Caribbean Queen

Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat! If the goose is me that is. Brazilian food is just too good so dieting it is!

A good way to diet is to book an American Airlines flight for Christmas Day. Why? Because they will move your reservations up by 12 hours. Yes, 12, so that you miss Noche Buena dinner and birthday cake, pa moi, because you have to be at the airport by 11 pm. Whatever. It just meant I could spend Christmas Day with my other sister of the heart, Deniece. She is married to our best friend from high school. Problem is she is a great cook, and she wanted to have ready our typical Christmas dinner. They are Jewish. We eat ham, spiral cut, honey baked to be exact. She never cooked one before, but she did an amazing job. Now they are Jews who eat ham #jewswhoeatham. You are welcome!

We had 24 hours with her and her family. And we enjoyed every drop of it. We missed them as soon as we left. But then. Then we were off to the DR.

I love the Caribbean, though I can never remember if it has two r's or 2 b's. I always go for the wrong one. Every. Single. Time. Why is that? Why can't I remember? Okay, back to the Caribe. My husband is from the Caribbean. I have to keep typing it so I can remember 2 b's. Okay, the Caribbean. God knew what he was doing when he hooked us up. I belong in the tropics. Our philosophy for vacations is... well not just vacations. We strive for this always... Ice in our drinks, not under our feet. Tough to accomplish when living in Minnesota. But, if you don't go out in the winter who cares? Hibernating is good too, just ask bears. And we don't live there at the moment so our philosophy is intact.

So the DR, our first time. It was amazing. So amazing in fact that we are going back again next New Year and conning, I mean bribing, I mean badgering, I mean bringing 3 more families along, including family! YEY!!! But this first time, we just met one set of friends and their girls. Yes, another sister of the heart. I told you I have a few. Plus my heart is big enough to shove a few more in there, no worries. If Heather is my Brit, Deniece is my Apache/Puerto Rican, then Monique is my Dutch sis. I can give the UN a run for its money!

A week with the other pea in my pod on a tropical island, a paradise really. It was easy and relaxing and fun. Breakfast, pool, drinks, pool, lunch, beach, siesta, dinner, entertainment, dancing, sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat. Truly a paradise with no rain in sight. Sorry Heather! Well except for 15 minutes to midnight New Years Eve. Yes, perfect timing. It chucked it down hard. But we kept dancing. Of course it shorted out the lights and music system. You should have seen this system. I think there were 8 plugs going into 3 outlets. It looked like the outlet in A Christmas Story. Ugh I can't share the image. Well google Christmas Story electrical Outlet in images, you will see what I am talking about. But, being the experts in jerry rigging at the time, they had it sorted and up and running with 2 minutes to spare. Good timing guys! Then I think like 30 minutes of awesome fireworks. The resort did it up nice.

I had a blast, and rang in the new year in the best way possible, with friends who are family, a sexy husband whom I love tremendously, and two teenage boys who smiled a few times. It was tough to leave. A few tears were shed, but like I said, we will be back next year!