woohoo!!

We're leaving in about 55 hours for our "real" winter vacation. omg, I'm so excited! We have had so much snow this year, and temps the past week have been so cold, with sub-zero wind chills... it'll be so wonderful to be back in the hot sunny tropics.

Let me digress for a moment to say thanks to my friend, housesitter, catsitter, Jean. Jean is the lady who makes it easy for Greg and I to get away, knowing that our cats and home are in her very capable hands. She is such a great lady, I feel lucky and blessed to know her. And not just because she helps out so much when we vacation - oh, no, that's just a bonus. She has a great outlook on life, looks at things in different and interesting perspectives. It is just plain fun talking to her. We both are pretty open people, we don't beat around the bush, and since we're both that way, it's great. Even when we don't agree, it isn't a big deal, we both can voice our opinion and listen to the other person, no one gets upset... gotta love that.

So anyway, back to the blazing hot sun. :-) We're spending two nights on Vieques, a little island near the big island of Puerto Rico. We are staying at what is hopefully a cute little B&B, and we're taking a biobay tour. The explanation on that will come with pics later! Then a seven night cruise on Carnival Destiny out of San Juan. We're going to St Thomas, Barbados, Dominica, St Kitts and Dominican Republic. wow. We don't have any day really at sea, because we have two partial days (and stay overnight) at DR. This will be more of a typical vacation for us... go go go go. lol Funny tho, I'm almost wishing we had fewer port days, so we could just R&R&R&R.

We've been to every one of these ports already (except Vieques), but there's always something different to see/do. Since we've been to St Thomas several times, we'll probably ferry over to St John, or maybe just hit a nice beach for a while. We only stopped at a couple major sites in Barbados when we've been there, and we didn't really get much of a good educational tour, so we have a local guide booked there. We've done the waterfall tours twice now in Dominica, so we're doing a dif type of tour there, some historical stuff and a riverboat ride, again with a local guide. We haven't been to St Kitts since 1990, and I don't think we did anything outside the port city, so our local guide there should have an easy time pleasing us. And when we were in DR, it was at an all-inclusive in Punta Cana, so we really didn't see any of the island.

Well, the major things to get ready are done. At this point, if necessary, I could just throw some clothes in a suitcase and be ready. There are things I'd like to do yet before we leave, but the earth will not stop spinning if they don't get done. So why do I start getting that little panicky feeling every time I think about leaving home Thur night? - I guess it's the "omg, what did I forget" panic. lol I get this way before every trip, I guess it's the detail-oriented perfectionist in me... making sure my ducks are all in a row. (oye, I am sure full of cliches today!)

woohoo!!! I can feel the heat already...