Fashion for a vacation...........

Never thought much about what clothes I did or did not need on a vacation to the Caribbean.  I just figured some shorts and t-shirts.  A bathing suit, a cover up and a couple of dresses.  However after being there and I learned such a lot.

First a two piece bathing suit is the way to go.  Bottoms and a tankini/long top.  Have you ever tried to wrestle taking off a wet bathing suit to go pee?  I thought I was going to do myself a mischief trying to get it off.  Then it wasn't much better trying to put it back on!!

As things seem to take forever to dry, despite the heat, a couple of bathing suit options is the way to go, so you don't have to put on a damp suit in the morning.  Same goes with cover ups.  I actually used a shorter t-shirt type dress as a cover up and it worked a charm.

I will say it obviously doesn't matter what size you are and I saw all sorts of shapes of people wearing the skimpiest of bathing suits.  The amount of old guys with HUGE beer bellies wearing speedo's was mind boggling.....LOL

The amount of young ladies wearing the skimpiest of bikini's taking 7,000 selfies of themselves by the pool while trying not to get wet was also mind boggling!!  Just between me and you; I may or may not have encouraged youngest grandson to splash as much as he wanted to with his toys while they were doing that!! 😜

I had a pair of croc sandals that I used for pool shoes, but wasn't keen on them.  I did end up using my birkenstocks but didn't like getting the footbed wet.  I have a couple more pairs of croc sandals so need to see if they will work.

I was told to pack light and I did and it worked a charm.  Daughter-in-law had some lovely vacation dresses, so I may have to invest in a couple more.  Overall though, other than some shorts I think I may just use what I have..........

Do you have clothes that you use exclusively for vacation?

Swimming pools on vacation.......

There were numerous swimming pools where we were on vacation.  There was an adults only pool, but you had to have booked the adults only package to use and had to have a special wrist band to access it.

There were two of these pools below.  One was for the people who paid extra.........obviously not us! That one was below where we were staying and the one below was opposite it.  Both of the pools were very quiet with very few children using them as they were more lap pools and had no shallow end.

I actually spent most of one day reading by one of the pools, as there was quite a bit of shade.

This was the main pool, it was pretty large.  There was a shallow pool below it where you could do a spin cycle class, and aquatics.  Also the foam parties were held in the shallow pool.  I did participate in the aquatics class with daughter-in-law, though we were in the upper pool doing it as it was probably less than four feet at the deep end. Oh and we couldn't be bothered to go to the other pool....LOL

I took this photo from one of the upper floor restaurants.  You can see the separate shallow pool there.  When we did plan on a day by the pool, we did get there to deposit our towels on the chairs to save them.  We were always on the second row back which suited me just fine, as that was we weren't bothered by the guys selling trips and trying to get you to participate in things!!

Here is another view.  I will say none of the pools were heated, and I ended up getting out of the pool on the last day as it was a tad on the cool side........I know third world problems 🙄

There were also two water parks.  One was for smaller children and funnily enough had hardly any shade.  It was flipping stinking hot there.  The other one was a larger water park for all ages.

All in all something for everyone.......and I wish I could be there now!!  Sick of this flipping snow!

Birthdays............

It was my mother's birthday at the beginning of this week and she was saying she always associates her birthday with spotting the first of the early Spring Lambs, and the first of the early daffodils.  Obviously she's in the UK, as at this point, I would just love to know where the garden is.........can't see it for a pile of snow!!

It got me thinking as to what I associate other people's birthday's with.

For mine, it's the middle of March, so it's always March break here in Canada when it's my birthday, so the kids are on holiday.

Hubby's is September, so I always think of it's vacation time for us, on or around his birthday.

Our son's birthday is the beginning of April, so his birthday is always around Easter time.

Our daughter's is in November and I always think of pomegranate's being in season when it's her birthday.  

What do you associate with your birthday and/or other people's birthday's in your life?

Some food pics from our vacation..........

One night we went to the Mediterranean restaurant in the resort.  The presentation was perfect, the taste not so!

The beet salad was actually tasty, but nothing exciting.

I ordered the the vegetarian roll.  It looked great but I wasn't too keen on the taste.

Hubby and daughter-in-law had the beef stew.  We were confused how beef stew was a Mediterranean dish?  They both said it was good.

Son had this shrimp and rice dish.

I had the strawberry pavlova for dessert and I can actually say it was the worst meringue I have ever had!  It looked lovely but the taste didn't match.

We ate lunch at a buffet place called the Goldfish a couple of times and I did enjoy the variety there.  Plus the view was gorgeous.

I did try a pina colada and a margarita while on vacation, never had either.  Loved the pina colada, hated the margarita.  

The gift that keeps on giving part 2!

 Not sure if you remember, but when we came back from vacation, we brought an extra gift back with us; a stomach bug!  I posted about it here.  Son came down with it the worst and was pretty sick for well over a week.  Hubby also had a shorter second bout of it a few days after he finished with the first bout........basically he never got over it.

Fast forward to last Thursday (12th of February) and I felt like death warmed over with a terrible headache.  The next day the diarrhea started and the stomach cramps.  I pride myself on being a pretty clean person and keeping a clean house, so we were puzzled as to why I came down with this?

I am writing this on the 15th to post on the 16th.  Fingers crossed I am hoping to be over the worst, as in no more stomach cramps, but have no idea why this happened.  I don't think it would be from the vacation, I could have picked it up while out grocery shopping?

Suffice to say I have not left the house!!!  And will probably be staying put until further notice...LOL  I had bought a jigsaw puzzle the other day at Costco, so have been busy doing that and reading.  

I bought this one as I thought it would be difficult, it wasn't too bad it turned out.........

House of Guinness - Netflix

 

Late to the party as always, but we finally watched the House of Guinness on Netflix.  It reminded me of Peaky Blinders in the way it was filmed, but Peaky Blinders was way better!!

The way it finished makes me think there should be a second series.  It does clearly say this is a work of fiction loosely based on facts. I agree with that, as I looked up the history of the Guinness family and some things don't add up.  I do find the Irish accent a bit strong at times, so didn't catch everything that was said.  Saying that Peaky Blinders was as bad at times.  Will I watch a second series, maybe if there is nothing else on!

Talking of strong accents I had to have subtitles on when watching Brad Pitt in Snatch...LOL  Great movie but that Irish accent.................

In case you think I am being "racist" on Irish accents, believe me when I say I have to listen very carefully when talking to people with a Scottish accent as well!!  Plus where we come from in Cumbria, we have what we call a "broad fell back" accent, and I really have to listen carefully or tell folk to slow down when talking (a couple of nephews are really broad).  I was standing in line at the chip shop in Carlisle, Cumbria where I was born.  I was attempting to listen in on someone's conversation 😁 and couldn't understand a bloody word, as they were talking in a broad Carlisle accent!!!  I have been living in Canada too long....LOL

28 Days, 28 Items, Part 2

 Another week, and more things collected to donate.  As youngest grandchild is a boy and now four, these things are too baby-ish for him, so off they go to a new home.  Daughter gave me all these for when the girls came over, so they are probably 12 years old.......

I did also get another good job done, I cleaned out the bill drawer, where I keep all the credit card and bill statements.

I only got a partial bag of shredded paper, so put it back under the desk for the next time I do some shredding.  I need to clean out the filing cabinet at some point, so there will be more shredded paper to put in the bag.

How did you do this week?