Caribbean Vacation! Part One

I'm finally finding some time to start posting pictures from our Spring Break Caribbean Vacation. It started out a little too eventfully. About a week and a half before we were to leave, Kris had to have emergency surgery on his eye for a retinal detachment. Part of the surgery is placing an air bubble in the eye to hold the retina in place. Over time that bubble will be reabsorbed by the body. That typically takes 2-6 weeks. Before that bubble is reabsorbed, a person can't fly because of the pressure changes. So we had to decide to what to do. Do we cancel? Do we hope the bubble will go away in time? Do we all drive to Florida? Thankfully Kris's mom came to the rescue. She drove from Minnesota to here. And then she and Kris rented a car and they drove the 20+ hours to Fort Lauderdale while I flew with the kids.

 It was an adventure flying with both kids by myself. (though preferable to riding in the car with them for 20 hours! Stian would have been fine, but Silje would have hated it) For the most part they were really, really good for me. Stian was on his best behavior. The only issue that I had anticipated was that I had no idea how I would get him into the airplane bathroom if he needed to go in flight. I could do it on my own, but not while holding Silje. And I couldn't leave her in the seat by herself. So I made Stian wear a pull-up on the plane. He was okay with it in theory, but when he actually had to pee while we were on the plane he had a really hard time and a little melt down because he really didn't want to "pee his pants". But other than that, all went well. And Kris and Betsy were at the airport waiting for us when we arrived.

 Stian has been really into airplanes lately, so he really enjoyed watching all the doings at the airport.

We made it! Here we are having dinner in Fort Lauderdale. Look - they are in summery clothes! (little did we know it was going to turn to summer at home while we were gone too!)

Waiting for the shuttle to the boat the next morning.

We made it! We're on the boat! Stian is also really into boats, so he enjoyed watching all the doings in the port too.

Doesn't he just look like he's saying "ah, this is the life!"?

Our first port of call was Princess Cays. This is a private beach owned by Princess Cruises on one of the Bahamas. It was really lovely. The weather was perfect, the beach was pretty, and Betsy has a reserved a cabana for us. The cabana was really nice. It was nice to have a place to put our stuff and hang out, and a place for me to nurse Silje away from everyone else. As for you can see in the pictures below, Stian especially seemed to really love it. He loved playing in the water and playing on the beach. He had a really nice day.