Last week we took a trip to the beautiful Bahamas where Justin presented a total of 8 minutes of information at a conference at the Atlantis Resort Hotel on Paradise Island. We made it into a week long jaunt and I have to say that it was the first vacation since I had kids that I wasn't totally ready to go home at the end. I could have stayed an extra few days...weeks....forever maybe. Aaahhhh. The luxury of relaxation is a lost concept in my life at home. Anyway, back to Henry. Henry found his new love, which is snorkeling!
I had to threaten him with staying home with a babysitter if he didn't give it a try because at first he wouldn't even put the mask on his face, but after I fitted him just right and shoved his head under water he was hooked (after the initial freak out until he opened his eyes and saw all the fish).
For the first day or so I was so lonely out there by myself. I had to find a buddy and Henry was my target. One of us had to stay behind with Bea so Henry and I had snorkeling adventures together almost daily for at least an hour at a time. Our best adventure was a snorkeling trip out to Rose Island where some of the most spectacular scenery and fish in the world were and Henry had fish swimming all around him, close enough to touch, and he was in heaven.
We all had a great time playing in the sand on Love Beach, a private beach that we found with almost no people on it, and it also had the best snorkeling right off the beach. We met quite a few locals, very friendly people, and even got some great contacts for next time we go over there, namely the manager of a billionaire's private island who invited us to come whenever we wanted. Um, yeah, we'll be back for that.
Some noteworthy things are, that we went to an awesome pirate museum, saw a giant shark fin right off the beach one day(so scary), the car we rented was such a lemon that the hub caps kept falling off and the one zip tie that was keeping them on only made 9 people in one day honk and yell at us to fix them. And get this, mangoes and bananas are more expensive there and they grow wild! The guys selling them on the side of the road told us that "farming is really hard here". Like you farm them! $3.50 is what they charge. I can get them here for about $.75 at Stan's Market on the Strip. That brings me to my next question, why is everything so expensive in the Bahamas? We've been to other islands in the Caribbean and they don't have high prices. What makes the Bahamas so inflated? There's got to be a lot of corruption because most of the island is totally divided between really wealthy foreigners and luxury resort hotels and seriously poor islanders. With all the money coming in from travel, that whole place should be wealthy. I heard how expensive it was so I bought a ton of stuff before we left and packed it with us wherever we went.
The first half of our trip was spent in a two bedroom condo on the main island, which was nice since the kids did not sleep right next to us and then we upgraded to the Atlantis Resort which is really indescribable. The resort itself is like a small city surrounded by an water amusement park with something like 30 pools and is all surrounded by beach. They have their own resident aquarium there with incredible habitats, giant manta rays, sharks, a lobster tank, ugly grouper, beautiful tuna and every other fish in the area.
The marina had yacht after yacht parked in it and I heard they charge around $200 per foot per night to park there. Henry actually got us on one of the most beautiful boats when he made friends with the son of the boat owner. After a few minutes we realized that some sort of family problem was happening and we had to leave. After we left Justin told me that the boat owner told him three times that he wasn't addicted to prescription pain killers for his back problems, which meant that he totally was. He could hardly have a normal conversation he was so drugged up. And he had little kids! So sad. We played in the pools, rode the crazy wave river, relaxed on the beach, made sand castles, snuck our snacks to save money, and got take out at NOBU. The spicy tuna was excellent. Yum! We brought home a bunch of nice shells, some of which still had hermit crabs and snails in them that actually made the trip home in a ziplock bag. They have all died though. Poor little creatures! I wanted to bring home the baby gecko I caught one night, but I knew he would somehow die too.
Henry said it best when on our way home we asked him if he ever wanted to come back and he said that he wanted to go back "today". And still asks us when we're going back to live in the castle, which was our hotel. He also asked today if we could go back to the pirate museum. I think he really loved the Bahamas.
I had to threaten him with staying home with a babysitter if he didn't give it a try because at first he wouldn't even put the mask on his face, but after I fitted him just right and shoved his head under water he was hooked (after the initial freak out until he opened his eyes and saw all the fish).
For the first day or so I was so lonely out there by myself. I had to find a buddy and Henry was my target. One of us had to stay behind with Bea so Henry and I had snorkeling adventures together almost daily for at least an hour at a time. Our best adventure was a snorkeling trip out to Rose Island where some of the most spectacular scenery and fish in the world were and Henry had fish swimming all around him, close enough to touch, and he was in heaven. 
Some noteworthy things are, that we went to an awesome pirate museum, saw a giant shark fin right off the beach one day(so scary), the car we rented was such a lemon that the hub caps kept falling off and the one zip tie that was keeping them on only made 9 people in one day honk and yell at us to fix them. And get this, mangoes and bananas are more expensive there and they grow wild! The guys selling them on the side of the road told us that "farming is really hard here". Like you farm them! $3.50 is what they charge. I can get them here for about $.75 at Stan's Market on the Strip. That brings me to my next question, why is everything so expensive in the Bahamas? We've been to other islands in the Caribbean and they don't have high prices. What makes the Bahamas so inflated? There's got to be a lot of corruption because most of the island is totally divided between really wealthy foreigners and luxury resort hotels and seriously poor islanders. With all the money coming in from travel, that whole place should be wealthy. I heard how expensive it was so I bought a ton of stuff before we left and packed it with us wherever we went. 
The marina had yacht after yacht parked in it and I heard they charge around $200 per foot per night to park there. Henry actually got us on one of the most beautiful boats when he made friends with the son of the boat owner. After a few minutes we realized that some sort of family problem was happening and we had to leave. After we left Justin told me that the boat owner told him three times that he wasn't addicted to prescription pain killers for his back problems, which meant that he totally was. He could hardly have a normal conversation he was so drugged up. And he had little kids! So sad. We played in the pools, rode the crazy wave river, relaxed on the beach, made sand castles, snuck our snacks to save money, and got take out at NOBU. The spicy tuna was excellent. Yum! We brought home a bunch of nice shells, some of which still had hermit crabs and snails in them that actually made the trip home in a ziplock bag. They have all died though. Poor little creatures! I wanted to bring home the baby gecko I caught one night, but I knew he would somehow die too. 
Anyway, Nanna B helped him learn some tennis, played at the pool with him, read him stories, babysat a couple times for us while we exercised for our impending triathlon (THANK YOU SO MUCH!) and made delicious sugar cookies which we took with us to the park and were gobbled up by all the kids. We also ate amazingly well with all the food she bought us from Costco. Henry and Bea were enjoying blueberries, strawberries, fresh roasted vegetables and fresh tortillas all week. Delicious! Thanks for all the yummy treats Nanna B!
