I had a wonderful revelation..

.. while on vacation. It was wonderful just to be in our own little sphere, and observe people around us. There were tall, short, round, slender, fit, pudgy, tan, pale, bright red, old and young people all around us. And a wonderful mix of couples - fit, with chunky, tall with short, tan with red, and so on.. and it was wonderfully liberating to walk around on the beach in my bikini, and not worry about my flabby tummy or thick arms.

And.. I finally came ro the wonderful conclusion that the next guy I DO date, will have to be an extraordinarily great guy. He's got to love my imperfections, my battle scars, and adore ME.
No more complaints about my weight, abt nor having a haircut every 3 weeks, abt what I eat or how I dress. No more leeches, no more selfishness.

And.. I am all done being the 'man' or the mom, in the relationship.

Not ever again. I'd rather be on my own, if that's the case.

My tummy.. has cool stretchmarks.. without them Maddie wouldn't be here. My ribcage has a cool scar, without it *I* might not be here. My self worth was a bit shattered, but.. I am working on re-building it, and am doing a decent job.

I have fold, and flabby pieces of skin, but.. as long as I can accept them, whoever I chose as my mate will have to accept them, too..

and.. last but not least..

the last day. They day we have to leave the island, and go home to every day life, again. :|
We slept in, ate a huge breakfast (as usual), spent a couple of hours in the pool.. Maddie did NOT want to get up, she was running on the shallow end, back and forth, shouting 'row, ROW, bumblebutt!!'. No idea what a 'bumblebutt' is, but.. it was something immensly funny to her. :)
She made a friend in a little Indian girl, even got to borrow her floatie for a while, until we had to get up to leave. By the time we got back to the hotel room (being the time optimist that i am) it was a good thing i had already packed, because.. we were running mad late, as usual. The shuttle bus was supposed to leave at 11.35 for the airport, we walked out of the room at 11.20.. And still needed to return the towels to the pool area, give a heads up to the shuttle but ppl, and check out of the hotelroom.. :)
we were done with all that, just as the bus pulled up outside of the hotel. *phew*
Quick 5 minute ride to the airport, and of course there's a problem with my check-in.. it was the same thing when we left LA, just because i don't have a 'resident card'. So.. instead of using the self check in, we have to go to the counter. And present a bunch of passports, visas and what-not. While waiting for the lady to finish our check in, I eavesdrop on the conversation next to us, a man is trying to upgrade his tickets to business class on the same flight as us. The woman helping him tells him it's gonna be just over a grand to upgrade, and he declines. I receive my boarding passes, and don't really look at them, as i am more concerned abt getting to the line to the security check point.. that now reaches clear across the whole airport.
We get in line, but a woman working at the airport calls us out of the line and walks us up to the VIP side entrance, so we get to bypass the line all together (Maddie is still sleeping). She does however wake up when i have to lift her out of the stroller to walk thru the metal detector, but at that point she had already slept for a bit over an hour. Security check point cleared, as soon as we get upstairs we run into the newlyweds, so we get to spend a few more minutes with them before they have to wander off to their flight.

Me and Maddie have some pizza (that's her new favorite food - everything is Pizza, pizza, PIIIIIZZAAA now) and we walk over to our gate. I check out boarding passes for what group they've put us in this time, and it just says 'priority'.. i look at them again, confused. Then I check what seats we have, and we're in the 4th row.. So we just got upgraded - again!! Sweet!!! I quickly check the boarding passes for the second flight too, and they too state 'first class'. :) hahaha, the trip ends well, too..
Maddie and I was sitting in first class the whole way home, eating warm toasted peanuts, drinking wine (and apple juice) from real glasses, and eating food that actually tasted great.. Maddie fell asleep on the 2nd leg of the flight, and slept the whole way home.. It's kind of amusing to sit up there with a toddler.. Some people (not all) look at  you kind of funny. Oh well.. their problem. We enjoyed it immensely, the first and probably just about the only time this will ever happen. Definitely an awesome experience.

We arrived in LA just on schedule, the bags made it, and Cabber picked us up at the airport.. We had left a 28 degree weather in Montego Bay in the morning, only to land in a 16 degree weather in LA. Yuck.
But.. quite nice to be home, again.

Maddie being silly, with peanut in her hand

Like the old swedish saying goes: Borta bra, men hemma bast.

