We decided that this summer would be the perfect time to celebrate and what better place than Bermuda where we went on our honeymoon! Summer is easier for us to get away because the kids aren't in school and their activities are somewhat reduced.
We drove up to my parents house in NC to drop the kids off with them for the week. I am so thankful my parents are willing to do this for us and that my kiddos get some QT with their grandparents. It's so hard living away from family that this is really nice for them to solidify their relationships.
Loaded up and ready to start vacay!
One thing I hate about road trips - traffic! Every time I drive to mom and dad's I always hit tons of traffic on 95 and 26!
After we dropped the kids off at mom and dad's we woke up early the next morning and headed out to the Charlotte airport.
When we booked our hotel, we opted for a room potentially without a view but we got lucky! Not only did we have an end room, we had a great view from our 2 sided balcony!
As soon as we unpacked, we rented a scooter for the week and started exploring!
Remembering to drive on the opposite side of the road to a bit to get use to!
We ended up having dinner at the Rum Swizzle Inn - famous for their rum swizzle drinks! Cheers!
After dinner we cruised around the island to see what looked familiar. On an island this narrow, you get the best of both sunrises and sunsets!
This was the sunset from our balcony.
Our first full day was a bit rainy so we took the bus to the Royal Dockyard to walk around, shop, grab lunch, explore.
Finding good coffee was a next to impossible task for Andy. He's picky about coffee and beer and thankfully the Dockyard Pharmacy had a coffee shop inside. Not only did they have good coffee but they carried TURKEY HILL ice cream. I saw this tub on the counter and I almost freaked out in the store! Andy was more than excited to have his coffee and ice cream every morning!
The Frog and Onion had a great game room where we found an air hockey table. One thing that brings out our competitive, no holds barred streaks is air hockey. Sadly, Andy won this game.
Of course when the bathrooms are labeled the "poop deck" you have to take a picture of it for your kids!
EVERYTHING is expensive on Bermuda, but especially the alcohol. This glass of wine cost a whopping $19! Thankfully this was the night we didn't have to pay for our meal because our waitress was sooooo awful that the manager had to get us a new one and paid our bill!
We celebrated our 20th anniversary with dinner at a pretty fancy place. It was called the Waterlot which was on the east side of our hotel down on the harbor dock. The food was amazing and we had a wonderful time reminiscing about our last visit to Bermuda.
The view from the dock outside the Waterlot.
The sunsets were amazing. This is the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse. It's pretty close to our hotel. We visited it on our first trip to Bermuda.
We had such high hopes for this day but Mother Nature had other plans. We headed out to St. Georges to visit the historic area and hit the beach at Tobacco Bay. We did both of these things on our honeymoon.
The town hall of St. Georges. We recreated this picture from our honeymoon!
This was the second time we got to see the reenactment at the town hall.
This poor woman was accused of being a gossip and of nagging her husband (who was the one in charge of her dunking)!
They dunked her about 12 times!
One of the things we really wanted to do was to find a moongate. It's island folklore that it's good luck for a newly married couple to stand under the moongate. We use to have a picture of one hanging in our house in upstate NY right after we got married.
This moongate was found at Elbow Beach Resort. We explored the resort and determined that this is where we want to stay on our next visit. It's BEAUTIFUL and there are private bungalows right along the shore.
We went exploring to find the hotel we stayed in on our honeymoon. We remembered that we stayed across the harbor from Hamilton and the Princess Hotel. We couldn't find the name of the hotel anywhere online - turns out it changed hands, names and was completely remodeled since our last visit. We found it by the view across the harbor. We took this picture of the Princess Hotel in the background - Still pink like we remembered it!
Our resort was awesome - they owned the private beach on the west side as well as the harbor area on the east side. The hotel was up on the hill between both coasts.
This was our beach day. Isn't the water beautiful? No waves because of all the reefs off shore.
The beach had 2 restaurants. We grabbed lunch and a few drinks while we were here - One of the few times where we could relax and both of us close our eyes and not worry about the kids!
The water was so clear and warm!
People were climbing all over that big rock behind Andy.
The Waterlot restaurant also had an outdoor area, separate from the restaurant called The Dock. They had a bar, food and live music along the water. We decided to split some apps for dinner one night. It was such a beautiful location to watch the colors change in the sky as the sun set.
We got tired of smiling in all of our selfies!
The view of the ocean from our walk down to the shore. We could also see this from our hotel.
We also walked over to the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse. We visited this our first time to Bermuda.
You can see so much of the island from this height! We walked up to the top and walked around to get a 360 view. It was spectacular!
We also rode out to Tobacco Bay. We had plans to come back to swim but we ran out of time. Such a beautiful spot.
This is also a beach here with a restaurant, music, bathrooms, etc. This was on the other side of that - more private which is what we prefer.
The unfinished church. This is in St. Georges. They decided to build a new church because the original was in such need of repair, but in the process decided to put effort into fixing the original in the heart of town instead. This one never got finished! It was such a beautiful structure. We read that lots of brides get pictures taken here and some actually get married here.
One of our favorite memories from our trip was taking a jet ski tour around the island. It was so fun to ride out in the harbor and learn more about the island, see the huge houses, and watching the sea turtles swimming nearby. We also got to ride out in the ocean. We got to swim and feed fish, visit different beaches and enjoy the beautifully colored water. We had never ridden jet skis or wave runners before. It's something I think we are going to look into for our future. Living here by the water makes sense to invest in different types of family fun. We've sold off some of our 2 wheeled toys and may need to replace them with some water fun down the road. We had a blast!!!
Our trip was much needed. We had a chance to just enjoy each other without other distractions - at least until our last day when Andy got a phone call from his work offering him a new position within his company. Instantly, he went into "work" mode thinking of all that needed to happen as soon as he returned. Ugh...I was thrilled for him though. His new job is what he'd been waiting to be offered and secures us a home in Jax more permanently.
We were so sad to have our little getaway come to an end but we were anxious to get home and hug these munchkins. We missed them so much! They stayed up late to welcome us home. This was Sis the entire drive back to Jax!
