well it has been quite the week i must say, and i miss the tropical weather, and the beach and the ocean already, but it does feel good to be home...
but enough about home... how about a little recap of the last week :-)
where to begin? how about last saturday, the day before we left.
Saturday:
saturday i worked an 11 hour day, from 7 am-6 pm, and then upon returning home, instead of packing i decided i needed to see my dear paige one more time before i left for an entire week. paige and i hit up the mini golf course at kimballs to show off our incredible tiger woods skills, which paige used more effectively than i did, and kicked my humbled mini-golfing butt. we celebrated with ice cream, and slushies, and i got the grand tour of the new McAuliffe residency.
i return home around 10:45, and as i walk in the door the phone rings. ashley tells me she is packed and ready to go, she is just waiting for her parents to get home so she can say goodbye. she yells at me for not even starting to pack, since by this point it is almost 11:15. i hang up with her to call my drunken boyfriend to say goodbye before i leave for a week. he advises me to be safe and wear sunscreen, a very sentimental and heartfelt goodbye. i hang up annoyed, even more soo when i realize that packing still has not commenced without me. when ashley arrives at around 11:30 she is a little annoyed by my severe procrastination, and i further this annoyance by informing her that we need to make a midnight run to walmart, because of course, i do not have all of the things that i need. the drive there is uneventful, but the moment we walk into the gi-normous 24 hour walmart super center in amherst NH, ashley seemingly overwhelmed by the enormity of the store develops an extreme headache, which causes her to walk around with her eyes half shut, and her to remind me of her pain about every 2 aisles. after we get all the needed items on our list we head to the food. we walk down every single aisle finally deciding on poprocks applesauce, the newest creation from motts, chef boyardee mini-beef-ravoli and of course chocolate. we check out and leave. the drive home is interesting, as ashley still has her intense headache and finds it necessary to drive with sunglasses on. mind you it is pitch black and 2 am. never a dull moment with that girl.
we arrive home, and eat our mini ravoli and then i finally pack. we finish at 3:30 am, and get to sleep, only to wake up 2 hours later to be ready to leave at 7.
Sunday:
the flight from manchester to charlotte was fine, once in charlotte, the waiting that would continue to consume the entire day began. we had a 4 hour lay over in charlotte, which ended up being even longer since the plane was delayed. from charlotte to west palm was a nice short flight, and we checked into our hotel to spend the night in west palm around 7 pm. an 11 hour day spent at airports and in planes.
that night we visited down town west palm beach, a very ritzy and rich little place. the streets were all of cobblestone, and filled with hummer limos and little sports cars, and also the occasional horse drawn carriage. colorful and beautiful fountains were on every street corner, and the well manicured palm trees were decorated with white lights. and a man with beautiful parrots was there to pose for pictures with. lit up it looked like a romantic scene from the movies, and after dinner we walked down the streets enjoying the warm night air and beauty of the rich little town.
we arrived back at the hotel around 10 and decided that the pool looked like fun, so we went for a late night swim, the four of us, me, jon, ashley and chris. down at the pool we are asked if we want some drinks by a creepy man that stays and watches us swim for an hour before saying a word to us. when he leaves to go to the bathroom ashley and i decide the best course of action is to act as if chris and jon are our boyfriends, and avoid any further contact with the man. ashley and i fight over who gets chris, because number 1, jon is my brother, and that is just weird. and number 2, jon also has a mullet, and that is even weirder.... in the end we decide if we are playing this ridiculous game, we might as well make chris a little pimp, and have us both be with him, while jon is a part of his little posse... after concocting this ridiculous little story we are disappointed as the man, who was obviously drunk never returned from the bathrooms. around midnight we decide to head to bed.
Monday:
monday my mom ashley and i get on the flight to the base. we arrive in the bahamas around 11, and meet up with Lea's good friend Jere who takes us to her house, and then gives us a tour of the island. i being the whitest girl ever burn in the first 15 minutes of being on the island, which is embarrassing enough as it is,, because most of the time we weren't even in the sun, it is worsened by the fact that not only am i burned, but because of the tank top i was wearing it looks like i have two big red bug eyes on my back. i am ultimately impressed by amazing abilities, and put on sunscreen right away to prevent any further damage.
after the grand tour of the base we all decide to hit the beach. the water is absolutely amazing, a beautiful blue green color, and 80 degrees. i was in heaven. :-) after the beach we head back to lea's and find pete and lea made it home on the 4 o'clock flight. after showering, we are introduced to the mess hall, and eat with the troops, as we are on an army base. the food is interesting, but what can you do? its not like it was the ritz hotel.
later that night pete gives us snorkeling 101, and my mom who thinks she is hilarious takes pictures of ashley and i in the living room in our skirts with the flippers and masks on.
