deeply exclaimed, “Ohhhhh…” as if he had been wondering about sand erosion all his life.

After this little scientific experiment, they decided to do what boys do best.  Dig.  Chris brought out the sand sifter and the two of them sifted wet, gloopy sand together.

Without warning, Bean decided he had had enough sand sifting and he was ready for bigger things.  Like body surfing.  So, he headed out to sea all by himself.

Thankfully, Chris is faster than Bean (for now…) and he scooped him up and carried him out to the deeper part.

I have no pictures of them any further out in the water because any deeper than this and I started to yell out, “WATCH FOR SHARKS!!  WATCH FOR SHARKS!!  SHARKS!!  SHARKS!!” and after scaring about every person within a 2 mile radius, I went back to my beach chair and decided to watch for sharks from a distance in silence.

(Note to future beach goers:  Probably best to not yell out “SHARK!” or any phrase involving “SHARK!” when in the presence of tourists and families.  Unless, of course, you actually see a shark.  And then, by all means, yell all you want.)

Once back in the comfort of my beach chair, I opened the Tupperware container I packed of watermelon.  Which from all the way out in the water, Bean managed to smell.  Within minutes he was crawling all over me for “Mooooooeeee!  Moooooee!”  (That would be “more,” in Bean Speak).

With watermelon juice and salt water now covering 99.9% of his body surface, Bean decided it was once again time for a little sand rolling.

We spent the rest of the day rotating between walking in the water and digging in the sand.

Two things I have not done on a beach since I was five years old.  And I have to say, it’s not a bad way to spend a day.  Apparently, sand washes off and salt water won’t kill you.  Who knew?

Turns out, a day at the beach – whether you are reading a book on a dry, clean towel or covered in sand and watermelon juice – is pretty darn relaxing after all.

It is relieving, refreshing, and remarkable to me that even when things are hard, even when things seem off and unfamiliar, even when I’m working through things in my marriage, it still doesn’t take much for me to pause and remember that I am so very, very blessed by having these two sand monkeys in my life.

We celebrated Bean’s first birthday at Disney’s Animal Kingdom this past Saturday and I can’t even tell you how perfect the day was.  First of all, Bean looked awesome.  More awesome than ever, actually, because he was themed.

I dressed him in a little safari outfit – complete with a hat.  And the best part was that the shorts were bathing suit trunks, so when it got hot I could get him wet and the shorts would dry really quickly.

But more than his outfit, Bean was just a pure ball of happiness.  He was such a joy.  And he had the best time.  He was all smiles, all laughs, and interested in everything that we saw and did.  We got to the park at 8:30 that morning and didn’t leave until 7:00 that night.  Bean had one 45 minute nap around lunch time, but other than that, he was on the go all day long.  I was worried that between the no napping and all the heat (the heat index was 104 degrees), he would just be worn flat out, but he kept on keepin’ on.  And more than just keepin’ on, he was seriously happy all day.  What more can a mom ask for than a happy birthday boy?

When we got to the park and went to Guest Relations to pick up our tickets, they gave us two Celebration Buttons for Bean.  He got a Happy Birthday button and a First Time Visitor button.  I had read online that the buttons indicate to the staff (and especially the characters) that a special event is being celebrated and so they pay a little more attention to you.  And that was totally true!  All the characters would come up to Bean, point to his button, give him a high five, and hold up one finger.  It was great!  And at lunch (more on that later), the wait staff bent over backwards for the birthday boy.

The Celebration Buttons are available for a TON of different events and are free to any park guest, so if you’re going to Disney, be sure to let them know at Guest Relations that you are celebrating a special day and they’ll set you up with a button of your very own!

I had no idea how to do a blog post about our day because we did so much fun stuff and we took over 350 pictures!  So, I decided to break the posts into different topics and cover our trip that way.  The first topic for me was obvious because it was Bean’s favorite part of the day…character visits.

Throughout the park there are different meet-and-greet stations where Disney characters are standing and you can get in line and have your picture taken with them.  We also got Bean an autograph book so that each character could sign and we could put a picture of Bean with the character next to their signature.  That was one of his birthday presents.

I knew from our character breakfast with friends last month that Bean was pretty okay with the oversized stuffed animals walking around, but I was not prepared for his reaction.  He went crazy for them!

The first one that we met was Mickey Mouse and Bean was super excited.  He has a little Mickey stuffed animal that he loves and you could tell that he recognized him from home.

But it was Minnie Mouse that he really got excited to see.  Bean loves those ladies…

I was so glad that Chris got this little introduction on video because until you can hear Bean squealing for yourself, you just can’t get the full picture of how HAPPY he was to meet Minnie!

After Minnie, we left this particular character area and headed on to do some other fun things, but later in the day as we were leaving the park, we stopped to meet the Winnie the Pooh characters.  I’m so glad that we did because Bean loves the Adventures of Winnie the Pooh movie.

For Bean, you just don’t get any more fun than lifesized stuffed animals giving you high fives on your birthday.  He was in Heaven!  Hearing his little giggles and seeing him so happy was the best part of my day.  This was my first time at a Disney park with a child and it opened my eyes to a whole new side of things.  Seeing Bean squealing with delight at the characters made me wonder how I have lived for 27 years and never stopped at one of the character stations before!  What fun I was missing!

I’ll be posting this week on different parts of our Disney adventure.  Hope you’ll stick around and celebrate with us!