Day 5 - Our last full day

Since this was our last day we felt like we still needed to go get a couple souvenirs from the Bahamas that were made in China. We left early and headed downtown to shop in the straw market. After a few aisles, everything was the same. We bought a few things then headed into another shop where we found the same stuff at cheaper prices! Ugh!

We did stop for some yummy ice-cream and then took the bus back to the home so we could just play for a little while before I took Abby, Kaitlyn and our sitter snorkeling.

Pack 'em in! Full bus ride.

I had booked a different company for snorkeling because the original idea was for everyone to go out on the boat- even Alec - and this was the only company that would allow kids under 4 on the boat. Since the day before was so bad with the waves we decided the older girls should go and Brittany should get a taste too. It was a LONG, long drive to the dive shop then another long drive out on the boat. We snorkeled for an hour and then headed home. The only regret was that I wish I went with the other company because the drive was so much shorter.

Getting ready

Snorkeling was quite the treat for Abby. She got her gear on, jumped in the water, and was gone the whole hour. She's a fish out of water. Kaitlyn needed convincing to get in the water, then the water was too cold, she wouldn't put her face in and begged me to take her back to the boat. That was her experience. She tried but was scared of what was underwater. It didn't help that we threw "fish food " (puppy chow) in just as we went into the water. Later she told me she was sacred of sharks and octopuses, I guess letting her watch our shark dive movie didn't help either. It was still a nice afternoon on the water, it was very calm and Abby and Brittany had a great time.

My favorite fish - an Abby fish

Kaitlyn is NOT going to get back in

The few seconds all four of us were in together

Once we were back home, Todd and I took the family, minus Alec, back to the beach for one last hurrah. Abby snorkeled, Kaitlyn, Todd and Olivia built a great sand castle, and I relaxed. Dinner on the back patio that night to watch the sunset and dolphins out in the horizon. It was a perfect way to end our trip.

Calm water on our last day

Good bye Bahamas!

Day 4- I think I might be sick!

Todd and I started off the morning with another two tank dive. A great way to start the day! Our first dive was a wall that went straight, deep, deep down to ocean floor below. Pretty dark down there! We stayed around 55 feet for that dive. We saw a lot of lionfish, we had seen several the day before too, but they are pretty poisonous and stayed away from them. Todd runs out of air a lot faster than I do and we came up about 5 minutes before everyone else. Usually it's no big deal. The bad part today was the wind was so strong there were 4 foot swells that was making us a bit sea sick. We weren't the only ones. Our next dive spot couldn't get here fast enough. As we were gearing up, both Todd and I thought we'd lose our breakfast. I just sat there for a minute and breathed deeply. The dive master said he'd help me get my gear on so I could quickly jump in - it's much better underwater you don't feel the boat rocking! As he was helping me he thought better to move me to where I was sitting on the end of the boat, just in case. It wasn't me though! Todd came over, gave the fish a little something to feed on and then both of us quickly finished getting on our gear and jumped in!

This last dive was a pretty shallow dive and had all the freedom to explore the reef until one of ran out of air. We were so quick to jump in I forgot my camera! We saw so many great things on this dive- several sea urchins, a lobster, and we followed a turtle for quite some time. The fish were beautiful and soon our 45 minutes under was up! Our seasickness was much better and we ended on a great dive.

The girls were ready to hit the beach when we came back and we spent the rest of the day playing in the sand. We finally took Alec out and he enjoyed the sand for a little bit but once Todd got him with the waves splashing him, he wasn't too thrilled.

Abby and Brittany looking for shells and sea glass

working together to build a big castle!

Olivia's favorite thing to do was "rain sand."

Kaitlyn found a coconut!

After a great day at the beach, we explored the rocks a little more and Abby found a conch shell! What a great souvenir that we could bring home.

Sunset from the back patio.

Day 3- Shark Diving

View from the back patio

Building castles

Mummy Abby

This morning started out with a few hours building sand castles at the beach and riding the waves. We spotted a turtle floating not too far out but each time we went out to find it, it was gone. Abby was loving that she could snorkel and Olivia and Kaitlyn were busy building castles and digging holes. We needed to start packing up and head back to the home for lunch so Todd and I could go diving in the afternoon. There was an outdoor shower next to one of the pools and we headed there to rinse the kids off.

As I was walked in the back with Olivia, we had to walk down several concrete stairs to get to the pool. I was in front and turned around for Olivia when she then pointed off to the distance to ask what something was and then tumbled headfirst down the stairs. It was a scary sight and I can still see it in my mind. I was afraid she cracked her forehead open. We were lucky that it was just a big scratch down the front of her face. I quickly picked her up and rushed her back to the home to give her a warm bath and clean her up. After thirty minutes of hugs and cuddling she was doing just fine.

Ouch!

Todd and I were getting ready to do our first diving since we got certified two years ago. We had been diving before (Cozumel and The Great Barrier Reef) but now we were finally going on some bigger dives being certified. Our dives today were going to be shark dives. We heard that this is one of the things to do in the Bahamas so we thought we'd try it out.

We were both a bit nervous at first but our training came back to us and everything went smoothly. Our first dive was around a couple ship wrecks and there were about 6 sharks swimming around us. We also saw a pretty large stingray. It was good to get back in the water again.

Our second dive was the shark feeding. We were holding onto the railing of a sunken ship on the outside. Todd and I were both hit many times by the sharks as they swam right next to us. There were about 25-30 sharks in all and it was pretty cool to be that close. We had specific instructions so our risks of getting bit were brought down. The worst part was that we were cold in our wet suits. We weren't swimming around so it got cold towards the end. The dive master led the sharks away at the end with the bait and then we were able to search the top of the boat for shark teeth. I found 2! Great souvenirs!

