Timehop Tuesday

First up…this is a weird MN winter!

And then, the girls!

Weekend Wrap-Up: Happy Birthday Mila!!

First up, this girl is FOUR today!!!!

Happy Birthday Mila!! We love you and we’re happy we got to help you celebrate today!

As for the rest of the weekend…I went for an actual (albeit short) run yesterday morning for the first time in a looooong time. And then decided to sign up for a 10K in May to get my butt in gear again.

Boom picked Maya up from dance to take her to MOA to spend her Christmas Lego Store gift card…with a bonus of a Chipotle lunch and a couple of rides!

G-ma came over later for dinner and games, and then Chris and Callie went out for an evening ski session (on very fake snow because Minnesota is snow-less right now).

Today Auntie Cat, Uncle Dan, Auntie Hanna, Mitchell and Isla came over for lunch, and then we went to Richardson Nature Center for an outdoor adventure!

Later it was time to head over to Mila’s birthday party!!

Just like Callie at 4, Mila did not enjoy the birthday song very much! 


Have a good week! It is hard to believe January is almost over and we have  NO SNOW! 

I’ll leave you with a few minutes of Maya playing her flute, with some hilarious bloopers:  click here!

And then some videos from the past few weeks: 

click here!

A Picture Update

Hey all.

 

It’s been a bit of a doozy of a week so I don’t have too much. 

I always have too many drinking receptacles on my desk. God bless wine. And thank goodness for the rare opportunity (for me) to work from home today so we could have a slower paced morning before sending the girls to school and I could then work from the couch with a furry friend. 

Have a good weekend!

Timehop Wednesday

Oops! It has been a week.

Happy Wednesday!

Weekend Wrap-Up

Happy Sunday! 

We had a really nice and low-key weekend. On Saturday we stayed around the house and I was able to catch up on cleaning and laundry, but also got a little relaxation in too. Then the Dahlen’s came over for tacos!

Pa came over this weekend to make clay figures with the girls (what he got them for Christmas), along with legos and some cards. I went out to the Guthrie with Jenna to see the show “Art.” It was great! 

And now another busy week starts…at least this week the weather will be in the balmy 30s. 

A Picture Update

This week was a blur of crazy busy days at work and home and car issues and negative temps. 

The only photo I got was when Maya and I were watching a dinosaur show (Prehistoric Planet, really realistic renderings of dinosours in a documentary/history type nature show). It showed a dinosaur (which, again, was obviously not a real dino) was eating another dead dinosaur and I couldn’t handle watching it and Maya was like “Mom, it’s just nature. It happens all the time.”

Yup. That sums up the week. 

Have a good weekend!

Timehop Tuesday

Little little girls today!

Weekend Wrap-Up

Hey all!  Happy Monday!  We had a nice and busy long weekend.

On Saturday we met most of the Koch family for lunch!  Chris and I babysat the Koch kids as young 20-somethings, and now the kids are young 20-somethings!  Time flies.  Later, we went to the mall to do some shopping.  Maya loves shoes!

On Sunday we brought G-ma a birthday brunch and played some games.

Later, we went over to Boom's house for dinner  because Auntie Mari was in town briefly!

Today we went over to see Uncle Dan, Auntie Hanna, Mitchell and Isla for games and lunch.

Have a good week! Stay warm!

A Picture Update: Happy Birthday G-ma!!

First up, HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRAMMA!!!

We love you and hope you have a great day!

As for the photos this week, there aren’t many. On Monday night, I documented the journey from Jamaica to Minneapolis from the plane.

And then we have Luna love and Maya’s flute!

I’ll be back on MONDAY for the weekend wrap-up. Hooray for long weekends! 

Timehop Tuesday

Ok my Timehop today is a very short one…my breakfast/lunch the past 2 days…only about 27 hours apart. 

I miss Jamaican food (and the island view) already!

Jamaica 2024!

Hey everybody! Happy Monday! When this gets posted, Chris and I will be on a plane home from JAMAICA. We have been in Montego Bay since Wednesday. Since my winter break was a full week different from the girls’ break, we decided to plan a little getaway! And by “we” decided to plan, I mean Chris texting me a couple months ago asking if I wanted to go to Jamaica, and then doing all the research and booking things. I’m just spoiled and along for the ride!

Our flight left at 7:30am on Wednesday morning and we were ready!

It was a four hour flight, plus another couple hours to get through customs and get a rental car, but eventually we made it to the Polkerris Bed and Breakfast in Montego Bay. It did not disappoint!


We FaceTimed the girls to show them the place, and then headed out to dinner. The B&B is walking distance from a popular street for tourists and locals alike, so we headed to The Pelican Grill. I got Jerk Tofu and a Pina Colada, and Chris got fresh salmon. It was delicious! 

On Thursday morning we headed down to the B&B pool area to get coffee and wait for our breakfast. It was lovely. 


Breakfast consisted of guava pineapple juice and fresh fruit to start, and then we got the traditional Jamaican breakfast. It was grilled ackee fruit that is cooked up with vegetables (and in Chris’ case, salted fish), and kind of looks like scrambled eggs. We also got boiled green banana, yams, and plantains. Oh, and I got bacon and a delicious dumpling.

