2012 has begun!

this year has just started and yet its already been amazing!!!
we started the year off by going to the dominican republic for a week!
we had such a great time! after an hour long car ride threw the jungle, which by the way they don't drive like we do here in America, we finally arrived to the beautiful excellence resort!
we were greeted by a man with champagne and fresh wet cloths to clean our hands. not bad, but we asked for orange juice instead. that was lagit orange juice!

we then went to the room threw on our suits and hit the pool! it was 6:30 pm by this point and the pool was empty! so we went to the ocean! again...no people in sight. well come to find out it all closed at 6 haha! so we just went exploring.
then we went to dinner and our table was on a little porch thing that sat over the pool. it was gorgeous!

the next day was great weather until about 1 so we enjoyed body surfing. after that it rained and the wind blew so strong for the next 3 days :(
so during the rain we enjoyed virgin pina colada's, room service and the nightly shows. not a bad life style.

on saturday it was GREAT weather! so we went on an excursion to the Caribbean side of the island and went swimming with the sting rays, snorkeling, and swimming with the sharks.
that ocean was to die for! exactly what you see on movies and pictures. perfect clear blue water that you can see threw perfectly, white, soft sand in your toes and beautiful palm trees everywhere!
snorkeling was way fun and we saw all kinds of fish and coral. but swimming with the sting ray was the coolest. they are so soft on the underneath but the top of them is like sand paper. one of them hit cyle with his tail and gave him a big scrape. they were rough. but it was fun holding them and seeing what they were like up close and personal.

then we swam with the sharks and that was fun but they were nice sharks so it was not as adventurous. they just stayed at the bottom a few feet below us. still way cool though.
but we had to ride the party boat there and back and it was great! on the way back cyle started dancing with the dancers and it was so funny! the little dominican guys loved him!

we then went back to the hotel and enjoy our beach some more and enjoyed our last night at the resort.
the next morning was beautiful weather again so we went and saw the beach some more and checked out this garden that they have. they had these two parrots that were so funny! one was so mean so we left him alone. but the other one was nice and friendly. however, these guys were thief's! anything that was shiny they'd steal from you! literally. they could cut threw any metal. they tell you to take off wedding rings and jewelry before going near them. one time cyle was holding kiko, the red bird, and kiko saw that cyle's sun glasses were shining so he started making his way up cyle's back to get them. cyle hurried and took them off and handed them to me so kiko made his way all the way up and started plucking out cyles hair! haha it was so funny!

we had such a great time though! despite the weather it was still marvelous and all inclusive resorts are the way to travel. the food was pretty good, the people were so nice and it was totally relaxing.
it was a great way to start out the new year! that is if you are not trying to lose weight. ;)
i have a feeling 2012 is going to be great!