Clay, Michelle, Riley and Scout: Land of Sea and Sun

At least that's what the license plates said.

Late August, Clay and I dropped Riley off with Nana and Papa in Ft Worth, with just a few tears shed (all from me) and headed to Antigua to celebrate our 5 year anniversary!

So anytime we travel we seem to run into some minor problems. Like volcanos and tropical storms. :) Take for instance our honeymoon, we were stuck in San Juan, Puerto Rico on our way to St Lucia, for what we were told could be days (but ended up only being one night) due to a volcano spewing ash everywhere. Then our trip to Mexico where we moved up our flight in order to avoid a tropical storm that was to hit Houston. Well, the storm sped up and we ended up landing during the brunt of the storm. Really, it was not so bad and I have had much worse flights and turbulance when flying to Lubbock.

So it really didn't surprise me or upset me when I Hurricane Irene was predicted to hit Miami the day Clay and I were to be traveling through Miami on our way to Antigua. We were very blessed, as were the residents of Florida that Irene shifted and left Florida wet but without damage and our flights were right on time with no issues! yay! Thank you sweet Jesus!

We both immediately relaxed once we landed in Antigua. There is just something about the pace of the natives, the smell of the ocean air, and the gorgeous weather (at 94 degrees it was much cooler than Houston).

Antigua was so beautiful. The white sand and clear caribbean turqois water was just amazing. And though we did not do much except for spend quality time with each other, our Bibles, and the sand, we loved every minute of our time there. This was our first trip alone since Riley was born. We have both had a weekend or two away on our own but not together. What a wonderful time it was.

Antigua was very unique in that many of the other guests were from the UK, France, or Italy. Very few were from the US. We were always excited and surprised to hear a couple speaking "American" :) We really enjoyed our conversations with the British as well. Bloody this and bloody that. It made me smile. Also this mixture of cultures led to some interesting beach attire or lack of beach attire for many of the French and Italian ladies. I also thought it was interesting in that most of the couples from Europe and the UK were staying for long periods of time. Like I'm taking minimum of two weeks. Some 3-4 weeks. While most US couples we talked to were like us staying less than 7 days.

I did end up getting sick the night before we left. Boo. Pregnant lady who is not able to eat or drink anything plus the heat and long waiting lines outside = me nearly passing out and the local AA employees rushing me inside saying in their sweet accents, "its sun stoke, its sun stroke." I was super embarrased but they were sweet and let me sit in the a/c and brought me water and some sort of smelling oil if I were to feel faint again. The flight home was not that pleasant but soon enough we were back at Mom and Dad's and stayed an extra day there so they could help take care of me and Riley. Clay ended up getting sick as well. Boo. But nothing can take away the joy we had in our trip!!

We arrived at DFW late at night and it was so sweet to wake Riley up the next morning. Clay and I have never received such awesome hugs from her. She hung on tight. And said "Daddy, Mommy back." A special thanks to my mom and dad for taking such good care of Riley. She did so well and never got upset that we were gone, never cried or anything. She is such a big girl. (I on the other hand, had such a hard time calling and talking to her while we were gone, it always ended in me crying. :) What can I say? She's my girl!

That is the hotel (restuarant area) there on the right.

From the resort grounds. To the right was all of the cottages.
The resort we stayed at was similar to our honeymoon resort in that there are only private cottages.