Happy life and happy times. Who doesn't love a nice vacation?

Well we made it back from vacation. Yes, it is a tough life we live here... don't you forget it!

Alessandra and Daddy during a stroll on the beach! Chilly, but gorgeous day!

A view from the walking path around the resort ground

I will now try and give you a brief synopsis of our trip, with my long awaited opinion on the whole thing (which I know you are longing to hear).

We left on Thanksgiving morning from Naha airport (our lovely friend Nicole drove us to the airport - THANKS Nicole!) and after our long flight of 48 minutes, we arrived on the beautiful island of Ishigaki. (I should also tell you that the weather on this day, was terrible, so we are assuming at this point it is beautiful, the clouds were quite large and gray). We are met at the airport by 2 nice people carrying a "Club Med" sign (I have always wanted to be picked up at the airport with a sign). We got our luggage, visited the watercloset and got into a spiffy van for our 40 minute ride to our resort. Alessandra by this point is SICK of traveling (yes, already) and a tad bit unruly in the van. Thankfully there was another family in there with a little child (probably 2 1/2) who was singing the English ABC's song (she was Japanese, so it was REALLY cute) and that helped our child who always has ants in her pants.

(more walking path views... beautiful!)

So, you pull up at the resort are the staff is out there waving and greeting you. At this point, I was really not sure what to expect... but I liked it. We got greeted with tea, cool wash cloths and a nice seating area and then our lovely G.O. (General Organizer) Jin told us how things go. We hit the dining room and had the first of MANY fantastically amazing spreads of food and then checked out our room. A nice, clean, room with a king bed and 2 twin beds (I love this place for putting beds in there, instead of the per normal pull out couch). And a really nice view of the Ocean. We love views.

Our room view - yes, that it a circus trapese set up. You can take trapeze lessons if you want to.

The kids went the first afternoon to the "Mini Club". This place is specially for 4-12 year olds. This week (due to low numbers... it is winter season) they put the Petite Club (2-3 year olds) in with the Mini Club, so Alessandra and Olivia got to be together a lot of the time. Most often there would be 2-3 staff members with our kids, entertaining, leading, playing and just being with the kids. We spent most mornings with the kids at the Kids Club. And, in true Olivia form, she really would have prefered to be there ALL DAY EVERY DAY. Alessandra liked it, but not nearly as much as her sister. (and I think they had their faces painted 4 times...life it good)

So, this part sounds like a bad mommy talking - but why in the world would I ever go on any type of vacation again? The kids had fun, and we got to be with them AND without them on vacation. The staff were unbelievably good and pretty much EVERYONE there knew the girls names, so anywhere we went they were greeted with "hallo ms. Olivia, Ms. Alessandra... how are you today?" I don't think they knew our names (until the after the night that he went to the bar and sang with the bar band... then they all knew his name... so sad I missed it!), but they lovingly called us "mama and papa".

Kabira Bay

AND, we actually left the resort one day and went on an excursion around the island. It included a trip to Kabira Bay with a glass bottom boat tour (which the girls LOVED), the black pearl shop (they harvest black pearls in this bay), and Awamori distillery (think Sake, but ickier), an Okinawan Village recreation place (complete with cool monkeys you could feed... in truth, I found it gross, but the kids loved it) and Ishigaki-yaki - an incredible pottery place that makes some very unusual and rare type pottery (fused with glass... color of ocean... very amazing). It was a lovely day (albeit a tad chilly), we were excited to see another part of the Okinawan Islands and their history.

Our little fam on the glass bottom boat (Olivia made her own hair accessories)

Olivia with our tour G.O.


Our little family (the only sad shot I got of us the whole time.. I need to work on that)
Brad, the girls and the monkeys.

Olivia and her new playmates.


Ahh, so cute. After our yoga (Kelly) and stairmaster (Brad) workouts. We hit the trail and walked - it was gorgeous!

All in all, I don't know how anyone could complain about a trip like ours. The most important things to us: rest, time together, good food, good drinks and nice place to be. All points were covered and then some.

Anyone want to go to Club Med Bali next year?