A Ton of Fun in 2021: Week 24 Recap

Well this week kicked off with a super busy Monday. Because Jeremy and I left for Punta Cana on Tuesday morning.  I tried to cram so much fun with the kids on Monday, but it was exhausting to say the least. We kicked off the morning with a trip to the strawberry patch at J&K Farms.  Not far from our house, we only picked two quart and it cost us $12.  Wouldn't say it was the best patch we've ever been to, but we liked to support local and the strawberries were delicious. 

Next we headed to swim practice in Ada.  I had signed up to work ONU freshman orientation so I needed to be at work for a few hours. Thank goodness Ann and her sweet kiddos offered to hang with the kids for the time when I needed to be at Northern. From the looks of the pictures she sent me, they had an EXCELLENT time.   

Punta Cana album can be accessed here.  With 56 photos, I'm not going to embed them into this post.  But if you are glutton for punishment and want to entertain yourself with photos for a minute, check out the link.  We call this our marriage counseling. Typically we are cruising with our friends, but since the cruise ships are still not going out, we decided to try an all-inclusive.  Here is my review of Punta Cana. Wasn't loving the rain everyday forecast before we left. Even watching the weather there is a crab shoot.  They pop up as quickly as they go away. For the most part we had sunny skies. They had a seaweed bloom. OMG- worst smell ever. You can see in the pictures or from the linked article how nasty it looks too.  We didn't spend any time at the beach.  Good thing our hotel had AMAZING pools.  I mean seriously, we spend all our time by the pools (which also had the great bar that was included, so it was all good). Pools and waterpark were perfect. Like so perfect. 

Our hotel- we booked at the reserve because it was cheaper. Because of COVID and low numbers they upgraded all guest to the newly built Grand Reserve. Our room was a junior suite on the top floor (fourth floor). The room was one of the nicest rooms we've ever stayed in. It even had a jet bath on the balcony with a sofa and a lounge chair and table. However this was a Spanish-owned hotel in a Spanish speaking country.  Very few workers at the hotel spoke English well and Jerm and I don't speak Spanish well. So...that led to frustration when ordering or trying to understand what they wanted/needed from us. Best part of the trip was a staff member trying to put up our umbrella the second day.  Jeremy kept saying we were good (cause we had no idea what he was saying). Finally he said Muy Rojo--VERY RED. As you can see from the pictures Jeremy was muy rojo and the guy was just trying to save him.  We only took SPF 15, which didn't help Jeremy at all in the sun.  He needed 50 at least, but at their gift shop the sunscreen was $45-$55 USA.  Um no. Let him put up the umbrella for you Jeremy! lol. 

The food was amazing. We really enjoyed our meals. But Punta Cana is still in COVID-mode and made us wear masks in public everywhere we went (except eating and swimming) and even had a mask-guy who was in high traffic areas handing them out to make sure everyone had them on. UGH. Since the mask mandates have been lifted here in Ohio, this was annoying. You had to wear gloves at the buffets and wear a mask unless you were eating or drinking. When it was so hot and you had to wear masks everywhere, we were annoyed. Another annoying thing is you needed reservations for everything... dinners, gym, thankful NOT the pool.  But everything was booked and there was little entertainment.  We like to party on vacation. This was not that kind of vacation.  We did find 'kids' at the pool to hang out with on the last day.  We were twice there age, but they partied with us.  We needed our friends who typically come with us.  We could have made our own party! The only day we went off the resort was to Hillbilly Island on a catamaran. Jeremy got to snorkel and we got to hang out with 300 of our closet island friends at Hillbilly Island.  The ocean looked like Lake Erie at Hillbilly Island. Not impressed at all. We got the party we were looking for, but it wasn't a beautiful place at all.  

While we were soaking up paradise, the kids were having fun at their first swim meet.  Thanks again to Ann for snapping some great pictures of their meet.  They said they didn't get to pick what events they swam, as the coach does that, so they did some events that they're not used to and maybe not their greatest. But they said they liked competing in the pool again. 

Our church hosted Camp Cotubic Summer Camp: “Camp ESPN” (Get Your Head in the Game)  June 12-14 at Camp Cotubic in Bellefontaine, OH. We were able to FaceTime them before and after camp, and our friend Nikki was the camp nurse and snapped some fabulous pictures of them while they were there. Mostly of Olivia because she was in her daughters cabin, but still great fun. They said it was amazing and are already looking forward to next summer.