Bahamas // DAY 7

The last day. Booooo. We didn't really have much of a "last day" since our shuttle to the airport was at 8 a.m. To be honest, neither Seth and I were feeling 100% but we felt well enough to fly without being nervous about getting sick.

We had to have our luggage outside by 7 a.m., so once we got ready and put our suitcases outside, we headed to the breakfast buffet which opened at 7:30 a.m. for one last (very quick) breakfast. We ate nice and light and safe. HA! 

We were the only two people on the shuttle back to the airport. We got dropped off right at the American Airlines door and we were checked in super quick. The Nassau airport is nothing like other Caribbean airports we've been too. It felt super nice, had American restaurants (Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Wendy's, etc.), great wifi and superb people watching. 

We were there soooo early though. We walked around, bought a rum cake, and courtesy checked our carry on rolling suitcases so we'd have free hands in Charlotte. Score! 

The rest of the day went smoothly -- early flights and no issues -- and was a good end to our trip.

We had a phenomenal week. All we wanted was a week away to relax, reconnect, and celebrate 10 years. Though life is so often chaotic and stressful, we got just what we wanted. I never forget how amazing my husband is but a week like this gave us a chance to remind each other why we fell in love in the first place. We hope to do a "just us" trip every 5 or so years. A big thanks to our parents for watching the kids. It was super calming to know they were in loving, great hands! 

Here's to one decade (almost) down with many more to go!

Bahamas // DAY 6

Friday was our last full day in the Bahamas...super bittersweet. I was really missing the kids by this point, but was sad that this was our last day in paradise. Of course we decided to spend the day just hanging out on the resort. :) Perfection! We got up, reserved our umbrella seats by the pool (in fact, one of the couples whose butler reserved them amazing seats was leaving this morning to head to the airport and they offered their spots to us. Woo hoo!) and went to breakfast at Spices, the breakfast buffet, like we had done most days. 

Then we walked around the resorts to get some parting photos of the beautiful place. The great thing about resorts like this is that people will offer to take your picture if they see you attempting to take a selfie. HA! So we were able to get this pic in the giant chair. 

My view from in the pool with a Bahama mama in my hand! 

Heaven on Earth. 

My view for basically the whole day!

So....these nachos. I can't believe we didn't discover them until mid-week. They were amazing. There were tons of toppings and you could just walk into the Royal Cafe to get them. We grabbed a bowl and enjoyed them with a view! (Sidenote: I have NO IDEA why Seth's stomach was acting up.) ;) 

This day was a little bit of a bummer in that Seth was really not feeling great after lunch. We had the Italian buffet but he hardly made it through lunch before he wanted to go back to the room to lay down. We both went back to take a nap. I am the nap QUEEN but after 45 minutes of resting, I couldn't bear to be spending the gorgeous day in the room. So I left a sleeping Seth to head back down to the pool and beach. I was down there for another hour and a half or so before he wandered down, still feeling a bit blah.

Look. at. that. water. AHHH. I miss this so much! 

The life....haha :) 

For dinner Friday night, we were going to Crystal Room, the fanciest restaurant at the plate. Seth was feeling a little bit better but it didn't last too long...I got my dessert to go and we headed back to the room for a bit for his stomach to settle. 

When he was feeling a little better, we took a walk to check out the penthouse gym with a view. WOW, I'm glad we did. So peaceful and gorgeous. And right at sunset. 

And then we found this place. I have no idea why we never looked for something like this earlier. Probably because there was good entertainment every night but Friday night's entertainment wasn't that great. We found this giant comfy chairs to sit back and watch the sun set over the ocean. We sat for probably an hour and a half or more. We even Facetimed with the kids!! The weather was picture perfect -- NOT the 95 + humidity we had been experiencing all week, but breezy and cooler. 

Bahamas // DAY 5

On Thursday, we took a Bahamian food and historic tour in downtown Nassau. We had to leave the resort at 10:45 a.m. to be taken by shuttle downtown. So we got up kind of early that day and had breakfast and hit up the pool by 8 a.m. so we could enjoy a couple hours before leaving. 

