We flew out of MSP airport bright and early Friday morning. I was most nervous about getting through our day of flying and was overly prepared with a carry-on bag full of lots of essentials: Hand sanitizing wipes, hand sanitizer containers, a temperature thermometer, Vitamin C gummies, Tylenol, Emergen-C, and lots of snacks since our airline had cancelled in-flight food and beverage. I was most nervous about one of us getting sick while we were there and somehow getting stuck in a foreign country for quarantine. Especially after watching all those poor cruise ship stories! It kept me up at night and gave me chest pains for the first time in my life. But I knew every leg of our trip would be one step closer to our final destination and was overall surprised and thankful for a very smooth day of travel. We had a direct flight right to Jamaica and all seemed to be business as usual at both MSP and Montego Bay. The immigration line in Jamaica was our only hiccup. We waited for nearly two hours in line and kept the kids busy with lots of hangman. They were troopers, though, and by the time we made it to our private shuttle, we promised them nothing but pool and nachos for the rest of the day!
Our resort, Jewel Runaway Bay, was such a great backdrop for our adventures. It was smaller than many of the big chain resorts we had researched, yet included all the amenities we were after - plenty of options for dining, a great pool and swim-up bar, a long beach, and activities for all ages. The resort had all of that and a water park with a lazy river. We were sold!
We checked into our resort, were greeted with our first of many frozen Miami Vices, and the kids immediately changed into their suits and jumped in our own little private plunge pool while Beau and I unpacked. It didn't take long for our nerves (and my chest pains!) to dissolve as we felt that warm sun on our skin and sand at our feet. While the world went crazy and toilet paper literally went obsolete, there we were, out-casted on this beautiful resort in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. We spent our days in the warm sun, floating lap after lap on the lazy river, eating nachos and drinking pina coladas, kicking off this surreal time in our lives just reconnecting together. We bounced from the beach, to the pool, to the water park, and loved trying lots of fun dinners out after a pretty beach sunset every night. Beau and I kept up with the ever-changing news, but also felt so far removed from it all.
We made so many fun memories, but my favorite part was just soaking up all that time together. Watching Mila, in her little Jamaican braids, do her little swan dive and swim like a fish under every waterfall along the lazy river. Or watching Cruz fully embrace this all-inclusive lifestyle, ordering nachos by himself and sitting beach-side, or running around with his shirt catching his new football, or wanting to play beach volleyball every afternoon. I loved our Table Topics at dinner every night, falling asleep in the same bed not long after, and pancakes at the breakfast buffet with that warm banana syrup. It was a strange time to be away and also the best time to be away.
Pictures from our first day...
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