Tuesday:
tuesday we sleep in late, (big surprise there) and then after peanut butter sandwiches for brunch we head to the beach armed with our snorkeling gear, and for me PLENTY of sunscreen. we get the hang of snorkeling, which isnt a very hard thing, and cruise around the harbor checking out what little there is to see. i do however see a barracuda, and a shark. the shark scared me a little, and i tell ashley to swim the other way, knowing that if i told her it was there she would freak... apparently i swam a little faster than ash did in our get away (as ashley didnt know we were getting away) and she gets angry when i later tell her that i was swimming away from a shark. the rest of the week i am the on going joke as people seem to think that i lied about the shark, and i seem to see just about every ocean creature there is. BUT!
it isnt my fault if i am more observant than everyone else now, is it????
that night we rented a golf cart, because on the island, people dont rent cars, they rent golf carts, and travel around in them. ashley and i seize this opportunity to explore the entire island, and head out after a brief warning from pete not to wreck it. we assure him that we are responsible girls and we would never do such a thing.
20 minutes later we are in the woods on a path by the beach stuck in between two trees. ashley is panicking, thinking that we broke the cart for good, the cart which we affectionately named mini-hum-V numba 6. and i am laughing my ass off, because we had just promised to not break the damn thing. i gun the engine as ash pushes it with her "super woman strength" and we finally get the cart out. not too discouraged we decide that off roading is not a fun adventure anymore and we head back to the base to check out less dangerous things.
give us only 20 more minutes and again we are in a crisis. this time, i am driving the golf cart, from the passenger side, and i have no access to the brakes... so of course this job is left up to ashley
(not a good idea) we are approaching a stop sign and i tell her to stop, not paying attention she slams on the brakes and locks down the parking break as well, while i continue to give it gas. we now have on our hands a golf cart with the pedal to the medal, and the parking brake on at the same time. we are literally burning rubber, and not stopping. finally i yank the key out and force the gas petal back up, while ashley, who is confused, and very freaked out sits there repeating, oh my god, we broke it... oh my god.... needless to say after that one we decided to call it a night, and head back in for bed.
Wednesday:
wednesday started very very early in the morning, as i made ashley wake up at 445 so we could go down to the beach and catch the "amazing sunrise, at 5." we get to the beach by 5 am, and it is pitch black. it stays pitch black until about 545 when we see light on the horizon. at this point both of us are very tired, very irritated that the sun hasnt come up yet, and very bug bitten. by 645 when the sky was light, and pretty, but there was still no damn sun we finally gave up and headed back to lea's. number 1 so we could wake her up and inform her that not only does the sun not rise until about 630, and number 2 that also she forgot to mention to us how freaking buggy it gets on the beach at night, so our feet and arms are completely, and i mean completely covered in bugbites. we find her already up when we get back at 7, tell her about our not so fun adventure, and then go back to bed. she is very sorry that we woke up so early, and makes up for it with a million apologies.
lea is probably one of my favorite people ever. she is soo nice. she is the rockingest bahama mama ever! :-D
after we wake up for the second time we head out on bay raider, pete's boat, accompanied by lea and my mom, and of course captain pete. my brother, dad, and chris venture out of finsanity, captained by their good friend bob. we get to use our mad snorkeling skills and snorkel off of beautiful coral reefs, and then later we explored a blue hole. the boys go fishing for awhile, while we nap on deck. they catch 4 lobsters for dinner that night. later we head over to another quiet little island off the coast of andros and drop off the moms, so the kids can go tubing. it was ash and my first time, so we went first not knowing what to expect. it was a ton of fun, and we definitely won in the wipe out competition, with my magical disappearing act, getting sucked down into the tube, and ashley's acrobatic back flip flying through the air. we all manage to remain in tact, except for very soar stomach mussels from laughing soo hard. we head back to andros around 6:45 and arrive in the harbor around 715. we order out for dinner, as the four lobsters wont feed the nine of us that went out. overall, this was probably the most active and fun day of the week. even if we didnt get to see the sunrise.
Thursday:
thursday we dont wake up until around noon, and decide to make it a day to lounge on the beach. ashley heads to the beach with the intention of getting a tan, i go in an attempt not to burn. later that afternoon we decide that we should try and get off the island on the four o'clock flight, because we might not all make it off tomorrow... we head down to the base airport thinking that they would send ash and i over alone, which would have been a ton of fun... a night alone in florida.... hahahha, imagine the possibilities.... but unfortunately, that was quickly killed, as they only had one seat available on the plane, and so they sent my dad over instead. we go back to the house and fall asleep in the chairs, or if you ask my mother, we were pouting... because when we sleep, thats really just us pouting....
Friday:
friday was a real fun day. . . almost. friday ashley is the only one that makes it out on the morning flight off the island, leaving me and my mom and brother behind. which also meant, because we missed that flight we missed our 1 o'clock connection from west palm home. so we were stuck. we try again to get off the island on the 1230 flight, and again are bumped. we finally make it out on the 4 o'clock, and are lucky enought to fly into philly, and then make it over from philly to manchester on a standby flight at 10 pm. needless to say i didnt get home until 1am, and have decided that my previous affection for airports has lost its appeal...
however... overall the trip was absolutely amazing.... i could have stayed down there for another month i think before i got sick of it. and there will definitely be a trip down next year.... and the funny thing is, in all of that time ash and i didnt get sick of each other once. it was crazy fun... memories that will last a lifetime.
and now we are back home, and back to the grind of everyday life. i want to go back on vacation already....