After a leisurely breakfast, we walked down to Doctor’s Cave Beach for the day. We rented two chairs and an umbrella and got a spot up close to the water! Once we settled in, Chris got me a rum punch. 

It was hot! We went into the water to cool off a couple times, and then went to the beachside cafe for lunch. 

By mid-afternoon we were hot and sweaty and ready to walk back to the B&B. There’s always a lot of traffic and people milling about. 

We went straight to the pool to cool off and relax a bit.

We wanted to pick up some snacks, so we went to the place our B&B host, Peter, recommended…Mega Mart! It’s like Jamaican Costco. Driving was always an adventure, as you drive on the left side of the road. But Chris did a good job adapting, and the car we rented had KG on its license plate (for luck…?).

We got ready and walked back down the popular street to a fancier seafood restaurant called Marguerites by the Sea. We didn’t make a reservation, but they “squeezed us in” at an inside table. Which turned out to be fortuitous, because halfway through the meal it started pouring. Everyone at an outdoor table had to scramble inside. Chris got lobster tail and I got a goat cheese salad…and champagne!

On Friday morning Chris got up early to go golfing, so I spent a couple hours by the pool reading my book and eating the delicious breakfast. 

Chris said the golf course was pretty beat up, but he had fun anyway. 

Then it was time to head out for a river raft adventure. We drove about 40 minutes to Martha Brae River and spent an hour floating down the river on a bamboo raft with a guide, Bonnie. 



It was awesome! It was a beautiful day and the ride was super relaxing and peaceful. 



In our way back, we stopped at the Chill Out Hut for a very late lunch. I had chicken curry (amazing!) and Chris had jerk pork (spicy!).

When we got back we were hot and tired, so we headed back to the pool for a little swim and to watch the sunset. 


It was stunning!


We walked back down to the Pelican Grill for a late snack and milkshakes!

By Saturday I had my routine down of heading to the pool about 7:30 to get coffee and read my book for an hour. Chris came down about 8:30 and then we had another delicious breakfast. 

Then it was time for our biggest adventure of the trip! We drove about an hour and 45 minutes to Ocho Rios, along the coast of the island. The drive was really interesting. There were so many huge half-built and abandoned structures everywhere. 

When we got to Ocho Rios we headed to Dunn’s River Falls to climb the waterfall! It was amazing, and a little bit scary! 

I did this same waterfall hike years ago with my family as a cruise excursion, so it was fun to come and do again. 



I even went fully under the waterfall at one point. 


It was so beautiful there! 


After the climb, we headed down to the beach in the area and walked up and down the sand. We also visited a little “Tranquility Garden.”

It was time for another late lunch, but we found ourselves in crazy packed traffic as we were trying to get to the recommended lunch spot.

We ended up ditching that idea and I quickly googled “restaurants near me” and found a place called Christopher’s that was a bit off the main drag as part of a resort compound. We asked at the gate if we could go in to eat at the restaurant and they let us in! We were the only ones there. It was so quiet and peaceful with a great view of the ocean. Meant to be!


By the time we were done with our late lunch, the drive back to Montego Bay was 2 hours. We made it back by about 5pm and headed to the pool for another lovely sunset.


For dinner that night, we drove about 15 minutes away to the Montego Bay Marina restaurant and ate outside near the docks. It wasn’t our favorite meal food-wise, but the ambiance was pretty. 


Once again, I found myself by the pool on Sunday morning at about 7:20am. And we had our breakfast eaten by about 9:30am. 

We decided to keep it a little more low key and headed back to Doctor’s Cave Beach for the day. We got lunch at our beach chairs and enjoyed all the people watching (there was a cruise ship from Germany in the port that morning, so lots of interesting people to observe). The water felt amazing, too.

Then, you’ll never guess…it was back to the pool! We definitely got our vitamin d for the day. The lower left photo is one I took walking back to the house, looking up to the villa. It’s about of steps to get up there from the street below!

On our last night we went to a restaurant called the Houseboat. We sat right above the water and saw big fish and a couple jelly fish swimming below…and there was a half sunken sailboat not too far either! 

And the food and drinks were awesome!

Today was our last morning on the island. I came back to the pool at 7:25am and finished my book (500 pages, started it on the plane on Wednesday!). We had our last Jamaican breakfast, packed up and checked out.

We heard about a bird sanctuary from one of our B&B hosts, so we headed up there. It was about a 25 minute drive up into the mountains. The scenery on the way up was interesting, as usual.

The Rockland’s Bird Sanctuary was AWESOME. We got to feed hummingbirds. They were everywhere, along with a number of other birds.

And the scenery and the views were lovely, too!

We headed back down the mountain to or last lunch at Pier 1, right on the water. 

Then it was time to start the long trip home. We returned our rental car and got through security pretty easily, due to Chris booking with the airport VIP Club ahead of time. We went with the Jamaican beer Red Stripe in the VIP lounge as we waited for our flight.

We are so grateful to everyone who helped out at home to make this getaway happen for us. Jamaica is a beautiful place, and we would definitely like to come back (and bring the girls next time!) to enjoy the beautiful sights and appreciate the kind Jamaican people again. 

If you want to see some video clips from our adventures (assuming you have 11 minutes to spare), click here!