When we hit 101 foster puppies earlier this year, Betsy decided she wanted to dress up as Cruella de Vil, collecting foster puppies instead of Dalmatians. We weren’t planning on having foster puppies during the party, but when 2 Dalmatian puppies became available for fostering right before the party, we […]
We needed a break from our typical “on-the-go” vacations, so we decided to book a week at an all-inclusive resort in Nassau, Bahamas. We chose Sandals Royal Bahamian, partly because it is an adults-only resort and we’ve wanted to return to the Bahamas and visit one of the other islands.
We visited Rijecka, Croatia in 2024 as part of a Greek Island Cruise, celebrating Betsy’s 60th and Dani’s 40th birthdays.
We did a self-guided tour, exploring Trsat Fortress, their downtown area, and a retro computer museum.
Since it would be only the two of us for Christmas this year (we’re getting together with the rest of the family on New Year’s Eve weekend), we decided to try something different and make Beef Wellington for Christmas dinner.
Picasso and his painting, inspired by our recent trip to Barcelona and Paris.
Dani and Jackson also drove down for the weekend to join in the fun!
We spent an evening with Betsy’s brother and sister-in-law, Kirk and Donna at Lost Trail Winery as a Harvest Host stay. This is the first time trailer camping with them since they got their trailer.
The winery is setup with a campground setting, with picnic tables, and Adirondack chairs around campfires. Live music was performed by Robin Roseberry.
The final destination of our 2022 Caribbean Cruise was Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic. We participated in the “Highlights of Puerto Plata and Beach Escape” excursion, which included a bus ride into Puerto Plata and a walking tour of the main square, Pink Alley, Umbrella Alley, a chocolate and coffee shop, and a cigar museum.
We stopped in San Juan, Puerto Rico as part of our 2022 Caribbean Cruise. Puerto Rico, nicknamed “The Island of Enchantment” is a territory of the United States. Along with the main island, it is made up of several smaller islands, including Vieques, Culebra, and Mona.
We stayed within the Old San Juan historic area and used a self-guided audio tour created by local sixth-graders as part of a school project. We enjoyed the stories told by the children as they took on the personas of historical buildings. The app is called VoiceMap, and the tour is named “Talking Buildings of Old San Juan” – we highly recommend. It took us to about 20 different sites, including the Castillo San Cristobal and Castillo San Felipe del Morro forts.
We visited Saint Maarten on our 2022 Caribbean Cruise. The island is interesting in that it is split between 2 different countries. France controls the northern half and refers to it as Saint Martin, while the Netherlands claim the southern half, calling it Sint Maarten.
We had previously visited Sint Maarten in November of 2013, so we decided to rent a car at the docks and revisit a few of our favorite places and try to explore some of the beaches that we didn’t get a chance to see previously.
We visited Castries, St. Lucia on our 2022 Caribbean Cruise. We did an excursion that took us hiking up the Petons and for a dip in a waterfall pool. The drive out and back was a couple hours each way, up and down winding mountain roads, stopping for pictures along the way.
