Thursday, February 11, 2010

Nature at its finest.

It is official, or as official it can get when dealing with the weather, we have our vacation approved.  I’ve been pacing the floors waiting to blog and Facebook the good news to all my friends & family.  Although I believe in Karma and I didn’t want to push my luck and speak out of turn too soon.  31 days until we fly out of Kugaaruk onward and upward to civilization and fresh hot perked Starbucks Grande Non-Fat Latte with a sprinkling of Twin sugar and cinnamon…oh god, I can almost taste it!

The highlight of our trip, is that Hughie and I  have decided on a Caribbean All-Inclusive trip; after spending months and months as well as gigs of our upload/download speed we decided on St. Lucia as our Island.  The biggest selling feature of St. Lucia is how it seems “out of the way” and it doesn’t seem to draw the “youngsters” like Jamaica or Mexico or Dominican Republic.  [We looked at all three of those places and found some awesome resorts; for example:  Montego Bay Sandals Jamaica – was our first choice until we heard and saw via youtube that planes are taking off pretty much on top of your head…they are that close].

The resort we decided on is called Ladera – it is situated on the side of a mountain with direct views of the Pitons. (Grande & Petit).  Their website had this to say, and says it much better than I ever would be able to

“Taking full advantage of its natural surroundings, Ladera offers a unique design in guest accommodations. The 9 villas and 23 suites all have an "open wall" - the west side of each unit is left open to expose the breathtaking view, and the orientation of the buildings maintains complete privacy. The villas and suites are constructed of tropical hardwoods, stone and tile, furnished with 19th century French furniture or replicas, wicker and accessories crafted by local artisans. All units are decorated with local artwork and feature magnificent views of the Pitons and Caribbean Sea.”

suite-p-gros-piton

This is one of the rooms located on the Resort, I will take plenty of pictures of our room when we arrive, I just wanted to give you a taste of what the rooms are like with their open wall concept. 

http://www.ladera.com/

I’m looking forward to five-star Camping; and drinking little fruity drinks, and the best thing was that we got a promotional deal and a seat sale with West Jet so we managed to snag this for a reasonable discounted price! 

Of course, it wouldn’t be a true Hughie & Tammy vacation if we didn’t hit up a hockey game.  We are heading to Minnesota to catch the Wild verses the Blackhawks near the end of the month.  We have our favorite hotel booked, within stumbling distance to the Xcel Centre.  We wanted to do a Vancouver Canucks game but the price of the tickets were crazy, pretty much due to the fact that the game we wanted to go to was pretty much their first game back to GM Place since they left almost two weeks ago for their big long road trip due to the Olympics.

Although we are not going to be able to get back East for this vacation we are still going to visit Toronto to catch up with Andrew & Laura; it wouldn’t be a vacation if we saw no family. We look forward to catching up with them and having a couple days of downtime before we head off to Timmins for Police Curling for 10 days.

There you go our month broken down as simply as I can.  There will be not as many flights as our last vacation, but just enough so we don’t start getting antsy in one location.  We are spending our first week in Winnipeg with myself hanging out at a Physiotherapy clinic, Spa and Hair/waxing locations.  There is nothing better than taking a week of downtime to bring yourself back up to snuff in the world.

Now I can take a deep breath and relax for the next 31 days! 

4 comments:

Matt, Kara, Hunter and Cavan said...

That place looks fabulous!

Morena said...

The place looks great and I've heard amazing things about St. Lucia. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. As for that place in Jamaica, I've been there and you are right about the planes. Luckily, I was only there to go on a catamaran tour.

Just curious... how come you're only getting approval for your IPA 30 days in advnace? Do you have to wait for relief to be approved? Here we pretty much just pick our time amongs ourselves and go. But we have 4 members so we don't have to worry about relief.

Tammy said...

Morena: That is exactly what we were waiting for; a Member to come in to take our place - our dates were approved a couple of weeks ago but we didn't want to make it "official" until we had an actual replacement....joys of a two man post..lol.

Garry said...

Hi Tammy

Can't wait to see you and Hugh in Timmins, better rest up. The Manitoba Boys may keep you out a little late.

Take care enjoy the sun.

Garry