Jamaica, Mon!

We had a wonderful family vacation in Jamaica. We stayed at Beaches Boscobel, which was exactly what we were looking for (however, why anybody without kids would ever go there is beyond me!?!) We ate, we drank, we swam, we had a blast!

This was Elliott's first plane ride. We were a little worried about how he would do on the plane, but he really enjoyed flying. This picture pretty much sums up his feelings : "Ooooh!"

It was a precarious two-hour trip to the resort in what I would loosely call a shuttle bus. But after traveling most of the day, we finally arrived to this:

And this:

Beaches resorts are geared specifically towards families, and they are affiliated with Sesame Street (big plus for us) and many of their resorts have water parks. Elliott enjoyed the toddler area of the water park. For some reason, he called this crab a "ladybug" the entire time we were there and would try to slide down the back of it (note: NOT a slide) while going, "Weeeee!" Real water slides were about 10 feet away, which Elliott adamantly refused to go down them.

My two island boys:

Bret drinking his Cuba Libres:

Me drinking the "Bartender's Special":

A funny story: The resort had a raffle one night to benefit the children of Jamaica. Midway through the raffle, Elliott walks up to the table, pulls off this straw purse, brings it to me, and says, "Here you go, Mom." We all laugh, make Elliott take it back and not 3 seconds later, we win the purse. Seriously. Golden touch, this kid. (Note to self: Must take Elliott with me to buy lottery tickets.)

Elliott liked using the purse as his a pouch for Frog (Of course Mr. Frog came to Jamaica! Could it really be a family vacation without him??)

We took a glass bottom boat ride. As usual, I spent the entire trip wanting to vomit over the side of the boat. But the boys seemed to have fun. (Elliott's first boat ride!)

Not too sick to take a picture of Elliott's cute piggies.

Picture of the resort from the boat:

Elliott had his share of fancy-pants drinks. Here he is drinking a pina colada, but his favorite was a Mickey Mouse (a strawberry banana concoction). Elliott would sit at the swim up bar, and looking quite at home, would say, "Mick Mouse peas."

The first day we were at the pool, the lifeguards brought rafts to the pool about an hour after it opened. Holy poop... it was like the Swimming of the Bulls. Grown men and women were running down small children to get to a raft first. Elliott did NOT get a raft, and was soooo upset about this, it pretty much ruined his whole morning. He just stood at the end of the pool with his bottom lip sticking out, and refused any of our attempts to redirect him. (Seriously, these people must have had hearts of stone.) However, the next day, we were on it. We placed Bret in optimal raft-obtaining position, and we succeded (no children were maimed in the process.) Elliott was freaking OVERJOYED, rode it happily for about 10 minutes, and we were able to pass it on. (NOW, is that SO HARD people??? Geeez, my 2.5 year old can share the raft... what is your problem?)

What would a trip to Jamaica be without a little steel drum action during breakfast?

Here's a picture of Elliott eating at Arizona's, our fave restaurant, located on a deck over the ocean. Their steaks were DIVINE.

As I mentioned before, Beaches is associated with Sesame Street, so all our favorite characters were there, and several nights they did awesome stage shows.

We were wary at first, but Elliott LOVED the Kids Club. One morning, Elmo came to "Elmocize" with the kids. Elliott totally geeked out. As soon as Elmo walks through the door, Elliott drops to his hands and knees and tells Elmo, "EH-MO! X-cise! Do push ups!"

So, here are our pictures of Elliott exercising with Elmo (this was probably my favorite part of the trip):

Elliott finally gets to do push-ups with Elmo:

Picture of the kiddie pool:

Thanks to the Kids Club, Bret and I even got a dinner on our own:

The plane ride home was kind of a bummer. This picture was taken about 5 minutes before Elliott pukes all over the two of us. But we managed...

A great trip! I think it is one Elliott will remember for a long time.