I headed back to the room around 10 a.m. to get ready, put on some make up and whatnot. In our room, I bent down to move the camera bag and A LIZARD CAME OUT FROM BEHIND IT. I promptly freaked out (because Seth was still down at the pool for awhile) and began sending him SOS texts to his phone. He wasn't responding but he finally came back around 10:30. I had been sitting on the bed watching his every move when Seth returned. I had already contacted the front desk about maybe putting some sort of door blocker at the bottom of our door because the gap was so big lizards could fit. But Seth to the rescue! He used our selfie stick to shoo the little guy out -- RIGHT into the room of the people next door. WHOOPS!!! 

At 10:45, we headed down to the lobby for what we assumed was going to be a busy excursion. To our surprise, we were the only people from the resort on this tour which was super awkward for us. As the shuttle pulled away from Sandals, we thought we were going to be fully alone with the tour guide for the next couple hours. But then things got weirder. Our shuttle driver pulls up in front of a gigantic church--the Christ Church Cathedral--opens the door, and tells us to have a great day! We were like "Ummmmmm...." He told us that the tour starts "near the church" and that someone should be meeting us soon. We waited for 15 minutes and still no one. 

Nassau is not a safe city at all, which is ironic because of all the Caribbean places we or I've been, this one by far felt the most developed and safe. But apparently, Nassau has the highest murder rate in the Caribbean--and that includes the tourist ridden areas as well. It's also rampant with petty crime and armed robberies. So I was not thrilled by the fact that we were standing there alone, looking 100% like tourists.

But then finally, another couple showed up and then a family of 4. Thank God. Our tour guide, Nick, showed up shortly after! 

The tour combined several food stops with historical information and buildings, so it was really fun. Our first stop was to a traditional Bahamian lunch cafe where we were served what's below. From top left, clockwise: mac and cheese, rice and peas, steamed chicken, cole slaw and fried plantains. Everything was really good except the plantains. Weird. We were also served conch fritters at this restaurant. 

The balcony house--the oldest wooden structure in Nassau

I loved all the bright colors of the buildings downtown! 

Other stops along the way included a Cigar Factory where we saw them being rolled, the Graycliff mansion, Chocolate Factory, a gelato place, rum cake factory, etc. We tasted fresh chocolates, banana gelato (amazing!!!), rum cake, various spices and hot sauces, conch chowder, and a Greek salad.

Governor's place

At one of the tops, I was able to get a coconut with a straw which I've always wanted to do. Ew. Ew. Ew. I was expecting cold, refreshing, sweet milk and it was anything but. It was bitter, salty water basically. I seriously could have barfed it was so disgusting!! Needless to say, that was $10 down the drain. (I still shudder thinking about the taste of that. BLECH)

After our last stop at the rum cake factory, the Sandals driver was back to get us and we made our very short drive to the resort which is good because Seth wasn't feel very well at all. He was sick for most of the afternoon and just feeling generally blah. We had a 9 p.m. dinner reservation so we came back and got changed and went to the pool/beach for the afternoon to just relax. We were kind of hoping Seth feeling sick was a fluke, but it wasn't so much. He was off and on sick for the rest of this day (Thursday) and into tomorrow...

We did manage to clean up and go to dinner though. Before that, we headed to the resort gift shop which was really good. We got Carter a stuffed turtle, some Bahamian vanilla for us, Bahamian spices for our parents, and hand carved pencils for the kids. 

Our reservation was for Gordon's on the Pier. It was so pretty out there--a gorgeous, cool, breezy night. We had fillet and shrimp skewers, but were both feeling a bit blah so we headed back to the room after and watched some TV and just headed to bed.

The beautiful view from our dinner table. 

