Denison Family Vacation

We survived the first ever Denison Family vacation!!!! We took Saturday through Wednesday to go explore Branson, MO. We stayed at Big Cedar Lodge on Table Rock Lake. We left Saturday morning and hit the road, first stop being the "Biggest Bass Pro in the World!!" Savannah loved saying this as we were checking out the store. It was nice to get out of the car and stretch the ol legs. From there we got to our final destination, got our bearings and got a little dinner. It was an early night for us all as we were tired from driving most of the day. Sunday we woke up and Daddy did a little fishing. After breakfast the whole family did some fishing and Savannah caught her FIRST FISH!! I don't know who was more excited, Savannah or Daddy, but it was pretty cool nonetheless! After the big catch of the day, Savannah and I enjoyed watching Daddy catch a nice bass and catfish on the Barbie pole as we were heading back to the dock. Sunday afternoon we met up with Matt and Brooke. Matt and Cameron went to SIUE together and he and his wife Brooke have a place down here. They showed us a GREAT time on their boat for the afternoon. Savannah was a little hesitant at fist of being in the deep water, but she had a wonderful time and made a new friend with Brooke, who played tea party with her on the lake! She took a great nap on the boat on the way back to the resort. On Monday we woke up to rain and weren't sure how to spend the day. Savannah and Daddy went to get ice before we headed out in search of something to do and Savannah fell and started screaming. Turned out she fell right on a wasp and got stung. Her thumb immediately swelled, her arm was incredibly hot to the touch and she started to run a fever. So yes, we were THOSE parents and took her to urgent care to make sure it wasn't an allergic reaction. And you guessed it, it wasn't and she was fine. Better to be safe than sorry! From there we got some lunch and then all three of us took a nap. After that fun filled morning, we checked out the kiddie pool and Savannah had some fun playing there. After getting cleaned up, we headed out to downtown Branson in search of dinner. Well, Savannah had some other plans for us and got sick on the way. A short stop to a grocery store to get crackers and Pedialite we headed back to the room and Savannah chilled out and mom and dad ordered room service. Quite the date night!!! We woke up on Tuesday to more rain, but decided to try out Silver Dollar City regardless. Thankfully by the time we got there, the rain was gone and it was a GREAT day. Sadly, Savannah was too short for the rides, but had fun shooting the big water guns, seeing the sights, playing in the water and of course the train ride! We got robbed but thankfully didn't have to give up our money! We then had lunch, saw a few more sights and headed back to the resort. We decided to take the boat out and do a little swimming. Savannah has not been in deep water as of this week and by today she was so brave and was swimming in between mommy and daddy like she had been doing it for years! Then we fished a little more and Savannah a champ and caught TWO more!!! One of them came off the hook in the boat and before we knew it, Savannah had picked up the fish and held it a little while before throwing it back. She was such a champ all weekend long! I even caught a few of my own and I had to remind Cameron a few times that he did marry a Huster and I know a little about fishing! We then got cleaned up and headed to dinner and put a close to a great vacation! The ride home was little long since Savannah decided a nap was not in the cards. But all in all, we are happy to be home, Chip is happy to be back to his own couch (although he was greatly cared for while we were gone thanks to Jen) and I am so grateful to have such a great family to vacation with!!!! But I think I can wait a little while before the next trip is planned!!!!!!!

