Sunny Skies, Ocean Breezes - NO SNOW!!

This was the view outside my window on Friday night -

Snow, snow, and more snow - as you know from all my recent posts. . .

Saturday was a much different story - Sun!!!!





Sun, palm trees, pools - yay!!!! We had an awesome vacation! I posted tons of photos - scroll down only if you dare - remember slide shows of other families' vacations?!




Hard to get a decent family pic, but we try :)



Water lily flowers



Lazy river ride



Beautiful! Wish you were here!

Smiley faces all around

So good to be together, playing, warm, no worries!

One of Rebecca's favorite pools - Ripples

Slide at Splashers pool

These are little pools that cascade down to the Ripples pool. There are little slides in between them. This is the top of three pools.

This is the middle pool, and the seahorse pool is the bottom one.

Rebecca running up the stairs to get to the top pool and slide back down again.

This is a bigger slide that also ends in the Ripples pool. Only kids under 48 inches can ride this one - Rebecca loves it!

Last year it was Alaina's favorite, she's taller this year and able to go on more of the bigger rides, and technically is too tall for this one - but she smiled her way around that a few times.

This is the roof of the pool at the bottom of my favorite slide - The Abyss

Garrett at the end of the Abyss slide. It is steep, dark, scary, and ends in a very warm pool underground with cool aquariums all around . . .

Garrett and Becca in front of the aquarium at the bottom of the Abyss - Becca can't wait until she's tall enough to go down this one. Alaina is tall enough but wants to wait until another time.

Walking back to the hotel along the Marina after a long day at the pools - cheeky kids!

We spent one day at the beach - back and forth really because there are pools and slides and the lazy river really close by.

A lone palm tree - so beautiful - even with the tanker ship in the background

So nice to play in REAL sand (I have to point this out every year) as opposed to the dirt at our local lake :)

Ahhhhhhhh! My friend Rani knows this feeling . . .

Hi Kat!

Watching my family enjoy the pool.

From the peacefulness of my shady chair :) No I'm not tan - my ideal is enjoying the cool of the shade with the sun all around me! My friend LeeAnne is a sun worshiper though and she sat in those sunny rows of chairs in front of me here . . . she's beautifully tan.

Sunkissed cheeks

No bad burns on anyone this year - thankfully

More sand and waves

Relaxing back at the room

So happy together :)

Love the marina!

Our rooms at Harborside

View from our room

The girls met Hannah the mermaid - Becca was sure she was real until she saw a zipper. The older girls then convinced her that she was just wearing fancy pants over her tail for her visit on shore :)

View of the royal towers from the Dig underneath. The Dig is a walk through aquarium with lots of cool fish and art and things

More flora

Above the dig - everywhere you go it's beautiful - great walks, cool animals, of course fun slides, pools, shopping (not my favorite part, but it's there), etc. We just love it obviously.

All the kids playing with Dad in Splashers. The tower in the background has a big bucket that fills with water and dumps on the tower every once in a while -

Slides in the tower in splashers pool

Laina in Splashers or Ripples - not sure which

Becca talks with the fish in the Dig

Alaina and the rays - the three of us went on an animal walk - we saw so many fun things!

Seahorses

Jellies

Smiling rays

There is a ray swimming by just over Becca's head and right hand

Different jellies

Touch tank with conchs, starfish, sea cucumbers, and horseshoe crabs

The sea cucumber is under the conch shell

This is the conch - an island delicacy so they say

Another yummy fish - Grouper - big ugly fish

Don't know what this is, but he was up by the glass smiling for a photo.

"Wow!" said Becca when we entered the shark tunnel

See her in the dark pointing up at the sharks?

Just gorgeous!

Lots of turtles! Becca's favorite.

They seemed to like her too.

Laina was ready to get back to swimming at this point.

The ultimate slide - the leap of faith. I talked about it alot last year. Still fun!

Kat racing with Tessa - Tessa left the start last, but her time was better.

Kat is acutally at the bottom when Tessa is just starting

But boy did she get down fast!

Garrett is always building things - the last day he spent a lot of time by the pool creating boats out of leaves - super cool, he even sewed stuff together with drier strips.

Juggling guy on stilts he told jokes too - What do you call a blind reindeer? No idea-er.

hee hee, perfect for us New Englanders who hear that 'er' added to a's all the time.

Silly faces

Yay for the Bahamas! Goodbye until next time.