Aruba part 1

{Day 1}

I have been putting off writing this post of our vacation because I don't want to believe we are home!!

We had the most AMAZING week in Aruba last week with some of our good friends. It was exactly what Todd and I needed before we start our little family. We had so much fun just relaxing on the beach, laughing with our friends, eating DELICIOUS food, and making memories we will never ever forget! We are so lucky to have such a good friends!  

A couple months ago the people I baby sit for told me they had booked a Disneyland trip in April and would be gone for a week so I called Todd right up and told him we HAD to go somewhere that week since our lives are about ready to change forever. A "Baby moon" if you will. Well naturally we had to bring it up to our friends because they are all world travelers and are ALWAYS trying to get Todd and I to travel with them (bless my sweet, sweet husbands frugal heart). So we knew if we were to plan a fun trip, our friends would have to be a part of it. 

Why Aruba?

 A lot of people asked us this question (followed by either singing the Beach Boys or saying where is that?). So let me explain why we chose Aruba of all places.  

Our original plan was to get a beach house in Florida for the week so that's where we started looking. We found a pretty good deal on flights but of course when we put off booking a day they sky rocketed so we pulled up Google flights map and started looking at other places (if you have never used the google flights map, than I suggest you do next time you plan a trip!). We looked at the U.S. Virgin Island and were planning on that until flights sky rocketed again! So once more, we pulled up Google flights and someone spotted tickets to Aruba for $330 each!!! They are usually around $600-$700 so needless to say we were all pretty excited about this deal (the boys especially). Todd wanted to try to work it into every conversation we had with fellow tourist on the island just to let everyone know what a good deal we got haha.

If you have never been to Aruba or have never even heard of it then let me tell you a little about the Island from my experience. It is an Island in the Caribbean right off the coast of Venezuela but part of the Netherlands. This makes it a very very odd culture (from my perspective). Because It is part of the Netherlands it has a very big European influence. But because it is so close to South America it has a very South American influence. We learned while we were there that when the natives graduate high school they speak FOUR languages fluently. They are Dutch, English, Spanish, and the native language of the Island which I am not sure I eve knew the name of. That is pretty impressive. We noticed that all the super markets were usually owned by the Asian culture of the Island and had very Asian names that we usually couldn't pronounce, so add that to all the other cultures. It really seemed to be just a lot of different cultures all put together on this little Island. It was fun to be in a different culture and see how these people live on this Tiny little Island. It seemed to have a very relaxed and mellow vibe to it. It is also home to the worlds largest pizza hut (more of that in another post).  

So last Friday we boarded a red eye to start our adventure! I must say that this was the most miserable thing for me being 26 weeks pregnant. Flying was super uncomfortable for me, and it didn't help that we were traveling in the middle of the night. but I got through it!  

 (our selfie stick game was on point this trip, and made us all uncomfortable haha. thanks Sean and Paige for providing the GoPro)

We got to Aruba mid-afternoon on Saturday and got our rental cars and were off to find our house.

We were all a little nervous driving around a foreign Island and being in the parking lot at the airport didn't easy our worries as guys in cars were driving like bats out of hell! Luckily once we got on the road thing weren't as bad as we had seen. It is a small Island and so we found our way around pretty easily and found our house pretty easy. We got two rental cars so that there were four of us in each car. Todd had the directions to the house from the guy who owned it so the other car had to follow us and trust that we knew where we were going. The house was about a half an hour drive from the airport so we got to see a little bit of the Island and get to know where we were.  Before we left my mom just kept saying to me that the house we were planning on staying at probably wouldn't be real haha (bless my mothers pessimistic heart) . So when we pulled up we were grateful that it was a legit house!

(This is the house we stayed in)

 The house was in a gated community with a bunch of houses that all looked exactly the same haha. The Island as a whole was pretty run down except for the nice big hotels so when we pulled up to the gated community we were grateful that it seemed safe. We weren't really all that worried about our safety for the most part, the island seemed pretty safe but we did have a funny little scare one night i'll explain later. But every time we pulled up to our gate and had to press the button to get in Todd would say "I am so grateful that we have a gate" haha it became more of a joke than anything towards the end. When Todd feels strongly about something he has to repeat it time and time again and this was one of those things. I'm not sure his friends new this about him because Casey would laugh every time. I, however am very very used to it and its always a joke in our house!

