We are IN the Caribbean!

So it's been an entire month since I've blogged! And what a month it has been!! It went so fast. We got to visit lots with Jaron's family while we stayed at his parents house. Then me and the boys made a trip up to Canada to visit my family and we had a fun visit there.. I also got to hang out with a bunch of friends from high school while we there. Anyway, lots of great fun with lots of great people. Maybe someday I'll catch up and post pictures but today is not the day.

Yesterday Jaron's brother drove us down to Salt Lake to catch our plane. The downside: our flight left at one in the morning! The boys ran around the airport until Eli crashed at 11:30. Alden followed around midnight. We then had a 3 hour flight to Atlanta followed by a 4 hour layover. Our flight from Atlanta to St. Maarten lasted 4 hours. Even though Jaron and I are running on an hour and a half of sleep each in the last 36 hours or so, WE MADE IT!

As soon as we stepped off the airplane, my first thought was: Wow, it is HUMID here! My second thought was: Wow, it is HOT here! Third thought: Wow, it is BEAUTIFUL here! It has really actually been hitting me how wild of a thing it is that we're doing here in the last 48 hours or so. It is so cool to be here but it is still kind of scary because so much is still so, well, foreign and unknown to us. We found a great hotel, though, and as soon as we had our bags in the room, we hit the pool. NICE! We are definitely going to have to make that a habit while we're here. Then we drove around and found a little grocery store and bought sandwich fixins for dinner. We took them to a little beach we saw on the way and Alden LOVED it! He kept running into the waves (fully clothed) and kept trying to build a "sand castle." Eli couldn't keep the sand off him or out of his mouth. Even though he just sat there, he was covered in sand from head to toe when we left (and now so is our rental car). We then drove around the island a little bit but didn't find anything like what we were looking for (i.e. the ferry we're supposed to take to Saba).

Here are my first impressions of St. Maarten: Even though it is very touristy, a lot of it seems to be kind of run down. I love the quaintness of this place. For instance, our hotel is surrounded by trees bearing coconuts and cages filled with exotic birds and monkeys. Not your average American Inn, by all means.

Sorry, my pictures aren't posting. I sure hope this gets posted!