Bahamas // DAY 4

Wednesday was, of course, another gorgeous day (as if I had any doubts!). It was strictly a pool and beach day which was just fine with me. We opted for the "loud" pool because it was just closer to the beach and the weather was picture-perfect so I knew I'd want to spend a lot of time in the ocean. We had breakfast at the buffet again. It was a little disappointing because the items on the buffet really didn't change day-to-day. I mean, you could of course get different things but there wasn't anything "new." 

I played with the waterproof phone case again and took pics like the one above and the ones below. Four days in and I was just still in absolute awe at  how gorgeous the water was! 

For lunch we hit up the Royal Grill. Seth had a wrap and I had some sort of steak sandwich. This is also the day that we discovered the nachos. Holy cow. We've obviously had nachos before but these were ah.maz.ing. We kept our will power though and only had them for lunch on this day and then one other time later in the week. WIN. 

We were so tired after this day for some reason. I think it was just so much time out in the sun that it was draining. We had a 6 p.m. dinner reservation at the French restaurant, Baccarat, and we were actually very tired for it. (In hindsight I can now see that it was perhaps the beginning of Seth getting sick...)

The entertainment on this night was some sort of Reggae band. They were good but we were seriously just so tired and blah. We went outside to watch this man roll Cuban cigars right in front of the crowd. I couldn't believe how quick it was to make one. At this point, Seth was feeling a little "off" so we just hung out by the pier and then headed back to the room to relax and go to bed. We scheduled an off-site excursion for Thursday, too! 

Bahamas // DAY 3

On Tuesday, we opted to check out the Sandals private island, which is part of the resort we went to. You take a boat to the island, which leaves every hour. The first boat of the day is what you need to take in order to have any chance whatsoever of getting a cabana or umbrella on the island so we took that. It was SUCH a gorgeous day! 

We didn't really get a cabana we'd want (too far from the pool) so we opted for a cabana by the pool and just walk to the beach (super close) when we wanted to get in. How amazing are the toys here? Swings, hammocks, lily pad things in the water, etc. We were the only people from the first boat on the front of the island for awhile. I wish I had a picture of me trying to get on this swing. Embarrassing!! 

There's a restaurant, Stewfish, on the island, so we had lunch there. We just had basic cheeseburgers which were really good. We tried guava rum cake which was just eh. 

Look. at. that. water! I could have just stared at it all day! The snorkeling on the back part of the island (what you see below) is supposedly the best, so we put on our gear we brought from home and headed out. While I'll swim in Caribbean water, I am still a major baby about sharks and stuff so I didn't want to go further than what I could touch bottom for. Seth, however, was a snorkeling machine and snorkeled to another island. Um, no thanks. I was doing really well until someone on the beach was like "Head over that way! There's awesome parrot fish and a five foot shark!" And I was all "Um, peace out. You can find me on the beach."

My view while Seth snorkeled...I just kept my eye on him to make sure that five-footer didn't get him. ;) 

We came back and hung out at the pool for a bit. But we were getting a bit too much sun for our pasty white skin, so we headed in to get ready for dinner. We had a 6 p.m. reservation for Kimonos, the Japanese hibachi place. We sat with fun people and Seth was able to get his unlimited sushi but other than that, the experience and food was basically like you'd experience at any hibachi place in the U.S. Nothing we had was BAD; it just didn't blow us away. Seth got rice pudding for dessert and I passed because I wanted to try the bread pudding from the pub, so we got that to go! (Holy cow, AMAZING, by the way)

After dinner, we headed to the magician in the Royal Theater. He was so good and so entertaining, I kind of wished it wouldn't end. We did some more hammock and pier relaxing. Heavenly! :) 

Oh--and we also checked in on the kids tonight. We couldn't get Skype to work and Facetime was sketchy too. So we used our calling card and used our room phone to call and talk to the kids at Oma and Opa's. It was not a great idea; the kids had been doing fine and we made them a bit weepy and we didn't realize that even with a 1-800 number calling card, we were still paying $2/minute to call the U.S. WHOOPS. Oh well. Live and learn....