Dominican Republic

We spent this Christmas in the Dominican Republic at an all-inclusive resort!  It was Ellie's first experience out of the country; yes, she even has her own passport! :)  I was a little worried about how Ellie would do on a 4 hour plane ride on our laps, but all for no reason.  Ellie did awesome thanks mostly to the fact that Joey and I had an open seat between us.  I was also very pleased that Ellie took a 45 minute nap on Joey's lap on the plane ride down. 

 After her nap she was pleasantly awake and enjoyed playing with her bear, eating from her snack trap and walking down the aisle of the plane a few times. :)

When we got there we were greeted by my entire family of brothers, sisters, parents and grandparents and 80 degree weather! It was late when we arrived, so we ate dinner and walked around a bit and retired to our rooms.  

The rooms were divided into little villas with a really pretty courtyard in the middle.  In this picture Ellie and I are standing just outside the door of our room.  The villas were colorful and each courtyard had lots of flowers and some had fountains. A very pretty view!

We ate lots and lots! This was the buffet where we ate most of our meals.  There were several restaurants that were included in the package, so we tried out some Italian, Mexican and Dominican food. YUMMY! :)

The resort had two huge pools plus access to the beach where there was sand volleyball! We definitely played a lot of sand v-ball and picked up some pretty bad habits, but it was worth it! :)

Ellie swam a little but the pool was actually quite cold, so we didn't spend too much time in the pool.

There was this awesome coffee shop at the resort where we could get all the caramal mocha frozens (or other coffee of choice) we wanted! It was awesome! :)

There were also all the treats you wanted as well!

And though I (Kim) only stepped foot in there once, there was a casino.  I spent the few coins I had acquired (thanks Matt) on this machine and won four bets and then immediately lost that and every coin I had, all in about five minutes!

Our trip was amazing to say the least! It was nice to get a break from the cold weather and lounge in the sun for a week.  Although we didn't get to see much of the Island at all, we still enjoyed the opportunity to relax in the sun!!

The plane ride home was as equally pleasant as the ride there and Ellie actually slept three out of the four hours.  Ellie even gave us a nice present that we discovered on the plane's descent into St. Louis, diarrhea!! Yay for traveling to other countries!