Day 4

We started with a large breakfast, and then went straight to the sea and beach. We got a bucket and some other beach toys yesterday evening, that Maddie was trying out today.. even tho she found the pacifier to be the most amusing toy.. she and a 3yr old boy started tossing it back and forth, and were laughing and having a jolly good time.
Tonight we have rehearsal dinner with the wedding party, we're meeting them at their hotel at 5.30. Maddie's grandpa, uncle and great grandpa are arriving this afternoon from Kingston, too, and I think that's the last people outstanding.


wow.. i wasn't prepared for what the outside of the hotel compound looked like.. i thought - in my ignorance - that it was gonna be a somewhat quaint town, where i could take a stroll with Maddie and do some shopping, but.. no. The simple fact that the hotel has barbed wire around the outskirts, and security guards manning the gate 24/7, *should* have been a dead give-away, but.. i guess i wasn't paying attention. And we arrived to late on Tuesday, that it was already pitch black outside the bus when we drove along the highway to the hotel. There WAS a small shopping center, a kind of a strip mall across the main road from the hotel, but.. i dunno. No need to be venturing out there, at all. A 1 minute drive down the road from the hotel there were people living in concrete and sheet metal shacks, ppl were standing in the middle of the road at the major intersections, peddling stuff - like peanuts, fruits, god knows what.. There were loads of cars, and crazy drivers.. In a way reminding me a little bit of the traffic in Crete.

Maddie's auntie and her fiance came to pick us up at the hotel, with half of his family also in the bus. We arrived at their hotel about 30 minutes later, as we got a bit stuck in traffic on the way there. Once there, we all headed over to the venue right next doors, where the wedding is supposed to be. Maddie was getting tired at this point, she was not happy at all with everybody trying to get her attention, only wanted to get in the 'wadeerr', and screaming bloody murder. The only person she liked was the violin player, a blond haired girl.. Go Figure.
We left the venue at 8'ish, Maddie was screaming bloody murder, she was tired beyond reason (she had only slept 30 minutes earlier in the day), we all walked over to the hotel, and.. once there they were very reluctant in letting me in, since i didn't have a bracelet stating that i was staying there... We got stuck in the gate for a few minutes, as we tried to explain to the security guard that i just needed to get thru the gate to get in the shuttle bus to go back to my hotel. Ha, the guard even asked the groom if HE was the bus driver. :(
Once on the bus, Maddie curled up on my lap (in her new fave sleeping position - legs folded, she's kind of sitting on her knees on top of my lap, arms folded under her) and she was asleep before we even reached the main road. She didn't stir as i offloaded everything at the hotel, didn't stir as i walked her in the stroller thru the restaurant to pick up some food, didn't stir as i put her to bed.. She slept for 12 hours straight, and woke up happy as a clam on Saturday morning. :)

and on to day 5.

/Carina

Day 2 and 3

Went by in a blur.. we didn't do much else than eat, sleep, play in the pool, eat some more, sleep some more.. Maddie has taken 2 naps a day since we got here, she hasn't done that since she was some 15 months old.. but I have a feeling its a combination of the 2 hr time difference, and also playing all day, every day.
We did have a chance to see her grandmother, aunts and cousins on Thursday evening. It was great, since Maddie hasn't seen her aunts since she turned 1, and she's never met her paternal grandmother before. She got a little bit shy and overwhelmed as there all of a sudden were a lot of people wanting to say hi, wanting to get hugs, but.. she'll come around.


We had a chance to eat some curried goat, some jerk chicken, some brown stew chicken, fish fritters, seafood fritters and dumplings. Plenty of sunwarm fruit, fresh coconut, and a splash (or 3) of Jamaican rum. There's something to be said about Caribbean rum.. yum!!!


Maddie wasn't entirely convinced about the sea the first day, she didn't like how the waves hit her feet, nor how the sand vanished from beneath her feet when the wave pulled out again.. The pool, however, she didn't want to leave.. and she has NO fear when it comes to the water, either.. she'll stand on the edge of the pool and go "one-too-free" and throw herself into the water. Nuts.

Day 1

Sooo.. since I suck at packing, my initial attempt at packing just resulted in waaay too much being brought.. I mean.. we're only supposed to be gone for 6 days, and I brought a full, heavy, large suitcase.. no bueno.

I packed on Sunday night, in order not to have to drive home after work on Monday, just loaded the car with suitcase, diaper bag, cat litter box, kittens, Maddie and me on Monday am, and spent the night at "uncle cabber's" monday night.
I re-packed on Monday night, pretty much left half of my luggage at Casper's, resulting in a much lighter suitcase.
The kittens.. we thought they would be the ones antagonizing Penny (caspers old, grouchy cat) but.. nooo. She hated the young one's with a vengeance, from the first second, attacking them pretty much straight out of the cage, so we had to keep them separated.. and the kittens managed to climb on top of a mattress, that was leaned up against the wall, on the short end.

