welcome to our vacation album! we spent a week at the casa del mar resort in la romana, dominican republic. this was david's first time out of the country, my mango fix, and a much needed doing-nothing-on-a-beach for both of us. eddie, david's mom, joined us on vacation, and we had a super time relaxing together!
our flights there were all great, and it began raining while we were in puerto rico on a layover waiting to fly to the d.r. the rain stopped momentarily while we were going through customs in the d.r., but as soon as we stepped foot on the resort it came down in buckets...and then the wind began. after escaping to our room we turned on the weather channel and learned were were in the middle of tropical storm fay. before we left my mom had warned us a storm was coming, but i told her not to rain on my parade--if i didn't know about rain, my beach would stay perfectly sunlit! ahh, ignorance is bliss. according to the weather channel, it was supposed to stay cloudy and rainy for the next three days. we unpacked and then sat in bed watching seinfeld re-runs in spanish. i was imagining returning to the states looking as white as when i'd left it, getting wet while walking in the rain instead of in the ocean, and spending hour after hour watching tv instead of fish. i was not a happy camper. but we woke up the next morning and voila--sun, ocean waves, humidity, and more sun!! let the vacation begin!! on sunday david and i grabbed a taxi and ventured in to the city of la romana for church. i wish i'd taken a photo of the building. it reminded me of brasil--the wall around the building, barbed wire, grates on the windows, etc. and the people were just as warm as brasilians. the spanish on the island is "lazy"--i had a hard time understanding it and translating into "portunol"--a mix between purtuguesa e espanola. it was a fun outing, and we're glad we went. 
(photos are in no particular order) here's the clear water. nothing like the brown atlantic of delaware and bethany beaches where i went growing up. we spent a lot of time snorkeling and saw not only a ton of fish, but 2 octipus (octipi?), a family of squid, eels, stingrays, and clams. the water was churned up from fay, but there were times of the day (probably coinciding with the tide) where the water was clearer.
we went on a day trip to a neighboring island, catalina. these were little boats on the beach before we boarded our speedboat to take us to catalina. we also did a pit stop on a river boat and a little village on a hill. the village is actually a resort, and was originally built as a movie set!
i love those modern art paintings of shades of greys and blues striped across the canvas. i don't think i captured the same feeling here with this photo, but i tried.
the view from our resort alcove. i love the white boats on the water.
you know you're somewhere good when you see palm trees around you!
david and eddie snorkeling the morning of our last day there. they wanted to try and see one more octipus.
here's the view while we were kyaking.
eddie found this spot for a beautiful photo. this is at the city/set from our day trip. i know it doesn't seem like it, but we both have pretty good tans at this point:.)
eddie overlooking the river from the city/set.
on the boat ready to leave catalina island.
(photos are in no particular order) here's the clear water. nothing like the brown atlantic of delaware and bethany beaches where i went growing up. we spent a lot of time snorkeling and saw not only a ton of fish, but 2 octipus (octipi?), a family of squid, eels, stingrays, and clams. the water was churned up from fay, but there were times of the day (probably coinciding with the tide) where the water was clearer. 
we went on a day trip to a neighboring island, catalina. these were little boats on the beach before we boarded our speedboat to take us to catalina. we also did a pit stop on a river boat and a little village on a hill. the village is actually a resort, and was originally built as a movie set! 
i love those modern art paintings of shades of greys and blues striped across the canvas. i don't think i captured the same feeling here with this photo, but i tried.
the view from our resort alcove. i love the white boats on the water.
you know you're somewhere good when you see palm trees around you!
david and eddie snorkeling the morning of our last day there. they wanted to try and see one more octipus.
here's the view while we were kyaking. 
eddie found this spot for a beautiful photo. this is at the city/set from our day trip. i know it doesn't seem like it, but we both have pretty good tans at this point:.)
eddie overlooking the river from the city/set.
on the boat ready to leave catalina island.overall i'd say our vacation was a hit. we did a lot of reading, snorkeling, sitting on the beach, and enjoying the sun. our ride home wasn't as smooth as the ride there. our flight leaving the d.r. was delayed about 2 hours, so we missed all our subsequent connections. we were supposed to have arrived home friday night at 1130, making it in time for the triathlon saturday morning. fate would have it otherwise. once we finally made it to puerto rico, we got re-routed to bwi and dulles. the earliest flight coming back to utah would land at 10am on saturday. so we flew from puerto rico to bwi, got a shuttle to dulles, and my mom picked us up at 2am so we could sleep at her place before catching our flight to slc the next morning at 745. my dad was visiting byu for education week (and stayed at our place while we were gone--thanks for taking care of our birds, dad!), so he picked us up on saturday and we visited until he left for his flight around 230.
we were really disappointed that we missed the tri, but really glad to have finally made it home. now we are spending this week "reacclimating" to life.
