Bahama Mamas and Papas...

We are officially the most spoiled people on earth! Mike's parents have just treated us and the rest of their immediate family to a beautiful vacation to Paradise Island in the Bahamas! I've never seen anything like this place; they've taken us to some pretty amazing locations, but I think this one takes the cake. The entirity of Paradise Island is one huge resort, most of it is part of Atlantis, just off the coast of Nassau. You can find and do just about everything you could imagine without leaving the island, though we did leave and spend some time in Nassau as well. You can swim, do water slides, eat in a dozen different places, lay by the pool, go to movies, paint pottery, rent scooters, shop, snorkel, boat, and so many otther things, and we did almost all of it!

The weather was incredible the vast majority of the trip, with only one truly cloudy/rainy day, which gave us just the right opportunity to release some creative juices on some pottery and see a movie. The rest of the week we snorkeled, scootered, swam in a ridiculous amount of different pools around the resort, played cards, "passed the pigs" (ask Kristi and Jason about their new favorite game), swooshed down water slides, ate delicious cuisine, and laughed together. Such a great time of hanging out with family, getting a little (or a lot) of sun, and just spending time being one big family!

Mike's parents, Larry and Stephanie, flew down a week early to scope the place out, make sure it was appropriate accomodations, and to get an early start on their tans. The rest of us, Mike's middle sister Karen who's out in Chaska these days, youngest sister Kristi and her husband Jason who are hailing from Virginia Beach, and Mike and I, flew in last Saturday and stayed for a whole week! Enough talking, want to see some pics? Come on Kayla, I know you only check for pictures these days ;) !
Jason, Kristi, Karen, and Larry enjoying a mid-afternoon ice cream break; check out that water behind us! Can you believe the color!?


Here's us on scooter day: me showing off my road wounds (tell you about that in a second), and Jason, Karen, me, Mike, and Kristi loving our day out. We rented three scooters on Wednesday, toured around Paradise Island for a bit, and then went across the bridge and hit a couple of local spots in and around Nassau. Originally we thought we'd start out with Jason and Kristi on one, Mike and I on another, and Karen on the third. Karen had a little bit of a hard time, tipped over on a round-about, so I thought I might give it a whirl. Did pretty good until we had to make a right-hand turn out of Arawak Cay (they drive on the left side of the road), mixed up the brake and acceleration, made it out of traffic, but jumped a curb and apparently flew off the scooter. Scrapped up my shoulder and elbow, have a mother of a bruise on my leg, but other than that, amazingly, I was perfectly fine, not even shook up or anything, thank God. Showed off my road burns, got back on, and we continued on our way. I still can't quite believe it, in all my years of riding horses and driving, haven't been in anything major that was my fault until I rented a little scooter in the Bahamas! Maybe I'll at least get a good scar out of the deal, but not likely! It's healing pretty good.

We ate out a a few different, delicious places. Here's Karen and Steph while we were out at a local joint called the Poop deck, very yummy, and great view; our table overlooked the marina between Paradise Island and Nassau, and we ate right at sunset! Beautiful!








One of the other really amazing things about this place in that everywhere you went, there were gardens and pools full of gorgeous flowers, plants, and aquatic life! It was like living in a botanical garden and full marine aquarium! Everything from plumeria and hibiscus to sharks, starfish, and a huge 10-foot manta ray! Here we are at the nurse shark pool, standing on the bridge looking down at 5 or 6 of them, and here's a baby hammerhead! Don't worry Heather, took tons of pictures for you of all the sharks, even got a couple of cool little video clips; if I ever figure out how to load videos, I'll post one!

I think I'll pause for now. We also spent one night taking some family pictures, so when I get those developed, I'll post a few more! Thanks Larry and Steph for such an amazing trip!!