An Adventure...Not with Kennedy and Hudson, and definitely NOT in spudland...

Our trip to Grenada and the Dominican Republic was amazing. I want to say "once-in-a-lifetime" but I really hope not! We really want to go again!

For those of you wondering, our friends Justin (high school BFF of mine and Dustins) and Ashlee (his very lovable, hospitable darling wife) are living in Grenada right now while Justin attends Vet school there at St. George's University. We wanted to take advantage of the excuse to travel somewhere really cool - where we know somebody! - and so did our other BFF's (I love to say BFF) Daniel and Amy. We got our opportunity when Amy graduated from Nursing School last year and got a week of her in-law's time-share as a gift. They were so awesome to invite us, and we started planning. 4 days in Grenada, and then on to the resort in the Dominican Republic for a week. We thought it would never come, and then it kind of snuck up on us, now it's over...sigh. Good thing I took over a thousand pictures. Seriously. If you want to see them all, you can go here. Otherwise, here are the highlights. It was awesome!

We flew into Grenada at about 11 pm on Wednesday night. Weird, fly all day, and end up somewhere tropical. And by weird I mean AWESOME. When we stepped off the plane, and the humidity hit me (I was in long sleeves and pants still) I thought "no way am I going to get used to this, hot and stickyness." But I did, and fast. It was so lovely to wear shorts and tanks everywhere. Justin and Ashlee, and sweet little Rylee, were the best hosts. We totally took over their apartment, and they probably wished we would've got a hotel, but I loved it! Like a 4 day sleep-over. And Rylee is the best baby in the world, she happily was dragged all over the island and had her schedule shot to crap, and i think she cried, like, one time. What a sweetheart! She was definitely making Amy and myself baby-hungry, and was so fun to take pictures of...

Here is a shot of their apartment. We spent many hours out on their little patio. It always had a wonderful breeze, and a nice view...

I was so amazed by these houses built right on the hillsides. Their driveways were almost vertical. I guess it's not a huge issue when you don't ever have to worry about snow!

Ashlee was the ultimate tour guide, had tons of fun stuff planned for us, and, most importantly, could drive! The driving is insane in Grenada. NARROW roads, no rules, and all on the wrong side of the road! Crazy. But she did awesome. None of us had to throw up once.

On Thursday morning, we headed up to Mt. Carmel, about a 30 minute, very exciting drive, and hiked a short ways to this gorgeous waterfall. No one else was there, and it was so peaceful and cool. We played like kids in the water. I have to admit, so many of the places we went to wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable if I had been worrying about chasing my kids around them...but, everywhere we went, I thought, Kennedy would love this! Bittersweet...


After the waterfall hike, we headed back down to LaSagesse Beach. It was very secluded and quiet. We had a little picnic and, even though it was overcast, we were excited and got in the water. We got rained out after a little bit, but it was still fun.

Thursday night we went to the much-hyped "Bananas" for a yummy burger and fries. It lived up to the reputation, we loved it. The picture of Dustin and his huge burger isn't good enough to make the blog, sorry...

Friday morning we hit Grand Anse beach. So nice! White sand, beautiful blue water, and some fun waves to play in. I loved it! We played in the water, worked on our tans, and let this guy make us each a cool bowl out of coconut leaves. It was pretty neat, but you could tell he was a bit overwhelmed by the high demand. Let's just say, there is not a really strong work ethic among the Grenadians, as a whole. You would not believe how many guys we passed, just standing around, drinking beer, all day long. However they definitely had plenty of energy to cat-call the cute white girls crammed into our little Vitara...This guy had to have a cigarette and beer break in between each bowl. Still, cool...

That afternoon we rented a car (a "six seater" in Grenada was really only an SUV with 5 seatbelts, but hey, whose counting? Certainly not anybody in Grenada!) and drove 45 minutes to Gouyave. We had an un-official tour of the Nutmeg factory there.

These shelves are filled with raw nutmegs...wow!

It had actually just closed, but they didn't care if we walked around, everything is so layed-back there! Ashlee had been there before, so she showed us some, but then Daniel gave a guy a couple of bucks and he really turned into a guide. Funny! The factory was so cool, really old and well worn, kind of old fashioned compared to anything you'd see in the states, and it smelled so good! Grenada is one of the 2 largest nutmeg producers in the world, apparently. We tried nutmeg ice cream and nutmeg salad dressing while we were there, and I'm a believer!

As we were walking through the town, I found an old crumbling building right next to a church. It was so cool I made everyone stop and take pictures. We got some cute ones of everyone, especially Rylee. She was way more smiley than any of those boys! Actually, most of Grenada is a pho-tog paradise...if anyone would like to fly me there to do their engagements or family pictures, I know some great spots now... :)

Here we are walking down the main street in Gouyave. This is two-way, can you believe it??

