Christmas Surprise

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I may be a bit late this year but that's alright.
I spent my Christmas holiday in Antigua with my parents. It was a fantastic trip with the greatest surprise halfway through. 

Getting to Antigua is the least amount of fun with multiple layovers and flights at weird times. I added an extra flight by flying to Calgary to meet up with my parents and fly with

First time!

them to Toronto and onto Antigua. But we made it!

I very much needed this break and was very excited to sit on a beach and drink pina coladas everyday. Which is pretty much what happened. We stayed at the same little place that we did the last time we were in Antigua, which was 4 or 5 years ago. None of us could remember when it actually was. The place is exactly the same! Well except for the sign which must have gotten destroyed in the last hurricane they got. 

This time around we booked one of the cottages that is in the very front of hotel right off the beach. It was really great having 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms the only downside was that it was right beside the restaurant on the beach that blasted music until around midnight every night. Luckily we only had it for the first 6 days of the trip and the moved into a different room for the last 4 days. 

My parents decided to bring out inflatable kayak and paddle board to Antigua. I have never paddle boarded before and I was super excited to try it out. The first few days that water wasn't too wavy but it was a bit windy, so going one way was easy but coming back was nearly impossible. They were still a ton of fun. Most of the time it was either too windy or too wavy to really be able to use them. I don't think we would bring them again. Just rent them if we really wanted to use them. 

I don't like touching things

This trip I can officially say that I can snorkel. The last time we came my brother taught me how to snorkel in the pool, but this time around we brought our full face masks and took a very small snorkel excursion. And by small I mean there was the 3 of us and then 2 other people with 3 guides. I learned how to use flippers, sort of, still don't like them, but less sure that they will make me drown. The tour... excursion... let's call it a thing we went on picked us up from our hotel and took us on a little tour of the island as we made our way to the bay that we would be snorkelling in. When we got there we met up with the other 2 people and other 2 guides. The bay was beautiful and I got to hold onto the red safety float thing that the one guide had around him the whole time since I am not a strong swimmer. We saw so many cool fish and an octopus in its lair! My dad ended up holding onto the red thing too just to keep with the group. We were in the water for 2 hours straight looking at stuff. It was really fun and something I have

Octopus in its lair

never done before. After the snorkelling, our guide took us to some of the historical sites that we had been talking about going to and for lunch. This was all part of the tour thing. The guide was amazing, lunch was fantastic at some local little place. Our guide even took us to a pharmacy so I could get antihistamines, because I react horribly to bug bites and I had some massive ones on my legs. They looked disgusting and were so itchy. Bugs love me, I don't love them. I discovered antihistamine cream and it is the greatest thing ever. Anyways...back to the tour. The guide even recommended places to eat  and things to do on the island as we made our way back to the hotel going around the other side of the island through the rain forest. It was a fantastic day.

After that we mostly just stayed close to the hotel and swam. Bobbing in the water and enjoying the sunshine. Until on Boxing Day.

Boxing Day started with a box of kittens being abandoned at the hotel and the manager

I want them all!!

taking them in and caring for them. So I got to play with a literal box of kittens. I was in heaven. I think the staff knew me as the crazy cat lady. Then that evening I got the biggest surprise. As my mom and I were leaving the laundry room, where the kittens were, my boyfriend was standing there. My mom and gotten a hold of him and asked if he wanted to surprise me and come to Antigua. It was the greatest gift ever. My boyfriend flew 18 hours just to see me. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world, with the most amazing and generous parents. The hotel staff were in on it, my family, and his family and they still managed to surprise me. Boxing Day was hands down the best day ever. Kittens and my boyfriend. If only could have brought a kitten or 2 home. With my man now there, we could finally book the catamaran trip that I had been asking about almost everyday. Little did I know we were waiting for my man to get there to go on it. It was the same one we did last trip, but it is a great boat ride and so much rum punch.

Catamaran Trip

My man was there for the last 4 days of the trip and it was amazing to get to experience it with him and for him to get to spend some more time with my parents. 

Flying home was a bit of a disaster with delayed flights, which led to missed connections and having to stay overnight in Toronto instead of Calgary, which in turn led to not being able to see some family, but we made it back to Vancouver on New Years Eve and were in bed by 10pm. All ready for me to start school on January 2nd. 

Now I am back in school and working away on assignments and applying for a new job! 

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 

Song of the Day: Sugar, You by Oh Honey