Surprise - Jamaica!!

In mid-September I was out to lunch with some friends when I received a text from David telling me to be home by 1:30 so we could make our 2:00 appointment. "What appointment?", I wrote back. "Just be home by 1:30" was all I got. So, I made sure I was home at the appropriate time and off we headed to an appointment that I was to find out was at the post office to get our passport pictures taken. David said he was taking me on a surprise vacation, a week for just of the two of us, in early November. Since he couldn't totally surprise me with the trip because we had needed to get our passports, he was going to keep the destination a surprise but I needed to plan on bringing a bathing suit. I was so excited!!! In reality he could have taken me anywhere but I was pretty thrilled to find out we were going somewhere warm.
I could hardly sleep the night before we were to leave and was up bright and early at 3:30am ready to get to the airport. Dave drove us to the airport along with Xander who sat in the back seat with me and held my hand.
We said our goodbyes and headed into the airport. At check in David typed in our ultimate destination - Montego Bay, Jamaica!!!

We had a short flight to Charlotte where we waited out a 3 hour layover by sitting in rocking chairs in the middle of the airport, people watching. When we checked in for our flight to Montego Bay they asked us if we had traveled to Africa in the past few weeks; the Ebola scare was still alive and well at the time of our trip.
After a 2 1/2 hour flight we finally arrived at the Montego Bay airport. Going through customs was a disorganized nightmare and the customs lady herself was extremely unpleasant but nothing was going to mar my excitement at finally being on a vacation away with my babe.
Finally we were on our way to the resort! The weather was nice and warm though they were experiencing "liquid sunshine" or rain, as we call it. It was just a slight drizzle and had ended by the time we made it to the hotel. This picture shows one of our first views of Jamaica! The country reminded me a lot of St. Thomas - lots of mountains, beautiful beaches, dogs and goats wandering around, and a bunch of poor sections. And from the airport to the drive to the hotel we encountered the famous "ya, mon" from all the Jamaicans we met.

The resort we stayed at was the Palladium Jamaica and it was absolutely beautiful! Checking in at the lobby.

Our beautiful villa! For the first few days we were there we were the only ones in the building.

Our room was a junior suite with a huge king size bed, a large tub...

and an amazing view of the ocean!

We dumped our bags and quickly headed out to explore. I couldn't wait to get my feet in the water!

Ahhh, Jamaica! No words can describe the excitement I felt at being alone with David; it had been far too long!

After a long walk on the beach we headed back to our room to get ready for dinner. There were a bunch of different restaurants on the resort but I was starving so we headed to the one that opened the earliest - Mexican. Unfortunately it was nothing spectacular; in fact, everything was pretty sub par. However, we did get a good laugh watching the hotel photographer who went around taking pictures of everyone. He had us, as well as others, pose in the cheesiest poses imaginable. Needless to say we didn't buy any of his.

A picture of a cute little gecko...there were a bunch all over the place.

One last walk after dinner. We explored the pool area and gazed out at the ocean . The sky looked absolutely beautiful - thank goodness the rain had cleared up and we had a spectacular view of the moon and clouds.

Once back in the room I was still feeling cold from the freezing airplane flight so I put on David's sweatshirt, pulled some socks on, and laid down on the bed. Within 5 minutes I could not hold my head up and ended up falling asleep by 7:30 while David watched football. My first night in Jamaica I slept like the dead.