I finished re-packing at 1am, and slept like craps all night, kept on waking up, thinking I had over slept, or that it was at least morning.. and the kittens woke up at 5, started chasing each others, chasing my toes and just causing a ruckus.. my alarm went off at 6, I think I finally managed to get up at a quarter past, to shower and get ready.

I had planned to make pancakes to bring on the flight (perfect snacks for Maddie) but.. my sleep deprived mind couldn't compute 2x 3/4 cups of water, so the batter got waaaay too diluted.. had to make "små plättar" instead.. but.. that worked just as well.

We got to the airport at 7.30am, the flight was scheduled for 9am. Took so long to make it thru the security checkpoint, that we got to board as soon as we got to the gate - quite nice.

Maddie was beyond fantastic the whole trip, she watched movies, played games, napped and woke up as the flight attendant announced the landing in Miami.
We had a couple of hours to kill in Miami, and the departure gate was only 2 gates down from the arrival gate. Maddie went into hyper drive, ran around, danced, sang, pushed the stroller around, and released some pent up energy from the previous flight.


We had to check in at the gate in MIA, to get our seats, but were told by the attendant that she was still working on our seats, that the flight was over booked, and she was looking for volunteers to fly a day later.. now.. if it would just have been me, it would have been pretty cool to spend a night in Miami, too, but.. not while travelling with Maddie.

We waited for closer to an hour, and then were handed our boarding passes by the attendant. I thanked her profusely, as I was just happy to have seats, but.. when I looked at the tickets, she had upgraded us to priority business class, too.. we had the first seats of the airplane, and got to board ahead of everybody else.. SWEET!!
I have never been upgraded before, so that was certainly a nice surprise..

We arrived on time, and leaving the airplane it was like walking into a wall of heat.. holy hell, it was hot here.. and humid.. something I am SO not used to!

Waiting in line in customs was like being in a sauna.. ugh. But, in the same breath, thank goodness for av on the shuttle bus that took us to the hotel.

We checked into the hotel just around 9pm, by which time Maddie was starting to have a minor meltdown, due to being way too tired.. fetched her some milk, then put her to bed, and of course fell asleep, too.. woke up at 7 on Wednesday am. And onto day 2..

/carina

tomorrow, tomorrow, tomooooorrooooww

is the d-day! FINALLY!! Flight leaves at 9am tomorrow morning, we get to Montego Bay around 7pm. I packed last night - probably waaaay too many things.. am thinking i should re-pack a little tonite, just for the heck of it.

Dropped off the kittens with uncle Cabber this morning.. Those 2 are probably gonna give his old, grouchy a cat a heart attack.. ;) moaaahahahah!!!!

and second passport almost done

went to the federal building today, to get missM's passport done.. had an appointment for 8am, and we got there with 5 minutes to spare. Wise of past visits to consulates and other government buildings, i left my cell phone in the car.. We get to the check-in counter, check in, and then stand in line outside the door for 25 minutes before we even get to enter the building.

We dump our bags, shoes and belts in the trays for the metal detector, and a man scans them. He mutters something about a camera in my purse.. and i had forgotten i have my regular camera in there.. Nothing to do, but to put my shoes back on, trudge back to the car, drop off the camera (and various other items from my purse, juuuust in case) trudge back to the door, wait for our turn again (fortunately we got to bypass the main line this time), go thru the metal detector, and back in another line. This one was super fast, only 1 person in front of us in line.. We get to the window, present all the documents, wait for a minute while the woman behind the 1" thick glass window makes copies of my ID and travel plans, then get handed back the stack of papers, and a number, and are asked to sit down to wait.

Again.

i have number 157.
The number being called right as i sit down is 140.
An hour later my number is being called.
At least from that point on the appointment was really fast, he went over the paperwork again, and asked a couple of questions, all while Maddie was trying to reach inside his window. :) Then we were handed a receipt, and were asked to come back on Wednesday after 11am, to pick up the passport. A LOT sooner than expected..
but.. this means.. THE TRIP IS ON!!! :)

yay, yay, YAAAAAY!!!!!

also realized over the weekend that i am gonna have to spend the majority of the 5 days there in the shade. We went to the park on Sunday for a couple of hours, and i got SO burned.. My lower arms, and my neck.. :) I've got a perfect 'farmers tan'. :)I'll have to find some time this upcoming weekend to try to get used to the sun before we leave.. Maybe even use the pool and sun chairs at home? :)
MissM was fine, however, as i slathered her in SPF50 sunscreen before we headed to the park.

I'll be back. .C