It is hard to believe that Jake and I have been married for 10 years already. Time has really flown by and we have already done so much together. I started looking back at all the amazing adventures we have gone on in this last 10 years and I find it impressive.
Here is a stroll down memory lane real quick for you all:
2004-Married
2005-Moved into town house, Blake was born
2006-Jake Graduated, Jake got job with Glosten
2007-Bought a house in Bremerton and Ayden was born
2008-Dear friend Ryan passed away, Shaun and Jen Married (Blake's 1st wedding),
2009-Took down the big trees, Built the pallet wood shed, Celebrated 5th Anniversary in Portland
2010-Blake turns 5, Grandpa Huffman passes away, Stefen and Mel get Married, Blake starts Kindergarten and Ayden Preschool
2011-Jake went to Alaska again, Trip to Colorado, Start homeschooling, Darcey and Ben get married (Blake's 2nd wedding)
2012- Anna and Jazzy move in, Ayden turns 5, Jake turns 30
2013-Nikki turns 30, Stephanie and Rocky get Married, 9th Anniversary in San Francisco, Mom Turns 50 we go to DISNEYLAND
2014-Tim and Megan get married, our 10th Anniversary in ARUBA
View Album of Events
So now lets get to the fun ARUBA part
FRIDAY
Left PDX on a 9pm flight. We got free drinks from the nice flight attendant because my tv was busted.
SATURDAY
Got into JFK New York at 5am and caught a 7am flight to Aruba.While waiting in JFK there were two small birds stuck inside the airport flying around us and landing on everything…mental note at JFK don’t eat any food that is not wrapped up. Arrived in Aruba about 11:30am. We had a great Taxi driver to the hotel who was filling us in on some great details about Aruba. It was a straight road to our hotel but we saw some really great trees they call them Divi Divi Trees. Best part was as we pulled into the Hotel I saw a giant bright blue iguana and it creped Jake out. Had pretty much no sleep, I (Nikki) felt like I had just had a triple shot espresso I was so excited. Arrived at the hotel waaay too early for check in. Went and sat at the beach with our first free drinks, hit me (Nikki) hard and I passed out for a while. Even though it was hot there was a great breeze and in the shade laying down it was like heaven. Finally got to our room but our key wouldn’t work so the maids had to let us in. Finally got to shower and made our way to our first dinner reservation at the Caribbean. We watched the first sun set while eating a good dinner. Went for a nice walk up the beach for an hour, laid in an outdoor bed for a while just staring at the darkened sky. After a while we headed back upstairs to our room, but the dang key still didn’t work! We had to wait about 30 minutes for the security guy (who seemed to do everything around here) to show up and reboot our door key latch.
SUNDAY
I Wanted to do stretching, but Nikki was a lazy bum and barely got out of bed by like 930. We got up and grabbed some breakfast. We meandered around for a while trying to figure out what our schedule would be. We swam in the ocean for a bit. It was pretty warm water and Nikki likes to show off that she can float in it. After drying off, we headed to the giant chess board and got in a couple games. A nice southern couple came to watch us and gave me tips on how to let my wife win. Yeah, that didn’t happen :)
We then hopped in the pool and swam up to the poolside bar for some drinks. Just then a movie trivia contest started in the pool. We initially thought nothing of it and swam around. Once we came back the contest was in full swing. This crazy lady, who’s name is Rocky I, guessed a song from a movie and was so excited she asked to sing the song. So the DJ gives her the mic and she sings terribly. After that Nikki realizes she knows a lot of the answers, so she starts guessing them right and getting
points. By the end Nikki wins the game and gets a free bottle of champagne.
At some point today we saw iguanas and it scared the shit out of me. Don’t judge me. We wanted to practice snorkeling for our excursion on Tuesday, so we snagged our gear from the hut and headed down the beach towards the blue tower where there was said to be some easy shallow snorkeling. Right off the bat, it was crazy how curios the blue and yellow fish are. They come right at you with their mouths open! Once we got past their turf we saw some spiky anemone, clams and a handful of other fish and coral. It was a good beginner
course for us. Unfortunately I was using by dry bag for our stuff in the water, and it doesn’t keep your stuff dry for very long. We lost a map and our translator book. Oh well. We took a walk downtown after dinner at the Italian. The Palm Beach downtown is very small, maybe only four or five blocks long. There are some late flea markets with all sorts of touristy stuff for sale. I got out my Ingress scanner and hacked some portals while we walked around. Nothing very interesting to us. We made our way back to the hotel to watch the Mr Occidental contest. It was crazy to watch 4 guys doing crazy stuff to compete for the title and a free shirt. Afterwards we headed down to the beach in the dark just to sit and watch the stars. Tried to figure out if Aruba ever sees the moon. (Jaron confirmed, they see the moon) We talked nonsense for a couple hours before coming back for bed.