Jamaica

Linda and I have just gotten home from a much needed tropical vacation. Based on advice from friends and our travel agent, we decided to try Jamaica this time. We stayed at the Grand Palladium Lady Hamilton, an all-inclusive resort and spa between Montego Bay and Negrill outside of Lucea, Jamaica. We left St. Louis before the sun came up on Saturday so we had to have everything (and everyone) ready to go on Friday. Savannah got to spend the week with Grandma and Grandpa while Chip became best friends with Brooklyn, Jen’s Rottweiler. We lucked out as we had no hassles in our travel to Montego Bay, Jamaica. We had a 3 hour layover in Miami, but that airport is so big, it takes you an hour to get off the plane, figure out where the next flight is and then walk to that gate. Plus we had time to eat lunch before the short flight to Jamaica. For those of you that have been to Negrill before, they have fixed the road between Montego Bay and Negrill, but not the busses! Actually, it was not that bad. They packed us on the bus and I ended up sitting shotgun to the driver. He asked me to move 2 bags on the passenger seat. One was warm, and I guessed it to be his lunch. When I suggested that they were both lunch he looked at me and said “uhh, nah mahn, that’s for lata”. When we arrived at the Grand Palladium we were promptly greeted with an orange drink in a tall glass that was full of Rum. It was a good start to the vacation. We got checked in and the bellhop took us to our Villa. Our travel agent must have gotten us upgraded. We had a Honeymoon Suite which was unbelievable. There were only 4 villas per building, two on top and two on the ground level. We were on top. Each had it’s own outdoor entrance and sat directly on the beach looking at the Caribbean Sea. It was a simple room, but truly amazing. It was just one big room with a ¾ high wall in the middle. On the front side, a king size bed extended from the wall towards the sliding glass doors which lead to the balcony overlooking the beach. There was also a couch and table looking out towards the balcony. On the opposite side of the wall was a jacuzzi tub that was about the size of our kitchen table. Sinks on both sides of the room and another glass door that lead to the outdoor shower. Sounds weird, I know, but hear me out. Off the back of this room they constructed 3 walls with no ceiling. There was a shower basin made out of tile with a cats head that water poured out of as your shower nozzle. It’s so warm there year round that they can get away with the outdoor shower. With a room like this, we really didn’t have any reason to leave, oh yeah, they didn’t have room service. Lucky for us, we were right across the pathway from the adults only pool, bar and beach. We had a beach that our Villa sat on and then behind us we had the adults pool and bar and then just beyond that was the adults beach. We were on a peninsula. The place was so big that we would leave our room, stop and get a “walking” drink so that we could have a cocktail while we walked to the main resort area which is where the food, swim-up bar, lounge chairs, shops, everything else was. Because of the low number of people staying at the resort, many of the things were shut down, or would shut down early. The adult bar was supposed to be open until midnight, but was closed by 7:00. There was only one place to get breakfast, but it was a breakfast bar and was pretty good. After breakfast we would come back and change to hit the pool/lounge chairs. We would either go to the adult beach where I would go snorkeling while Linda worshiped the Sun Gods, or we would go to the main pool and have a few cocktails and relax in beach chairs under palm tree huts. Once the drinks were flowing, around mid-afternoon, we would head back to the room for a nap to prepare us for the evening. Dinner was not that good. The food at the all-inclusive leaves a lot to be desired, nothing like the cruise ships. But, we would typically find something worth eating and then back out to one of the many forms of entertainment. The first couple of nights we went to their version of the sports bar where we met many people including a surgeon from Barnes/Washington University. He and his wife had taken their two kids on a beach excursion that day. Their was a heavy smell of ganga in the air so his kids asked him “Daddy, what’s that smell?” his reply was classic “That’s a skunk, Son.” On the return bus ride home his son looked at him and said “Daddy, they have lot’s of skunks in Jamaica.” We also met a lot of Canadians, most from Montreal. They were a little different. One couple was straight up odd. She had done everything, always knew someone, and been through much more tragic events than anyone. It was kind of funny. After that evening, Linda and I spent our evenings at the outdoor bar that overlooked the main pool and Sea. It was very nice and relaxing to just sit after dinner, have a normal discussion with my wife and enjoy each other’s company. We didn’t do anything exciting on the trip, the idea was to relax. On our last full day there, while we were getting ready to take a nap, the workers were preparing for a wedding right outside our room on the beach. We had to watch, of course. All the guests arrived and the bride was walking down the isle when the older lady in a two-piece walked up in the back of the ceremony and started taking pictures with her phone. I had to take a picture of that. It was too funny. We did however, have some complaints about the resort. The second to last night we were without water or air conditioning. Seems they had a water main break on our end of the resort. They worked on it until about 3:00 in the morning and I didn’t fall asleep until about 4:30. I got just under 4 hours of sleep that night. Then the next day the air conditioning started to work around 4:00, but wasn’t taking the humidity out of the air so I didn’t sleep well that night either. What they say about Jamaicans being relaxed and on island time is true. They worked on that water main for 3 days. When we left, they still weren’t done. On Thursday we were told our bags would be picked up between 11:30 and 12:00. At 12:00 we called and they had no clue what was going on. Our bus was supposed to leave at 12:30. Well, the bus turned out to be a taxi. He showed up to pick us and another couple up, however, there was a third couple they forgot to pick up an hour earlier so we were all crammed into the taxi for the 30 minute ride to Montego Bay. The one couple that we were crunched in the cab with were super friendly and were on the same flight we were on going back to Miami. We had lunch with them at the Margaretville in the Montego Bay airport while we waited for our flight. No hitches coming through Miami and we were back in St. Louis by 10:30 and home by 11:00 Thursday night. It was a truly enjoyable and relaxing trip. It’ll probably be a long time before we get to go on another one like that.

