We really needed this vacation.
It was a vacation unlike any other vacation I have ever taken.
It was our first real vacation with the four of us - Jocelyn, Jonah, Vera and me.
We went to a place I never thought we would go...
We went to Beaches - the all inclusive family resort in Ocho Rios, Jamaica for 10 days.
It is the only place I could find that had kids programming (aka child care) for kids that are the ages of my kids.
JONAH & VERA LOVED IT!!!!
If you have small kids and they watch Sesame Street, this is the place that is advertised right before the show comes on.
It is like going to Sesame Street but it is in the Caribbean.
We all had a really good time.
We never left the resort. The resort is nice - not five star - but totally nice - clean, safe, and fun! The service was great. The kids programming for all ages is awesome. The weather was basically good. We hung out with the kids every morning and afternoon and they went to camp for a chunk of time during the day. Every night there was a Sesame Street live show by the pool. One afternoon there was a Sesame Street Carnival parade. One morning we had breakfast with everyone from Sesame Street. Every day we took the kids to the beach and to the water park pool (slides and big animals in the pool). We all went to bed by 8pm and every morning we were all up at 5:30am and at the beach usually by 7am. It was the weirdest, in the best way, vacation that I have ever had.
Everyone at the resort was super super friendly, professional and informative. Jonah walked around introducing me to all his friends from camp. Vera is in love with Cookie monster. Both of my kids now run up to the big characters and give them big hugs?!?!
If you now me well, you know this all sounds really funny -
Heather, the one who hiked the Great Wall, scuba dived the Great Barrier reef, spent New Year's Eve on the beach in Rio and the desert in the Western Sahara. That Heather. The Heather who went to Djerba, Tunisia by herself for the Lag b'Omer festival... and has travelled all around the world for business and pleasure and never stayed at a resort and not ventured off of it... Yes, that Heather.
Marriage and parenthood changes us.
Especially on vacation.
I am still that Heather. I trekked my kids to Fallingwaters on our road trip to Pittsburgh. I take them adventuring all over the place all of the time - that is the whole point of the blog. But this year, this time, this vacation - we needed some TLC in a million different ways. And Elmo, Abby, Cookie, Oscar, Ernie & Bert, Zoe, and Super Grover came through (and all of those Beaches professionals who were super as well.)
Jonah is basically swimming on his own now. Vera loves the beach, the pool and the sand. I got a great massage on the beach from the Red Lane spa and I swam laps in the Caribbean sea every day. Jocelyn soaked up her heritage in the sun, wind and sea. We all slept all night in the same room. Jocelyn & I watched the whole first season of The Game of Thrones on DVDs. Beaches photographers took our photos throughout the trip and we even had our own personal photo shoot on the beach (You know I loved that!! I even bought us coordinating outfits!)
We will go back to Jamaica and adventure there one day - hopefully soon. There is a whole island to visit - and a synagogue I failed to get to - We will go back.
But this year, 2013, we started it off with the Sesame Street gang in the Caribbean and I am hoping it means that the rest of our year will be filled with way too many sunny days and almost all of the clouds swept away...
Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street - in Jamaica?
It only took a whole day to travel there... We left the house at 5am and got to the hotel at 4pm... but it was worth it. Glad we went for 10 days because two of them were travel days...
1 hr to our house to BWI
3 1/2 hrs BWI to Montego Bay, Jamaica
2 hours MoBay to Ocho Rios
We give Beaches in Ocho Rios our seal of approval. If you need a family vacay with childcare for all ages and time to play and relax - we recommend it!
...
so I have some great photos... from the photo shoot... but somehow the picture posting function seems to not be working right now... any of my fellow bloggers out there - did blogger.com change the upload picture feature?!?!
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