Our Next New Adventure: Antigua

Wednesday October 14, 2009

Antigua day. We were once again already at port when we woke up. The kids slept till 8am giving them about 10 hours of needed sleep!

Pour Tracy had to cancel her scuba this morning (for tomorrow) because she is feeling so bad and can’t dive when she is sick and Mark is starting to feel bad as well. She is losing her voice and her throat is hurting pretty bad. But they both made it through the day.

We once again, had no plans for today so after breakfast, we headed off the ship with our only destination a geocache that was at Fort James. After Mark did a little haggling on the cab ride, we got someone to take us to the fort for $10. It was only about a 5-10 minute drive but it would have been a pretty long walk. Well, he dropped us off at the beach and it ended up being a perfect day!

The water was beautiful and the kids went right in! We did not come prepared for the beach, so we had no bathing suits or towels. So the kids went in with their clothes. And Tracy and I ended up wet past our waist. The kids absolutely loved it. They were running away from the waves and sitting on the sand waiting for the water to get them and then Tracy and I took them a little farther out and they loved jumping the waves and swimming back in with them.

We walked down the beach while the kids played the whole way and our cache was about .4 miles down the beach. So we walked all the way to the fort and found it in a crack in the side of the fort wall. Then we walked back to where the kids could play in the water.

Then it did a little of what it has done everyday. It started to rain. So now Tracy and I were completely soaked and the kids kept on playing like it wasn’t even raining. The boys found a “bar” and I say it that way because it was a wood structure that might qualify for a hut, with wood that raises and lowers for a door. But she did have cold beer and cokes and was making a soup that Chris said definitely had a lot of kick! Well, the boys sat and made friends for awhile while we played in the rain and sand and ocean. We slowly made our way back to where we started.

Side note, Jessica loved collecting the sea shells as we went and I would just put then in my pocket. When we got back to the room, I took them out and put them on a tissue to dry. Next thing we know, they are moving! There was still something inside them! It was some kind of clear ouzing creature that kept coming in and out. We had about 50 of them so we put them in a baggie and sealed it and took the bag off the ship. Way to creepy! We did keep a couple of cool rocks they found but otherwise, they all went back!

After rinsing the kids off and changing them into their extra outfit, we did the best we could to get the sand off of us and found a nice guy named James to taxi us back to the pier. So we paid $12 to get back, once again not bad, and he had some good conversation for us as well.

We got everyone showered and hair washed about four times to get all of the sand out and then grabbed some pizza and yep, French fries and took the kids up to camp carnival. They did spin art and played with the mini cars and soft play stuff. They also made a picture frame and decorated it and put their spin art inside it.

Yep, french fries again

Then we went back off the boat and found a neat little bookstore that had wi-fi for $2 for 15 minutes. It is .40cents a minute on the boat! So that was much better and then we walked around for awhile before we had to pick the kids up at 5pm.

Last night Jessica said she would eat at camp carnival one time and then with us in the dining room but when I asked her tonight she wanted to go back to camp carnival. So we took them back to eat with the kids tonight and we went to dinner with Tracy and Mark again. Once again, I ate way too much! It is so hard not to try everything that sounds good. I am looking forward to being home just so I can get back to eating healthy! Tonight I had mozzeralla sticks and a potato soup for appetizers and steak for dinner and then a bread pudding with hot, dark and white chocolate.

Then it was laundry time. We were over flowing with the laundry. It was $3 to wash and $3 to dry and we had a full three loads! While they were drying, Chris and I went up on deck and watched a movie on the big screen. I think it was mall cop. Cute and then we picked the kids up and they helped us fold all the laundry and we went back to the room for bed.

At kids camp tonight, it was bug night. They got their faces painted. Nathan got a spider and looked like spider man and Jessica got painted like a butterfly. Way too cute and they made a butterfly craft. When we picked them up they were on mats again watching a movie. Jessica has befriended a little boy named Derrick that is just way too cute and I found them laying next to each other on the mats with Nathan on the other side of them. I will say this again but both kids have just loved the camp carnival. When given a choice, they always want to go there! Even Nathan had not fussed even the tiniest bit about going and walks right in when we get there.