Todd and I -second from the right - he has yellow goggles

Day 2 - Downtown Nassau

After a long day of travel, we thought we'd take Monday easy. We slept in until 7:00 (crazy I know!) and watched a little TV. While Alec went down for his morning nap, we decided to explore the complex. Just behind our patio the girls spotted hermit crabs so that was our first place to try out, the rocks behind the home.

We found some sea glass and thousands and thousands of shells which we first thought were more hermit crabs. They were actually snails. It was still pretty cool though.

(If you made the picture larger, you could see a lot of white shells all over the rocks- the snails)

We made our way down to the beach area and the girls really couldn't wait to get in. Unfortunately for them, they were going to have to wait until later that afternoon when we got back from town.

After a nice lunch on the patio we geared up and headed downtown. The easy way for us was to catch the local buses that pass in front of the gates of the complex. A #10 jitney bus. It's basically a 21 seater. It's $1.25 per person, one way and it seems as if each jitney is owned by individuals. We were in some that were so clean and nice and we were in some like this first one, torn seats, and 4 black air fresheners tied to the ceiling to make it smell nice.

First stop in downtown Nassau was the Pirate Museum. There was a man dressed in pirate gear and threatened the girls that he was going to cut their hair and make it into rope. We didn't last long in the museum. It was a wax museum and it was dark and the girls were a bit scared. I was thinking someone might jump out at us! Olivia was in the stroller, hands over her ears and cried the whole time.

Next stop was to the Queen's Staircase. These stairs were built by the slaves to honor Queen Victoria. Todd had suggested that we get back on the main touristy road, walk three or four blocks down and then walk back up (about mile total distance) to where the sight was. I was the dumb one and didn't want to backtrack a couple blocks and said, "no, let's just go up from here and then cross over." Dumb, dumb, me. Everything was okay for a couple blocks and then some of the sidewalks ended. We were crossing back and forth in traffic and it was what we call a "Stephanie walk" (we had one in Manly, Australia too). We walked and walked and walked. Poor kids- Abby really complained about all the walking. We crossed a little fruit stand in a residential area and our sitter saw some smaller steps on a hill and asked, "are those the steps? Should we go up them?" I said that those weren't the steps (they weren't) and we kept going down this poor residential area with our young children. Ahh! We asked one lady where the steps were and she didn't know what we were talking about. Luckily we found it a couple blocks away and ended up at the top of the stairs coming in from the back area. We had a good laugh. We toured Fort Fincastle at the top and saw the stairs our sitter had pointed out that would have saved us about 5-10 minutes! D'oh! We mentioned our walk to a man working there and he asked us if we passed the fruit stand. We thought it was funny that the stand was used as a landmark. We did enjoy the views from the top of the Fort and heard some great history at the stairs. The stairs were a nice sight to see. Going back to the buses we took the most direct route with sidewalks! It was still a nice long walk though.

From the top of the stairs- where we started

At the bottom- where we ended

We capped off the day with spending a couple hours at the beach.

Day 1 - Getting There

We left Texas on a Sunday morning. I woke up at 7:00 to find the girls dressed and ready to go. Our flight wasn't until 12 and I had a feeling it was going to be a very long day. The kids did very well. The hardest part was the 2 hour layover in Miami. We finally landed in Nassau by 7:30 and when it was dark. The first item of business was getting to the rental and then getting dinner and food for the week for everyone.

We were the last group to go through immigration- no line because taking 4 kids to the bathroom took awhile. Our cab almost got into an accident within the first few seconds coming out of the airport- almost hit a bus and I had no seatbelt!

Once at the home, we got the kids settled down for a movie with the sitter and Todd and I headed out in search of food. We were in a gated community so we stopped to ask the guard how far the closet store was - a mile away - and it was closed! We decided we have to get something so we started walking on the road, there were no sidewalks. Within a couple minutes, a nice taxi pulled over and the driver offered her assistance. She took us to a store, waited for us to shop (prices were 3x the amount of US, $8 for a small box of Frosted Flakes) and took us home only asking $15! I told Todd to tip her well.

When we returned home, the sitter told us that the toilets weren't flushing. Not good. With 6 people this could turn into something ugly. The toilets were on a vacuum system and were really loud when they did work. Every time the girls flushed the toilet, they would quickly cover their ears, and then the loud whoosh sound would go. Olivia would say, "that was loud!"

Miraculously, at 3 AM, the main one flushed waking us up. We later found out the whole complex was having issues. Glad it didn't stay or we would have packed up and tried our luck with a hotel.

Bahamas!

It had been a couple of years since we really took a family vacation. Being pregnant and a new baby prevented us from traveling much. So about a month ago Todd and I decided now was a good time to go somewhere. With about a month time of planning, looking through many travel books and websites.

I did start calling around to some hotels to see what they did have available for our large family. Most people like to go to the Atlantis in the Bahamas. I called them up, we were choosing a suite large enough to accommodate us and for four nights and the fifth free, the total came to $10,000! I laughed on the phone. That was not including food or airline. I couldn't believe how much it was. I even found some other deals a few weeks later that had our stay at $7,000! Unbelievable. The lady on the phone asked if I wanted to save the rate and spot and I said there was no way we were going to. She asked how much I wanted to spend and I told her at least half of that. She then said, you cannot do a trip at that cost. I just said, yes we will we just won't be staying at the Atlantis!

I started looking into vacation rentals, we had about four islands/spots we were originally looking at and what it came down to was: rental available on the dates we wanted with 3 bedroom, kitchen, pool, and beach. That narrowed us down to 3 spots. The final draw was flight cost and time it took to get there. By the time that was all done Bahamas was the winner!

This was the complex that had our little town home in it. We had pretty much a private beach and pool. We had lots of space and plenty for the kids to do.