merry christmas

Last week Olivia and I took a very last minute trip back to Minnesota. There were some things that were easier to take care of from Minnesota and since Martinique is fairly easy to fly in and out of it was good timing for a trip.

We gave both girls the option - Olivia wanted to go to Minnesota, Emma wanted to stay in Martinique. Emma was excited about some daddy/daughter time and made a daily itinerary for her and Braden.

About an hour before we left Olivia pulled out her last wiggly tooth.

We had a very long travel day. We left Martinque at 4:15 PM, stopped in Miami for 2 hours (an hour of that we spent in the customs and immigration line) and got to Minnesota at 12 AM (which was 2 AM in Martinique).

a little nap on the plane

While we were in Minnesota Olivia had a list of things she wanted to do (1) see her friends, and (2) eat at all her favorite restaurants. We were able to see just about all her friends and checked off all her restaurants.

Chick-fil-a
Hibachi
Rainforest Cafe
Noodles & Company

We even had time to squeeze in some last minute shopping at Mall of America.

On the way back we had to spend a day in Miami. That morning we had to get up at 3:30 AM for our flight.

Since we were exhausted we decided to spend our day in Miami relaxing in the hotel room. Olivia was very excited about getting room service.

On the way to Minnesota we watched the sunset.

On the way back to Martinique we watched the sunrise.

Olivia and I got back to Martinique a couple days before Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve morning at the waterpark, and in the afternoon we had some friends over to decorate Christmas cookies.

On Christmas morning the girls were up at 6:30 AM. Olivia was a little worried Santa wouldn't be able to get into the boat, but clearly he did just fine.

We got invited over to a boat for Christmas dinner by a family we had never met before. Not many people on their boats have family around for the holidays so every one out here kind of becomes like family. In the end there were over 25 people invited - some we knew, some we didn't. We had good conversations, food and drink and the kids had fun hanging out with all the other kids.