After we found the house we got settled in. Another funny thing, when we were booking the house we made sure there were enough bedrooms for all of the couple to have our own room and bathroom. There were enough rooms but one of the rooms was the " Master bedroom" which meant it had a king bed instead of two twin beds pushed together like the rest and was a little bigger. So when we booked it we all agreed that because we were paying the same the only fare way to make it equal would be to draw sticks when we got there so we all had an equal chance of getting it. It quickly became known as the "jealousy suite" and that's what we all referred to it as haha. And from there on it became just a big joke to all of us. We all tried to negotiate why each of us would be the best candidates for it leading up to the trip. In the end Sean and Paige ended up winning!! Lucky them! Todd and I got the only room on the main floor and I was pretty happy about that because that meant I didn't have to walk up and down the stairs #lazypregnantgirl ;). 

After we got all settled in we needed to go to the grocery store to get some food for the week. We knew this was going to be an adventure since its a foreign country! But before we headed to the store we were starving and stopped to get something to eat. None of us even cared where that was because we were all starving! But we decided to play it safe and tried a burger king. Depending on who you asked it was either the greatest meal (Todd) or the worst. Than some of us were indifferent about it and we were just happy to have food in our belly's!!  

After burger king we headed to the grocery store that was called super food!  It looked like an Ikea it was that big so we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. Luckily it was a pretty normal grocery store on the inside with a little European influence to it and was extremely large. We all got what we needed and headed back to the house. 

After we unloaded everything we were all itching to get to the beach so that's where we headed next! We just drove to one of the resorts that was about 5 minutes from our house and parked and walked to the beach. The boys got the football out right away and started playing while the girls sat and chatted (this was a reoccurring theme of the whole trip). We all sat and watched the sunset which was gorgeous and for some reason the only time we did this the whole time we were there.. 

We started the eating part of the trip off right and went to such a fun restaurant that night for dinner! Before we left Todd came across a blog called "Aruba Kid" which is just a guy who is American but grew up in Aruba and goes there all the time. His website just has all his recommendations for things to do, places to eat, and things to see. The "Aruba Kid" ended up being a life saver for us this trip because we followed all of his recommendations and he did not disappoint. The first restaurant we tried was called Madam Janette and it was such a fun atmosphere. I tried to get a picture of the restaurant below but it kind of came out blurry. It was a total backyard garden setting with strands of lights hanging from the big trees and plants everywhere on a big patio. They had a live band playing and that was so fun! Our waiter told us that they had been playing there every night since the restaurant opened 16 years ago. The food was to die for! This was one of my favorite meals of the trip! 

Eating at the restaurants on the Island of Aruba was a little bit of a different experience. Every time we walked in to a restaurant without a reservation it was the same reaction that went like this:

 "how many?" 

"There is eight of us"

"Do you have a reservation?" 

"No"

Look of absolute horror from the host/hostess 

looks of worry on all of our faces

"Okay right this way please"

leading us to an empty table that was waiting for us

hahahahah every. single. time. 

One time we had to wait like 15 minutes and the guy working at the restaurant was so worried about it. Obviously, people in Europe one- always make a reservation and two- hate to wait! But us Americans don't do either of those! Finally towards the end of the trip we started to make reservations because we got worried we were being offensive. Another thing that was different about eating on the Island was that no one in restaurants were ever in a hurry! And we weren't either on this trip, but we were also not used to dinner being a 2 or more hour event. This is something we got used to by the end and to be honest I kind of liked it. When we are here at home I feel like when we go out to eat we eat and leave. It was kind of nice to sit around and talk and laugh and totally not feel rushed. The waiters would take their time when it came to getting us our check and every single one of them would bring the dessert menu without asking and before they brought the check so I think its common to always get dessert too (which I am in now way  opposed to!). 

We were all sooo exhausted by the end of that night since we had been up for more than 24 hours so he all headed to bed pretty early that night. This is the night we all had a little scare. Around 4;30 one our rental cars alarms started going off and woke us all up. Because we were on the main floor of the house Todd got up to go find the keys to turn it off. When he got it off he looked out the front window and saw a guy walking away from our car. At this point all of us were up and I was freaking out! I was just laying in bed thinking that we were going to be the top story on KSL the next morning (my mothers pessimistic side of me coming out, we watch waay to much lifetime). So Todd decided to call 911. When he called they told him because of our location he needed to call a different number (so comforting I know). So he called that number and it was disconnected (even more comforting). He decided to just call the guy who ran the rental properties and lived in one of the houses in the communities. When he got a hold of him (which I am sure he loved receiving a phone call at 4:30 in the morning)  he informed Todd that the guy he saw was probably the security guard that sat at the gate every night that we were TOTALLY unaware we had! So after that we felt much safer than we already did!!