Spent yesterday morning feeding flamingoes and exploring Renaissance Island together. Last week Superman and I headed to Aruba for a quick "babymoon" while Nana and Libby stayed with the boys and helped them keep their normal routine. :-)
It was so nice to get away just the two of us without the boys having to miss their last days of school. When we first arrived on Thursday we sat on the beach for a little while and I started to say how half of the fun of going on beach vacations is watching the boys play in the ocean! Then I got all choked up and the tears started lol!! Thankfully that just lasted for a moment though! :-) We quickly realized that random naps and sleeping in still exists haha!!
Renaissance Island Flamingo Beach was on my bucket list of places to see - so we spent a night at the Renaissance Hotel and took the boat out to the island. We went on Sunday evening but it was SO crowded :-/ I was actually pretty disappointed at first. There were some people chasing the flamingoes to take photos with them and just... idk. It bugged me so bad watching people so we just got a couple virgin pina coladas and relaxed in the quiet areas we found.
We got up early on Monday and took the first boat out to the island again around 7:15am. We were one of maybe two couples on the entire island. It was so peaceful and we were able to explore the island, take a few photos and interact with the flamingoes peacefully when there weren't droves of people. It felt so magical!!
Being 33 weeks pregnant wasn't the easiest on this trip but most 95% of the time it was great. :-) There was that 5% of the time where I would just get so hot and out of breath or my feet would swell from walking but thankfully nothing too major!
This day we had just grabbed Starbucks and were heading out on a boat tour/ snorkeling adventure. The first couple days of our trip we stayed at Holiday Inn Resort on Palm Beach, Aruba so we were walking distance to all the shops and restaurants in that area. Starbucks was across the street, the flea market stands (where I bought this dress) were right there too, it was really nice to be able to enjoy the nightlife as late as we could manage to stay up lol! (never made it past 9:30pm lol!!)
The snorkeling was so fun! They took us to three different locations including a shipwreck - and goodness that ship was huge! I thought it would just be a boat underwater but when they told the history behind why the ship exploded it was a way bigger deal than I anticipated. So amazing to see, plus all the tropical fish swimming in and around it was a cool bonus!
I know we were only there a few days but my belly definitely popped more while we were there!
Superman trying to make my sunglasses work! :-P I bought him 2 pair before our trip but he forgot to bring them so thankfully I brought some extra lol!
Palm Beach, Aruba was gorgeous! The beaches were pretty quiet most of the time but the locals were telling us that it's not normally this peaceful. Cruise ships will start running again in June and once that happens about 5,000 people from each ship flood the beaches and streets.
We came just in time to miss all the crazy that's about to unload on the island! But they made it very clear that they're SO grateful for those crazy times. It's been an eerily quiet year for them with 3 months of complete shut down last year and then just a slow trickle of tourists coming after that. It's been a tough year on all the locals who survive off of tourism.
So blessed that we were able to take this time together. <3 With baby boy #3 almost here our world is about to change in a big way and this made us stop and just appreciate where we are right now, in this moment.
We got home and the boys have been asking if they can go to Aruba now. lol!! They also begged for virgin pina coladas once they heard we had a couple so we went to the Mexican Restaurant where we all indulged in a taste of the islands ;-)
Thanks for reading
xoxo
Deanna
P.S. If you're thinking about traveling to Aruba, right now the COVID restrictions require a negative test within 3 days prior to traveling to Aruba AND a negative test within 3 days of re-entering the U.S. Just something to keep in mind :-) Even if you've had the vaccine, it's still a requirement along with wearing masks indoors. A lot of the Aruba resorts offer tests free of charge.