Ringing in the New Year in Jamaica!

Happy 2011!! We were fortunate to spend our New Years Eve and part of New Years Day in beautiful Jamaica. Our hotel put on quite a New Years Eve party for us. They covered the pool with a stage and had fire eaters, dancers and singers as entertainment. They also had a large buffet full of yummy foods. Here is the view of the pool and deck from our room's balcony.

I was planning on wearing a cute dress, but since all my clothes were left in VA, I had to improvise.

The hotel provided us with cute hats, noise makers and beads.

We made lots of noise with all the Jamaicans. They are loud people. They really seemed to enjoy loud music, especially blasting it from their cars as they drove down the rode. Brody and I also made friends with a couple from NYC. They were older, but we got along very well. We had dinner with them this night and they kept us entertained!

When it got close to the New Year we got up and danced. I think this was one of the first years that I can remember that I didn't watch the ball drop or have a toast. (except for last year when we were at the cabin with no cable) We all counted down but with no help from the TV and they only had champagne in the glasses that they were passing around. We didn't plan ahead enough to get our own ginger ale or sparkling cider. Oh well, it was still extremely fun!

But I still got to share a kiss with my love on New Years!

The next day was our last. We walked about all the grounds of the hotel and I found this swing. We also sat in the sun for a bit, but we didn't have long because we had to get ready for the airport and begin our journey home.

I wanted to take a picture to show off our tans (it didn't turn out too beautifully) The Jamaican airport was a nightmare. There were incredibly long lines to get out of the county and they didn't have any air conditioning on in the place. I was quite hot because I was preparing to enter cold weather again and was wearing jeans. We survived though and made it to Dallas, Ft Worth, where we had our over night lay over. We were picked up by Brody's sweet sister Karissa and she and her grandparents drove us around the city just a bit. We didn't get to see much because it was Saturday night and we were leaving the next day in the early afternoon. We did drive through some gorgeous neighborhoods. Apparently George W. Bush lives nearby and we saw a bunch of famous building. We had fun in TX and now we can both say that we have been there!! So that was our trip. It was a lot of fun, but now we are back to the real world. And the real world is cold!! and busy. I am off to a networking meeting at school. Should be fun (i hope)!