Kim & Duane & Andrew: September 2009

Another sick day photo. Unfortunately it's not until he's sick that he slows down enough to get a lot of photos lately! Wednesday Andrew was sent home with a fever again. He spent the day cuddling with mommy and waiting for daddy to return home from a conference in Vegas. Thursday he spent the day with daddy and on Friday when we got him to the doctor it turns out he has an ear infection in the same ear as before. She thought maybe it didn't totally resolve itself the first time so we're on new antibiotics.

Friday night though, he really gave us a scare. The tylenol we'd been giving him seemed to fail and his fever spiked really high, like 104-105. He started acting delirious, limp and really strange. A cool bottle and cool bath weren't helping so we called the on call pediatrician. She suggeseted a dose of Motrin instead and thankfully we had some in the house from my baby shower. When we got the dose in him he started vomiting a lot but after that he seemed to be totally wiped out and fell asleep. I was thisclose to rushing over to the ER. The fever got a little better after we gave him another half dose of Motrin but stuck around all night and most of the weekend. Poor guy is just so miserable, I'm wondering if he has some strain of the flu. He just seem so uncomfortable at times and so malaise. We're hoping he totally kicks the infection this time and it doesn't come back for a long time.

Sadly, it feels like we were on vacation months ago but it was such a fantastic trip it needs to be recapped...

We left on Saturday September 5th. My parent's took us down to the airport with our jumbo suitcases, two carry ons and stroller. We opted to pay for the overage fee of one super huge bag rather than have multiple suitcases under the 50 pound limit. I think it only worked out to be about $10 or $15 more anyway. Our flight down was hardly half full so we had an extra seat for Andrew which was awesome. Despite me worrying my head off about how the ear infection he had the week before our flight would affect him, he did so well, no fussing, crying or whining at all and even managed to take a short nap, have lunch and drink some milk.

When we arrived in the Providinciales Airport we were greeted with a band complete with a guy playing the saw! We got through immigration and once we got our luggage and breezed through customs the Beaches people were there to take everything away from us. There were two other families waiting so we got in the van with them and off we went.

When we pulled in the resort, they passed by the French village which is where we had reservations. Someone in the van mentioned that they upgraded everyone to the Italian village and I could only hope it was true. The French village would have been nice but the Italian village is only about a year old and that is where I originally wanted to stay even though our budget just wouldn't allow it.

We were greeted with cool cloths, champagne, fruit punch for the kids and cookies. Our concierge then took us to our room where our luggage was already waiting for us. To say the room was incredible is an understatement. We ended up in a Family suite complete with a room for Andrew! This suite would have slept at least 6 people, maybe 8. Our sliding doors opened up to a gorgeous patio which looked right at the pool! We were in awe for the first few hours and Andrew was happy too - despite only having a short afternoon nap on the plane he played by himself while we unpacked, happily rode along in the stroller as we explored and entertained us with his giggles and laughs during dinner. We ate dinner at Mario's the Italian restaurant in the Italian village and it was great.

Our first full day we had breakfast at the buffet at Reflections, lunch from the pizza place while Andrew took a late afternoon nap and Duane caught a taxi to the supermarket for Andrew food and dinner at Schooners. During the day we did some more exploring and hung out in the gorgeous pool. Andrew LOVED it, especially when other babies were playing in the pool near him. Like I mentioned, we only brought a few jars of food for Andrew and got the rest at the IGA on the island. They cost a bit more than at home but again it was worth it to not have to bring 30 plus jars of food!

Monday we spent the morning at the beach and after getting used the the slightly cooler water of the ocean, Andrew loved that too, although he did not love the sand. That did not surprise me, the boy hates the grass afterall! We ate at Guiseppe's for breakfast, Cricketer's for lunch, Bobby Dees for snack/ice cream and Arizona's for dinner.

Tuesday again we were at the pool after Mario's for breakfast. For lunch we decided to introduce Andrew to Camp Sesame. Gigi and Lovely were there to take care of him and they did a great job. I was emotional about leaving him like I was the first day of daycare at home but I'd end up being glad we decided to spend some Kim and Duane time too. We ate lunch at Reflections then returned to get him to hang out for the afternoon. For dinner we had reservations at the Japanese Steakhouse, Kimono's so we again left Andrew at Camp Sesame.

Wednesday we had reservations for the Kit Kat cruise so after breakfast at Guiseppe's and hanging out in the pool for a bit, Andrew went to Camp Sesame, we grabbed some quick lunch and got on the boat. They took us to a snorkel location then to hang out on a beautiful deserted island. The sand and water at Turks and Caicos is by far the most gorgeous I've seen in my travels. I just couldn't stop looking at it and exclaiming "Look at that water/beach!" On the way home I started to get paranoid about leaving Andrew in another country and going so far away but it all ended well and he had a great day at camp. We had dinner that night at Barefoot, the restaurant in the sand. Loved that place and the food seemed to be especially delicious.

Thursday morning we went to the Sesame Street Character Breakfast! We weren't sure how Andrew would react to his first encounter with big furry monsters but as long as they didn't touch him, he thought they were pretty cool. It was a breakfast with about 8-10 other families with small kids then a dance party with the characters! Fun times! We split our time at the beach and pool, had lunch at Arizona's, dropped Andrew off at Camp Sesame while we snorkeled on the reef off the beach and then had dinner again at Schooners because we loved the atmosphere there. We packed up that night and apparently Andrew was not happy about leaving so he kept us up from about 11 PM through 2 AM. Otherwise he was pretty good, would nap at least once during the day while we got out of the hot sun for a while and after he had some dinner would fall asleep in the stroller while we ate dinner. Not sure what the problem was this particular night but it made for an extremely short nights sleep since our shuttle was to pick us up at 6 AM that morning.

Our flight home was first to Miami then to Philadelphia. Again, we weren't on a full flight so we were able to spread out and Andrew did a great job again. In Miami we had to go through immigration, get our luggage to go through customs, go through security again and wait about 3 hours for our next flight. Unfortunately, weather in Philadelphia caused us to wait more like 7 hours. We did remarkably well, Andrew napped and Duane and I were tired but not overly cranky or anything. The ride home was full so the poor guy next to us (he was a chaplain) had to deal with me bumping him as a rambunctious Andrew was all over the place. It was during his dinner and bed time afterall. He never cried enough to annoy anyone but was just a little difficult to keep somewhat still and he destroyed every magazine within reach!

After landing and getting our luggage, the Peck's picked us up to take us home. We got home around 9:30 PM, a long day of traveling over with. It was such an amazing trip, the only complaints I could think of was that it was a little hot (even during nights when there was no breeze) and the flight delay I could have done without, both things that were out of ours and Beaches' control . I don't remember the last time I was in the Caribbean during the summer and definitely didn't consider it would be 90-95 degrees with 70% humidity during the days! It actually worked out great that after a while in the sun, we'd need a break and it would be a perfect time for Andrew to nurse and nap.

Honestly I would recommend Beaches to anyone. It definitely caters to families but the service and operations are just so flawless that you can't go wrong. Families with older kids could utilize the water park (the only minor regret I have is that we didn't use that at all) and younger kids, but older than Andrew could go to Camp Sesame and do all the activities they have set up for elementary age kids.

I truly believe that Andrew had as much fun as we did, and that was a lot of fun! I'm so glad we took this trip as a little family and proud of Andrew for doing so well with the travel and changes that we put him through.

You can find all our photos at this Flickr link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22403102@N07/sets/72157622373256530/