Good morning, blog friends!  How was your weekend?  Mine was excellent, it was a perfect weekend in Starkville spending time with Nick.  He’ll be back home next weekend and we have a wedding to attend, then Easter, then we’re headed to Orlando for a work conference I have.  It’s going to be a great birthday week – I’ll get to learn some new stuff that will hopefully advance me at work, I’ll get to spend quality time with Nick and his brother’s family, and to top it all off…. I’ll be at Disney, on my birthday, crossing my fingers that I get selected for the Festival of the Lion King show.  There will be birthday signs, people.  Surely they’ll notice me!

The past few weeks have been back to reality since Jamaica and I’m not going to lie… it’s been ROUGH!  I love my life, I love my job, I love the people I get to share this time with, but who wouldn’t want to do all of that in beautiful Jamaica?  Yep, I’m having the Jamaican blues.  I miss my cousin, we were tremendously spoiled with all that personal time together – we have never had that before!  I miss the relaxing on the beach without a care in the world, reading a good book.  I miss the free food.  I miss our favorite little spots and our favorite little people.  A few times a week I find myself daydreaming about what it would be like to just stay.  Stay there and never leave.  Of course, that would never actually happen, but I mean… what if?  Am I Right?

So today in honor of my memories and the fun I had in Jamaica, I figured I’d give you a little peek into what my week was like.  It’s not everything, that’s for sure, and I have a lot more pictures and adventures to share, but here is what I witnessed through my iPhone.  Karla still has our Dunn’s River Falls pics, plus more, so once I get those from her I’ll go through that.  I also have pictures on my camera, but I’ll share those in another post.  This will probably be the most unorganized vacation recap you have ever experienced, but we’re going to run with it!

For me, the adventure started at the airport.  I’ve never flown international and I had to get my passport specifically for this trip.  We flew from Jackson to Charlotte to Jamaica.  When we arrived in Jamaica, we had expedited customs which made our arrival a breeze!  It wasn’t too long before I was hugging my cousin and we were headed to the resort.  Our resort was about an hour and a half away from the airport, so we had a fun bus ride there.  It really wasn’t as bad as I expected.  They let us stop for a potty break and our driver gave us information as we passed by various areas along the island.  When we arrived to the resort, they greeted us with champagne as we waited for our room.

We had daily cleaning service and they always had a special towel display on our bed.  They were very impressive too.  Our typical schedule was to wake up at a reasonable time, around 8 or 9, then head to breakfast.  We usually ate at Kelly’s Dockside because the variety was phenomenal, but we did choose a fancier breakfast one morning.

I got french toast and eggs Benedict without ham.  It was absolutely delicious!  They had excellent coffee while we were there too, so we always enjoyed a fresh cup with our breakfast each morning.  After breakfast, we would head over to the scuba area and see if they’d let us dive that day.  Unfortunately we weren’t able to dive the entire week because the water was too choppy.  Then we would head back to the room and pack up our beach bag for the day, heading out to the beach on our side of the property – sometimes to the pool, but usually to the beach.

The weather honestly wasn’t too hot, but it wasn’t too cold either.  We wore shorts and tank tops every day, but sometimes at night it felt good to have a light sweater or regular clothes on.  You could feel the warm sun beating down, but it was never miserably hot.  The water was absolutely gorgeous, very blue.  After laying out for a bit, we would then figure out what we wanted for lunch.  The options were endless and sometimes we would do a light lunch in one place and a light lunch an hour or two later somewhere else.  After lunch, we’d go back to the beach and maybe even get in one of the floats out on the water.  Around 4 or 5, we would head back to our room and shower for dinner.  We would always go to the Sushi bar for appetizers and drinks then meet up with some of my co-workers for dinner.  If we weren’t meeting up with them, then we may just stay for dinner at the sushi bar.  The sushi bar was our favorite restaurant at the resort.  After dinner, it was dancing!  We loved the entertainers they had to keep the party alive.  They were literally hired to dance with the guests and keep things going throughout the night.

There were a few days when this wasn’t our exact schedule.  On Monday we had our scuba diving certification, just in case we were able to scuba dive at any point during the week.  On Tuesday we did Dunn’s River Falls and on Wednesday or Thursday we went sailing.

I will say that 7 days was perfect.  I could have stayed longer, but I certainly wouldn’t want to stay any less than that.

On Monday night we had a group cocktail hour and dinner.  We took group pictures beforehand and each got a free picture to take home with us.  It was fun to get everyone dressed up and mingling together.  The dinner was beautiful and they offered me mashed potatoes with veggies.  The potatoes were delicious, but I love mashed potatoes!

I could not have asked for a better week, a longer week maybe… but not better!  It was absolutely perfect and spending that quality time with my cousin was priceless.  She had such a blast too and she really got along well with my co-workers who were there.  We laughed, we talked about serious matters, we stayed active, we layed out on the beach, we ate and ate, we drank and drank, we did everything we wanted to except scuba dive.  I’m so thankful that this opportunity was provided to me!

I’ll be back with more pictures and fun times as soon as I can!  Hope you all have a wonderful week and maybe you’ll get a shorter week with Good Friday.  I know we have a half-day, so I’m looking forward to that!  The next week I will be in Orlando, so I’m hoping to have some good stuff scheduled for y’all by the end of the weekend!  Cheers!