Monster Cookies

Preparing for Cuba

Author: Amber

January 21 - NINE DAYS!

In nine days the six of us will join with nine other family members and board a plane headed for sunny Varadero, Cuba!

I have to say I am very excited!

We are not really the type of family that takes luxury vacations. We are the “hop in the van and drive across the country” type. However, JD’s parents are taking us on this trip, their treat, in memory of one of their parents. We are very blessed.

Our children are still warming up to the idea even though they’ve known about it for quite awhile. One of them is nervous about the plane ride. One about wildlife on the beach. One of us is worried about illness that comes with travelling outside of your home country, while another of us laughs at the uneasiness of that one. One of us really isn’t old enough to know what exactly is going on, and the remaining one really just goes along with whatever is happening that moment (as long as Mom or Dad is visible and on board with that happening).

But we are going. In NINE days.

I am so not ready. I have so so SO much packing, unpacking, and repacking to do. We have wonderful friends who lent us a fantastic luggage set so we didn’t have to buy one (so very much appreciated!). We have friends offering us rides to the airport (also much appreciated because one of us is nervous about C riding on our laps in a taxi and not in a carseat).

JD finally convinced me to buy a bikini. We’ll see how much that gets worn. Maybe I’ll be more comfortable in it when I see that everyone else on the beach is wearing a bikini (or going topless, which I’ve also read is a common occurrence).

Ready or not, though, we are leaving in nine days. I have some work to do!

January 28 - Two More Sleeps

We are leaving for Cuba in two sleeps. In 48 hours we will have been on a plane for about 2 hours already, with about 3 hours to go. Just less than halfway to the beach.

Can you believe it??? I can’t!

I am terrified that something is going to go wrong. Someone is going to get sick. Something is going to happen that will prevent the vacation from taking place. I’m trying desperately to remember how I felt before I went on any of my other trips (Bahamas, Hawaii, Eastern Canada & US), and I can’t remember. Not that it would be even close to the same sort of thing now, you know, since I’m an adult with children and not a teenager without a care in the world.

Anyway…I have been watching the weather forecast for Varadero and it is not looking so good. Sunday it is supposed to rain and Monday shows only clouds. Not even a half of a sun to give me hope for a sunny beach day. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I have hope that there will be sun. Just because I am like that. Hopeful. Too much. All the time.

The bright side of clouds…a cloudy but warm day will give us time to get used to the temperature and the bright sun separately. We wouldn’t want it to be cold and sunny. Warm and cloudy is much better. Plus, that will be a great day to take pictures. Aren’t overcast days just the perfect light for some great shots? I’m not a photographer by any stretch of the imagination, BUT I do notice that pictures that I take outside on an overcast day are the most beautiful pictures in my collection.

Here’s to rain and heat - two of my favourite things - to start off our vacation, and then hopes for six hot and sunny days after that!

January 30 - Today’s the Day!

We are leaving for the airport in two hours.

Two long hours from now.

We are packed. We are ready. We are waiting.

The kids are misbehaving instead of cleaning the basement (don’t want to come home to a messy house, right?). They come upstairs occasionally asking if we can just go now.

JD and I are sitting and computing and playing phone games and cleaning and discussing and waiting.

I have had a stomach ache all day in anticipation of the adventure on which we are about to embark. Eleven years ago today JD and I got married and I also had a stomach ache then, the same nervous excited feeling, but anticipating a much longer and fuller adventure - a marriage. It makes me smile that these two events are happening on the same day - I can imagine us old and grey one day, sitting in rockers on our front deck and saying, “Remember that time we went to Cuba on our anniversary?” Then we’ll talk about it for hours, remembering all the funny things that the kids did and the mishaps of the trip. We’ll think about JD’s grandpa and comment how generous and sweet it was for JD’s parents to take us on a family vacation in his memory.

Our Cuba adventure will be just one week long, but I can feel that it will be a big event that we remember forever - I cannot wait to live it out.

Let’s make some memories!!

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 9:23 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.