Gouyave is a little fishing town right on the coast and every Friday night, there is a whole street filled with vendors selling food made with fresh fish. Everything you can imagine! We all bought tons and shared everything, it was so fun, and we all got to try just about everything. Our favorites were the tuna kabobs, shrimp stir fry, coconut shrimp and yummy local ice cream. Dustin even made friends with a "yacht-ee" from Iowa...I know, random...and they shared a stuffed crab back, spoon and all. Ya gotta love Dustin, he really has no trouble making friends!

We were a bit early, so we took a load off and watched some of the prep work...

Fish Friday was one of the funnest things ever, but we never would have done it on our own. I'm so glad Justin and Ashlee were there to show us around! We really felt like we got the true Grenada experience, and would go back in a heart beat.

On Saturday, Ashlee showed us around St. George's, one of the bigger towns on the island. We walked up to the top of Fort George, and here is the reward! Quite a view!

We shopped at the Spice Mall after the fort, and got lots of fun souvenirs and yummy spices and extracts. The Spice Mall is a big outdoor marketplace, mostly geared toured tourists, and it was fun to walk around. A cruise ship had come in that morning, so it was really busy. After lunch in St.George's, we went on a death-defying road (steep, winding curves, drop-offs on both sides at one point) Grand Etang Lake. It is a crater lake high on a mountain top, completely surrounded by jungle. Wow, it was the greenest place I'd ever been. Worth the scary drive.

Thanks for always being willing to pose, Amy!

After Grand Etang Lake, we drove to Annendale Falls. It was probably about a 30 minute drive, but who knows how far. The Island is smaller than Bear Lake, but the roads are so twisty and the land so mountainous that it would take you all day to drive from one end to the other. It's amazing. The jungle reminded Dustin of a Dr Seuss book, with the crazy palm trees and weird plants. He told me he kept watching for Horton to step out.

It was a little tourist trap, as in, we had to give this guy a dollar to see the monkey, but it was pretty. The vegetation on this island is unreal. So unlike anything I've ever seen before. We payed another guy a couple of bucks to jump off the little cliff at the top of the falls. Just makin' a living, I guess...or earning a beer. whatever.

Saturday night, we had dinner at The Aquarium restaurant. It was so nice! Ashlee had made reservations at sunset, and it was gorgeous. We listened to the waves all through dinner, they gave the girls white roses, and the food was delicious. We probably won't top that Valentine's Day for a long time...

The next morning we flew to the Dominican Republic. I was really nervous about the plane ride (an island hopper) and the following cab ride to the resort. I worried for nothing, both were fine!
The resort was so fun, we had a great view from our terrace...

...and the beach was about a 10 minute walk away. The beach was really nice, not too busy, tiki bar close by ( we loved the pina coladas served in a fresh pineapple!).

We really didn't do too much besides hang out there and read and doze. Dustin and I got in the water almost everyday, we loved floating in the waves. It was so relaxing! The Dominican Republic was not quite as hot as Grenada, and I we had a few slightly overcast days, which really wasn't that bad. And the rain brought this one morning:

Here's what we did pretty much everyday: Get up, read on the deck for a while, Amy and I would go to the yoga on the beach or just go for a walk (I am so missing that!), then we would go down to breakfast, have a made to order fresh fruit smoothie with our meal, and then hit the beach.

Now, I really had to concentrate on NOT remembering all the Shark Week shows we have watched over the years. I really liked the water, and wanted to get in, but every little shadow was seriously freaking me out. However, once I watched the many, many, surfers (the preferred shark snack, according to stats) down the beach from us NOT get attacked for a few days, I started to relax.

We got to watch surfers, kite-surfers, and little sand crabs, which, really were very entertaining. We would throw them cookies and watch them try to take them down their holes.

We'd come back to the room in the late afternoon, get cleaned up, maybe squeeze in another quick nap, and then go down to the dining room for dinner.

The food at the resort was so good. Which was lucky, because we ventured into one of the closest towns, Sosua, on Tuesday, and pretty much hated it. We were accosted on every street by street vendors, they were so aggressive! We bought all our souvenirs, grabbed some munchies from the grocery store, and vowed not to leave the resort again! Plus, it rained on us and we were soaked and cold by the time we got back to the resort. A good lesson.

One day the resort had a fish fry for lunch down on the beach. The fish were cooked whole, heads and all. I was very proud of myself, I tried it and liked it, though a lot of work for not much reward... I am not a huge seafood person, but I liked everything I tried on this trip. I guess it makes a difference when it's fresh!

One night after dinner, we thought we'd skip "Casino Night" and play in the room. We got Monopoly from the activities hut to play on our deck. Actually, it was MONOPOLIO, and it turned out to be a little more challenging than we had planned:

I was dubbed "Senor Oswald" and when a chance or Community Chest card was drawn, I had to figure out whether the player had to pay or was payed... Actually was pretty funny, we had a good time. Dustin smoked us all.

Dustin, Daniel and Amy, Justin and Ashlee, Thanks for the memories! Let's do it again soon!