Easter is Just Around the Corner ....

With Easter just weeks away Longaberger is offering the cutest little basket for the little ones in the family!

Great Offer!

Two beautiful baskets at unbelievable prices!!!

Wow! What a busy 24 hours! My kids from Northern California rolled in yesterday afternoon from a trip to the desert. They were delayed in their departure this morning and and just left a bit ago. This little visit has set me back on many things including my blog! So lets get busy and I'll share with you my continuing Atlantis adventure!!

Day 4 was NOT what I expected to see in the Bahamas. We woke to pouring rain and very strong WINDS! Keep in mind I'm sick with a rotten cold and NO warm clothes ... no jacket or long pants. After a trip to the least expensive gift shop I stepped into the cold, windy weather $79.00 poorer wearing my new pink sweatshirt. Gotta love resorts, they over charge for EVERYTHING!

After a breakfast of warm oatmeal and coffee the three of us headed off to the Atlantis Marina. The private ships/yacht were amazing.

Yep, that is a helicopter on top of the battle ship grey yacht ....

This huge grey beast was the largest in the Atlantis Harbor and the largest private ship I have EVER seen! We found out who the owner is .... think porn, think bunnies ... got it yet? How about pajamas? Yep, it belong to Hugh Heffner the owner of Playboy! There is big bucks in porn ....

These are some of the little puny ones ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a morning spent shopping in the cold wind I opted to take an afternoon nap. Meanwhile Amy and Tiff headed to the beach. Amy's daughter Mindy asked her to bring home some Bahamian sand, so like every good mom Amy is out collecting sand!

Here is my summer child. She was born in August and loves the sun and the beach ... even at the cold and windy beach she puts on a suit and heads to the water!

Look at all the empty seats!! The little child is heading for the water while mom watches all bundle up! You can see how windy it is by the palm trees, burr it was so cold!

Sunday night was our final dinner with our Longaberger family. The instructions were to wear bright clothes, the dinners theme was "Junkanoo" this is a Bahamian celebration common the the islands.

Our tables were so fun and festive! Bright colored feathers adorned every table with a combination of bright green, yellow, pink and blue table cloths and napkins.

Each guest was supplies with there own noise makers ....

After a delicious dinner of fish, beef, chicken and oodles of salads and desserts we started entertaining ourselves with the feathers.  I'm wearing my $79.00 sweatshirt! Then the real entertainment began ....

We were sitting in the back of the room near the door, see it right behind my head??? I was pooped and told the girls I was ready to make the long trek back to our room. Amy wanted another cup of coffee so we sat tight for a bit longer. So glad we did! We started hearing the sounds of a steel drum band in the far off distance. As we chatted the music came closer and closer. Just as I turned around the look at the door this is what came strolling in ....

An authentic Bahamian Junkanoo strolling steel drum band in full costume! These guys were so awesome and so entertaining!!

He was such an awesome dancer.

It's blurry because these guys NEVER stopped moving! They played music and danced all the way around the room twice. Such a fun way to end our final dinner of the trip.

All decked out in our Longaberger finery!

Tiffany as an orange mermaid ....

My cup sleeve! It travels everywhere with me, now it's been to the Bahamas!!

Tomorrow, some final thoughts and snap shots from the Bahamas!

Atlantis Aqua-Adventure

Saturday morning we were all up a bit earlier ... 8 am and excited to hit the water park and go down the slides! After an iced Carmel Machiato from Starbucks and some oatmeal we headed out. Keep in mind that the Atlantis Resort is HUGE, you walk miles every day just getting from point A to point B! It's worse then a cruise ship and I that I walked myself to death on those! Our first stop was to get our wristbands and towels.

Each day our wrist band changed colors .... slides and lazy river day was the blue band!

Welcome to the Leap of Faith water slide. Yikes!! This was my first slide and the parks fastest and scariest. After climbing all the way to the top of the Mayan Temple you lay down in the tube, cross your ankles and your arms and zoom straight down the slide! It goes so fast your back lifts off the slide! I swear I thought I was going to fly off the slide. As you hit the bottom you enter an enclosed tube with sharks swimming all around you. As you leave the tube your body shoots out like a bullet and into the pool! OMG, it was so scary .... but fun!

Now we're inside the Serpent Slide. This was really cool. You sit inside a tube and push off into the dark! Yep, it's really dark and you go zooming down in a tube, then you drop into nothingness and before you know it your back inside the aquarium with those darn sharks again. This time you're slowly floating and able to see the sharks swimming all around you .... creepy!

And finally the Lazy/Current Rivers! This was such a blast. You float around a nice river, at times going over rapids, waves and crazy fast currents. At the end of the ride we were in a raging white water river. My daughter got tossed off the raft and ended up getting cut up in the rocks .... I think she was more scared then actually hurt. I was in front of her and didn't see it happen, all I saw was her coming out of the dark laying face down on the raft instead of her butt in the hole sitting in the raft. I started to giggle, she wasn't laughing!

River wounds!

Well after the river injuries we left the water park and headed back to our room to re-group. Our visit to the spa was at 3 pm and we needed to shower. Little did we know that we left the park just in time ... after the loooong walk to our room we entered and looked out our window to see this ....

