Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Summer Getaway #3: Mooresville, North Carolina & The Western Caribbean

Thursday, July 8th: Sacramento to Mooresville, North Carolina
Friday, July 9th: Cohlmia Estate
Saturday, July 10th: Cohlmia Estate

In Mooresville, North Carolina we got to spend time with our dear friends the Cohlmias: Jane, Brad, Alex, and Carrie. Jane Cohlmia as a matter of fact is the "Jane" I love and adore and always wanted to be named after! And the story comes full circle... haha! While visiting we got stay in their beautiful home located a hop-skip away from Lake Norman. All day, each day, was spent at the lake, on the boat, basking in the hot hot East Coast sun. So good. Needless to say, it was bittersweet having to leave them behind for a cruise. Oh how how we wish we did not live so far from them here in California.



Sunday, July 11th: Fly to Orlando to board the "Freedom of the Seas" in Port Canaveral, Florida
Monday, July 12th: At Sea
Tuesday, July 13th: Labadee, Haiti
Wednesday, July 14th: Ocho Rios, Jamaica
Thursday, July 15th: Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
Friday, July 16th: Cozumel, Mexico
Saturday, July 17th: At Sea
Sunday, July 18th: Back to Florida and the journey to HOME!

And the best part of the whole trip...

Kissing a stingray in the beautiful and gorgeous Grand Cayman= seven years of good luck! This very moment is by far one of the highlight moments of my life. Absolutely amazing!

This family vacation was awesome! We had such a great time. Such good family time with lots of laughs and hilarious stories to tell.

Toward the end of the cruise we did "high's and low's" as a family. My high of the trip was Grand Cayman and this moment captured in the photo above. After our stingray excursion we went to the 7 Mile Beach (which was actually 7 miles of beautiful beach) and ate lunch at a little beach hut. Not expecting the food to really be much, much to our surprise it turned out to be so good, and the "Caybrew", the island's number one beer, was another delicious little treat there in paradise. I could have stayed in Grand Cayman for some days. It was exactly what I was hoping for on this vacation.

Low of the trip: Jamaica. So sad because we all had such high expectations for Jamaica and it just wasn't a good stop at all. Very touristy, very poor, very sad... just not good. Jamaican's haggle you on the streets big time, follow you, and hound you to get in their taxis so that they can show you the "real Jamaica". Sounds like a great idea, and if you hate tourism like myself... it sounds like an even better plan, but oh boy was it a sketch situation. Just walking down the street one felt very taken advantage of and very uncomfortable. I don't know how else to explain it and I so wish I had better things to say. I do want to go back someday, and I want to do my research ahead of time. I know Jamaica has a lot to offer and is a really neat place... and my hope is that I can one day experience that "real Jamaica".

And as the Jamaican staff on board our cruise ship (some of the most awesome people in the world by the way) would say, this trip was "so, nice. Nice, nice."

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