MONDAY
Today in Aruba we took our free 1hr sail in a trimaran at 11am. Our captain, Jaron, noticing my sailing tattoo offered me the helm for the trip as long as I didn't get him wet. He got wet, but didn't seem to mind. Him and Nikki talked about the island while I enjoyed learning a new type of sailboat. After we got back from sailing we snagged a sea kayak for an hour. I didn’t want to paddle too far since the wind wanted to take us out to sea. The water is very shallow for a long ways out. Then, after lunch, it is time for a nap. We took a long walk down the beach to watch the sunset. We made it out to a little point before turning back. The sunset was pretty, but mostly obscured by clouds. We took pictures of our feet instead. Came back to hotel. Apparently the pools and hot tubs close at 7pm (it was now around 8) but we didn’t know that. We grabbed a beer and sat in a hot tub until we were nicely reminded that the tubs are closed. Oh well, off to the room.
TUESDAY
This morning after breakfast we saw a couple ladies throwing bread on the ground near the iguana rocks. Upon closer inspection we realized they were feeding the lizards! They would almost come right up to them to get a little piece of bread. Nikki thought it was awesome, me not so much. We picked up our rental Jeep at around 10am and started off on our way.
First stop of the day was the California Lighthouse. It was a cool old lighthouse but nothing awe
inspiring. The greatest part about it was finding out that it was named the California Lighthouse because of a ship that shipwrecked because the crew was all parting.
Second stop was the chapel; I was surprised how well they have kept it. I am sure it might still be in use but maybe it is just for the tourists who wish to come in for a prayer.
Third stop was the Ruins. Which happened to be very amazing. To see how tall the structure was and the size of some of the rocks that were used for the walls. It was a very cool place to explore.
Fourth stop was the Natural Bridge, which we learned had actually collapsed back in 2005 but you are still free to go and see where it once stood, which is almost as incredible as seeing the actual bride.
Fifth stop was supposed to be the rock formation, but we could not find a way to get to it. The roads are not named around here, so getting somewhere can be a bit difficult if not on the main roads. So after a bit we decided to just give up on that.
Sixth stop was down to Baby Beach, we had heard that there was supposed to be good snorkeling here. It was a great beach and the water was warm, as usual, but we didn’t seem to actually find many fish. I am thinking we might have needed to go farther out, but that is ok. On our way out we stopped to get out picture and we happened to notice a pack of donkeys just out in the fields grazing away, which was funny to see. From there we discovered there was a good road to take us up to see the wind turbines, which was awesome to see up close. It is always hard to imagine how tall and how fast those really are still you are standing not more than 50 yards from them. We continued on our off road trail and continued on into the Arikok National Park. We came to our first cave and were really excited, till we got it the
entrance and Nikki saw a bat fly apparently right over my head and then she was done. The other cave was locked up so we couldn’t get in, not that we really wanted to anyways. We were able to sneak a peak of some of the bats hanging out.
Now is when the craziness started. Jake should not have been given a 4x4 Jeep. Lets just start with I was the one who told him not to go but he insisted it was a trail. HA We needed to cut through the Park, but there was no road we could see right by us that was supposed to go. So Jake found it to be a good idea to put the Jeep into 4 wheel drive and follow what he thought was a trail. Up a nice steep rocky hill and then into some random areas where he thought the trail was going. We came to a sign on the ground that looked like a blockade and said ROAD CLOSED, of course Jake didn’t think that meant the road he was taking. So we pressed on. After a bit he did start to doubt that he was actually on a trail and then we came over a bank and there it was the REAL road we were supposed to be on. So as we came to the end of the trail and onto the main road there was a sign that said all motorized
vehicle prohibited. OPPS!!! Finally back on the main road we were finally going to make it out of the Park. We saw a giant ram crossing the road, but we missed getting a good picture. Low and behold we came to the end, which was actually supposed to be the starting of the trail at the Welcome Center. I guess you have to do at least one thing illegal while on vacation.
WEDNESDAY
Nikki didn’t feel well last night so it was good that we planned this to be our relax day. We started with another hour long sail with Jaron at 10am. The wind was much stronger today and I preferred to just lay back and enjoy the conversation. We spent most of the day laying out in chairs or on the water with our floating mats. I grabbed some snorkel gear and practiced diving some more, but there sure isn’t anything to look at in the swimming area. Once we got back we noticed how red we are after today. Hope we don’t peel!
We watched all these salmon constantly struggle to get where they needed to be only to make one wrong move and up 5 feet back down. Then start all over again. I feel like I would have given up, it would have been too hard. God made these animals so persistent and I love it. What a great example of how we should live life. All of nature shows us that even when life is hard you don't give up..something better is about to come.
If you and your children ever get the chance to go and watch the Salmon I would highly recommend it. You wont see anything more awesome, ugly, exhilarating, sad, and hopeful all at the same time.