Yikes! A monsoon had hit Paradise Island! This didn't look like paradise to me!

Remember all those beautiful views out our room window? Well now this is what we were seeing! No fear, by spa time it was all gone and the sun was peeking out once again.

  Mandara Spa OMG what an experience. We were treated to a 75 minute Body Polish massage.

The best 75 minutes ever. We are coated with a lime, ginger salt scrub and this is rubbed all over to exfoliate your skin. We then step into a warm show to wash all the old salt and skin away. This is followed with a one hour body massage! Oh my, so wonderful. The spa experience includes a deep well jacuzzi and a nice hot sauna. I wished they could have just folded me into bed when they were done! But no, we had a wonderful 5 STAR dinner to attend.

Tami and her daughter Claire held a new managers reception prior to our dinner on Saturday night. Tami was so kind to sign my fish tails and snap a picture with me. Such a wonderful woman.

Our next stop was the Bahamian Club for dinner. Oh my gosh it was fabulous. I had shrimp cocktail, poached salmon with fresh vegetables, and strawberry cheesecake for dessert. The salmon just melted in your mouth, so yummy!

When I returned to my room I found a little black velvet  bag on my bed. Inside was a sterling silver Pandora bracelet bead of two tiny Dolphins, the symbol of the Atlantis Resort! It is on my bracelet as I write!

It was a very long day and I was exhausted! Time for some sleep, tomorrows another busy day!

Atlantis ... Day 2

Pool Side at Atlantis

With both Tiffany and I sick with colds the 3 of us opted to lay by the pool and see if it helped with the rejuvenation process. We finally rolled out of bed shortly after 9 am, wiggled into our bathing suits (always a treat) had some breakfast and headed poolside.

Here we are!! Three bathing beauties ...

The pool view of our room, we're on the 9th floor....

Seven! Yep, 7 cruise ships are in the harbor in one day! Yikes, Nassau had to be packed!!

Do you recognize this man? Think football ... still no, think NFL ... still no, don't feel bad, I had no clue who he was either. His little baby boy was just adorable as well as is identical twin daughters!

Well, my football loving BFF new who this fella was! Meet Craig Jensen, a running line backer for the Green Bay Packers. Amy just cruised on over there, introduced herself and asked for a pic. He was a real sweetie and said he'd be glad to.

By now I'm worn out, I found a spot under a tree and dozed while Amy and Tiffany took a walk to check things out! By 4 we decided It was time to head up to the room to get our showers and head over to our "White Night" dinner at the Atlantis Dig.

The Dig is this amazing under ground walk though the Atlantis aquarium. Besides all kinds of fishes there was this scary character in the tank!

My traveling pals ....

Gross! I hate Jelly Fish, but aren't they so cool looking??

After a nice walk through the Dig we came out into the beautiful night air and this unusual bar ...

Yes sir reee, she's a living bar! At one point her dress was covered with blue martini's!

Tiffany nestled our three little basket weave fish into the table center piece. Every guest received one of these darling little fish all handwoven by a basket weaver in the far, far away land of Ohio!

Tiffany and I ...

Amy, Myself and Tiff, we had such a great night.

All the trip earners received a one of a kind woven fish designed by Collector's Club president Michael Kennedy. It's so cool!

Here is the entire group! Trip earners, husbands, kids and friends! Thanks for joining me today .... tomorrow we visit the water park and the Madera Spa!

ATLANTIS .... Let's Get Started!

There is just too much to say and too many pictures for one post so I will take this Atlantis Adventure bits at a time! Let's begin with my departure exactly one week ago today!

Yep. This is was 3:48 dark thirty looks like. DARK! With a 6:00 AM departure time we needed to arrive at Los Angeles International Airport bright and early! My very sweet husband was up as well and so kind to take us to the airport.

Tiffany, my daughter is in charge of the Passports and boarding tickets! No passports, no get into Bahamas!

5:30 PM, Bahama time, we're here!! Woo hoo! This is the view from our bedroom. Not to bad is it? The area with all the rafts is called the Lazy River ... it was a blast and anything except lazy! What a great ride. Above is our own private white sands beach, The Cove. Tiffany and Amy made it over there, however, with my cold and the cold, windy weather I opted to stay in and sneak a nap.

The beautiful Dolphin Cay. Another view from our room. In the early hours of the morning the dolphins are free to play and leap in the air, they are so fun to watch. By the afternoon they are busy playing with the guests and showing off!

Our Longaberger booty!

Trying out my new lip balm! With all the wind blowing it came in very handy .... so did the hat!

After a very long day of flying across the country, customs, airport shuttles, and hotel check in we all 3 were exhausted and ready to get into our Jammie's. It was Valentine's Day when we arrived so I brought some warm, cozy Jammie's to get into! FYI, it was warm and humid when we arrived, outside. Our room was FREEZING so we turned off the air. After we returned from dinner the room was still so cold so we wanted to turn on a bit of heat to take off the chill .... Guess what? They do not have ANY heat in the entire Atlantis resort! They don't need it, only air conditioning. So interesting how different places do things!

Tomorrow .... day two and the White Dinner!