Mariner of the Seas = Vacation

Vacation was AWESOME. We had a great time with Alan and Melanie. We set sail from Port Canaveral on Sunday with clear skies and 80+ degree weather. We enjoyed a few beers and some fruity drinks on the top deck as we sailed out of harbor and watched land disappear over the horizon. The first night was smooth sailing as we headed to Coco Cay, Royal Caribbean’s private island. That evening we explored the ship and enjoyed our first dinner where we quickly learned that Jeetu would need to order for Melanie, since she obviously didn’t know what to order. The next day we woke up at Coco Cay and took a tender to the island. The ladies enjoyed basking in the sun while Alan and I went snorkeling off the beach. We were joined by a crazy chicken at lunch time and picked up a few token trinkets before heading back to the ship. That evening things began to get interesting. By dinner, we could start to feel the boat rocking as we were in 10 to 15 foot swells. The captain addressed the ship at dinner and informed us that Tropical Storm Olga was going through the Virgin Islands so we could expect some weather due to this depression and it would continue to get worse throughout the day on Tuesday. He wasn’t kidding. By Tuesday morning the waves were 15 to 20 foot and were still getting bigger. There were a lot of sick people on the boat, including the staff. Melanie had to lay down, but we all kept our sea legs and did not get sick. Alan, Linda and I stayed inside checking out the ship, as the 65 mile per hour wind screaming across the deck had the outside closed. Melanie didn’t stay down long and we ended up playing spades at one of the bars on the ship. After dinner we ended up back at the Wig and Gavel (our favorite little bar) where we watched Jimmy sing and strum on his guitar. Wednesday morning we were pulled into St. Thomas as we woke up. Luckily our first excursion was later in the day, so we didn’t have to rush. After breakfast we headed over to St. John to explore the underwater world at Trunk Bay. On the way back Alan and I picked up some tacky island wear we could show off at the deck party later that evening. We hit the buffet early and went to the ship party in lieu of dinner. It was an early night as we had to get moving the next morning as we took a jeep tour of St. Maarten. We highly recommend the jeep tours. We really enjoyed seeing so much of the island. The locals are very aggressive with their driving. Lucky for us, so is Alan. He had no problem keeping up with the group and managed to hit every mud puddle on the island of St. Maarten. We went to a topless beach for dinner and got to swim in the surf of the South Atlantic. We then got to do some more shopping through their local “straw” market and then back to the pier for additional shopping for the tacky trinkets to take home. Friday and Saturday were spent at sea. The two days seem to be blurred together. Friday afternoon, as the ladies worshiped the sun gods, Alan and I came up with the best plan to date. There were 19 bars on the ship. Our goal? To get a drink from each of them. We got started immediately, but quickly realized that we were going to need the ladies help, as we didn’t start fresh in the day and had only knocked 3 off the list. By the end of the night, we had only missed two bars and that was because the closed before we got to them. We ended up in the night club (it was the only bar opened past 1:00AM). We all owe Linda props for this one. We were in the back corner discussing how great our day has been and I commented that I just saw the captain. No one believed me until the waitress confirmed it. Then we were all to shy to go up and say anything, except for Linda. Thanks to her, we all got our picture taken with the captain of the ship. That brought our crazy day to a close. There was late start to our last day, which was similar to our Friday, with less of the fruity drinks. Sunday morning we at an early breakfast, as we had to be out of the stateroom by 8:00 and would be departing between 9:00 and 10:00. Our driver was to pick us up at 10:00, so we knew we would be cutting it close. Turns out we wouldn’t get off the ship until 10:30, and not to the driver until 10:45, which cost us extra for every 15 minutes. The nice thing was that they upgraded our car from a town car to a stretched limo. On to the airport where we spent 8 hours watching our flight get delayed in 10 minute increments from 7:35 until 8:30. By 11:00 we were back home and ready for bed. Vacation was over, and so is the story. Talk to you all soon!

Packing

As most everyone knows, we are going on vacation TOMORROW. We cannot wait. The timing is perfect. We get our first winter weather of the season and we are off to the Bahamas and Virgin Islands. About 24 hours left until the ship pushes away from the harbor and we are off on our cruise. As we were getting all of our stuff together today, someone, I won’t say who, seemed to want to go with us. So, we thought we would see if we could smuggler her in one of our bags. Turns out, we don’t think she would stay quiet enough to get through customs. Instead she is just going to go to Grandma & Grandpa’s for the week. I’m sure we will have lots of pictures to post when we get back. See you all next week!