February 26th - March 7th
Well, vacation has happened and I will of course say it went too fast. The trip started out on a rainy Thursday for our drive down to Connecticut to meet my parents at Eileen's house. We stayed overnight there and loaded up the Pilot with all of the luggage we were all bringing for 9 days - I think Charlotte had the most ... seriously. The snow started spitting as we were leaving and after some not-so-bad roads, some unplowed roads, some fallen trees, and one of our highway choices closed down completely, we made it to about a mile from the ship and came to a stop. It was a long wait in line to get there, but we did, and the adventures began at sea!
We were so excited to see our California friends Christine, Joyce and Nancy and our NH friends Chris and Robin (the couple getting married in St. Thomas). They all got to meet Charlie even though she is never too sure of new people. She had so much to look at and take in, and so many people approaching her - she was loving it.
Well, Aaron ended up with the dreaded stomach bug on day two - not so fun, but at least we were still on our sea days.
Since Charlotte is a passenger who costs full price (nope, no baby/kid discount for a baby who doesn't eat ANY of their food and is not allowed in ANY of their pools) we wanted to take advantage of the Fisher Price Royal Babies play time every morning for her. On the first morning, I wasn't ready, so I had Aaron take her up to play. He was back within 15 minutes because she would cry every time he put her on the play mat to play. The next day, I took her up and she played, but wouldn't leave my side at all.
She got better as the days went on and had fun with all of the great toys.
She made some friends, one being the very adorable Norwegian girl, Lanita. By the last day of play group, she let me hand her to Yoyo where she played amongst the kids and didn't even look around to see if Aaron and I were there!
And here's the big story - on night three, Charlie woke up for a feeding at 3:30am. I fed her, and the ship seemed to be moving a lot. My dad woke up and I tried to put Charlotte back in her pack n' play but she was a bit fussy. I picked her up and decided to look out the sliding doors to see what the crazy winds and rough seas were about - big mistake. I looked out as my mom woke up and wished I hadn't - the white caps were crazy, the wind was nuts, there was water and fog flying by our balcony and lightening all over. This is the point where the ship began tilting in one direction without going back the other way as it normally would - and kept going - the divider curtain flew across the room (which woke Aaron up) and some items on the bar flew into Charlotte's pack n' play with great force. So, if I hadn't picked her up not even a minute before this, she would have been hurt for sure. The ship corrected itself and I was shaking and scared - I think Charlie felt this as she proceeded to be sick all over our bed a couple of times (and not the baby spit-up kind). The Captain came on the intercom to explain that we were in 45 mph winds on autopilot when within seconds, the winds changed to 100 mph and the autopilot couldn't turn us toward it, so we were sideways to the wind direction and it just kind of *pushed* us a bit. They had to take it out of autopilot and steer us back into the wind and they "gained control of the ship again" - his words, I swear. UGH. I did not sleep the rest of that morning AT ALL ... or the next night ... or the last two nights at sea. (The next day, he announced it was a 10-12 degree list!!)
We finally hit land in Puerto Rico and since it was so late and we had to get back for dinner, we all walked around a bit. We were all happy just to have our feet on solid ground for a short time.
The next stop was St. Thomas - and this was the day I woke up with the stomach bug and I quarantined myself to our room for the entire day. Unfortunately, it was also the day our friends were getting married on Emerald Beach. Aaron was about to back out of it with Charlotte, but I forced him to bring her since we were 3 of their 10 guests. He brought her and is very happy he did - she had a great day and he had a great time spending the day with her on the beautiful island. Her first wedding ... and in a place like this!
Next up was the Domincan Republic. Mom had read that this was a poor area to walk around in, so we decided to book the excursion out to a little island called Cayo Levantado. This was an amazing and beautiful beach and was just what we were hoping for since since we all finally felt better - white sand, beach, and lounge chairs. What a day!
