The Talley Family: ABC Islands

Finally, as promised, I am getting around to blogging about our trip.

David and I had planned this trip last fall before any of the MRSA stuff and before I even found out I was pregnant. We knew we both needed a vacation (other than the weekend trips we are used to taking). We first flew to Aruba. The flight was long but with the in-flight movie plus our personal DVD players we stayed occupied. We were just glad it was shorter than our flight to Maui, we went stir crazy on that flight. Once we got there we took a taxi and I must say I was scared for my life : ) The road signs are completely different than ours (all in Dutch) and the driver would speed up to 75mph while approaching a red light and then slam on his brakes. The first couple of days there we shopped and hung out on the beach. It was so nice not to have any responsibility. The water was beautiful, the architecture was gorgeous, and the shopping was phenomenal. We spent a lot of time shopping in downtown Oranjestad on Aruba. It is the biggest town on the island (any of the three) and it has tons of fabulous shopping. Later in the week, we took a cruise of the islands and since it is only 16 miles off the coast of Venezuela we were able to get close enough to see it from the boat. I would have to say the cruise was our favorite part of the trip. One day, we took a tour of Aruba and that was fun. The island is small but so diverse in its landscape. There is rocky cliffs on the eastern coast, desert in the middle, rock formations, rolling hills, flat sandy beaches, and small towns dispersed all across the island. Originally, when we planned the trip we were going to take 4-wheelers across the island exploring but since I am pregnant they would not allow me to rent one. We settled for a car. Everyone on the islands were very friendly! We had no problem communicating. Most people speak Dutch, Papiamento (the official island language), and English. David and I ate at some wonderful restaurant's while on this trip. One of the first nights there we discovered a authentic Brazilian steakhouse that was phenomenal. One night we had dinner at a romantic restaurant on the beach, we actually sat at a table on the beach with the water 15 feet away. I have to say that it was the first time I have ever eaten a gourmet dinner at a candle lit table with my feet in the sand. We also found a few really good local restaurant's that had great beach food. David and I were really surprised to see all the iguanas on the islands, they were everywhere you looked! By the end of the trip we were ready to get home to see Morgan. On our flight home we had a layover in Houston and it turned to be disaster! First off, we did not leave Aruba until an hour and a half after we were supposed to depart. When we arrived at Houston we had 30 minutes to make our connection but earlier in the day the Houston airport had closed due to storms and the entire airport was backed up. We ended up sitting on the runway waiting for a terminal to open up for nearly two hours! Then, when we finally arrived at a gate we were told we needed to go to customer service to schedule another departing flight. Our jaws dropped as we approached a line that literally had over 500 people waiting and only two agents at the counter. We waited for over three hours and still had not made it anywhere near the counter. Luckily, my grandma is a retired travel agent and she was able to pull some strings and talk to an agent on the phone only to find out that the next available flight that we could get seats on would not be leaving for two days!!! So we rushed down to rent a car, stood in line again, and were told there was only one car left. We snatched and headed out at 1:30am with a 10+ hour drive ahead of us. By the time we got home we were exhausted! Other than our nightmare return we had an amazing trip! We are already planning another one for next year.