A Vacation Vacation

Last month we went on our first family vacation in seven years.  Make no mistake, we have traveled a lot with kids.  The older kids have been to more than a dozen states, cities, beaches, cabins, museums, parks...but let's not confuse travel with vacation.  Staying in hotel rooms with small children is generally a non-starter for me, and we try to go low-budget, so we do a lot of AirBNB.  That means we do a lot of planning and cooking and cleaning without our usual tools and routines.  Fun experiences, yes, but more work than staying home.

Earlier this year we decided to book a major trip to celebrate having survived that whole experience of moving while pregnant, new job, new house, new baby, new schools, etc.  This was the first time we have ever set the criteria and paid whatever it cost to meet them.  The list was rather challenging:

• Unquestionably warm (i.e. not Florida, where it might be 80 but also might be 65)
• Direct flight from MSP (connecting flights with 4 children....just no)
• Beach
• House with 3+ bedrooms (we need rooms and we just don't like crowded resorts)
• Pool at the house b
• Gear and supplies on-site (no hauling pack 'n' plays or snorkel gear)
• Full kitchen staff (I did not want to cook anything, shop for anything, plan anything, clean anything)
• Kid-friendly (but not a resort where we dump the kids in hotel day care; we actually want to play with them)

This travel unicorn is surprisingly hard to find.  Most places reviewed as "kid friendly" involve a lot of noisy pools with play equipment so we either have to supervise waterslides all day or leave the kids in a kids' club and not see them.  Hotel rooms are tough with nappers.  Many fancy villas with staffs clearly aren't set up for multiple small children.  I found endless numbers of houses where you can arrange independent chef services, but many only provided two meals a day and didn't handle shopping for snacks and sundries, so we would have had to figure that out (possibly in Spanish).  It also turns out that most nice (and safe) rental areas are pretty far from the airport, so we would have had to figure out transport, which means car seats.  I had it narrowed it down to a couple of concierge companies in Cozumel or the Caribbean that looked like they would handle almost everything, and then I came across an all-inclusive villa resort in Jamaica.  Turns out another mom-blogger I know had taken her young kids there and loved it, so we decided to take the leap and sell our kidneys for a real vacation.

Friends, the unicorn is Bluefields Bay Villas Jamaica.  We got all the things on the list and then some.  Starting from home, where we tell them about our family and our food preferences and random requests weeks in advance.  They sent someone to meet us with a little sign at the airport, who proceeded to whisk us past the 2-hour customs line, through the five-minute expedited service, deposit us in a lounge with snacks and Red Stripe, and load our luggage into the van that was waiting for us with car seats already installed.  

We arrived at our villa where the staff greeted us with fruity drinks and gave us a tour of the house.  By the time I met everyone and changed out of my Minnesota winter clothes, the housekeepers had unpacked the kids' suitcases and the nannies -- yes, nannies -- had changed the children into swimsuits, sunscreened them, and gotten them in the pool.  

The house was perfect.  Karl and I had our own room and bathroom, the girls shared a pink room with a princess bed, and the boys shared a room with a ridiculous four-poster bed for Henry and a beautiful wood crib for Fritz.  All the bedrooms and the living room were open to the ocean.  The whole place had hand-crafted plantation shutters and gorgeous woodwork that made my Victorian house loving heart go pitter-pat.  There was a schedule for which set of china to use and the butler kept appearing out of nowhere with a cocktail I didn't know I needed.  It was like a week of living in Downton Abbey if the Granthams had gone to the colonies.  

Providence House

Every morning, we woke up in our beautiful canopy beds with huge views of the ocean.  Karl would usually get up early with Fritz and take him to the dining room, where someone, at some point in the wee hours of the morning, had set out coffee, whole milk, and a clean baby bottle.  The rest of us would roll out some time later to enjoy morning beverages overlooking the ocean before sitting down to fancy breakfast.  The kids were really disappointed when we came back home and there was no more chocolate bacon.  

I woke up like this.

After breakfast, we would pack up and go to the beach.  Our house had an awesome rocky area with lots of shells and a secret cove complete with hammocks and a tethered float, but no sand, so we would head two minutes down the road to Bluefield's private beach.  You know when you take kids to the beach and there's 45 minutes of packing the toys, snacks, water, and extra clothes, putting on sunscreen, and herding children?  Yeah, the nannies did that.  We would just put on swimsuits and jump in the van (with car seats), hop out at the beach, where someone would set out beach chairs and towels.  Karl and I could swim or play with one kid without worrying that the others were unsupervised.  Someone would occasionally bring beers or reapply sunscreen.  Miss Sasha and Miss Tasheka made some killer sandcastles and Miss Ro played hours of frisbee with Henry.  

And when people started getting tired, Karl and I and the nannies would each take one child and head to the van and we could be back in our house in five minutes.  Not only did I not have to pack up all the beach gear, I didn't have to scramble for lunch with everyone screaming.  We would just take a dip in the pool while Mr. Aldeen finished setting out an awesome lunch of fried chicken or lobster salad.  

After lunch, Karl and I would put the little ones down for naps, and then we could swim with the big kids, or disappear to our room or the hammocks for a couple of hours while they played Uno with Sasha and Tash. We would all rally by the pool around 4:00 for more swimming, more cocktails, and some fresh plantain chips with dip or tiny grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches.  

After two hours in the pool, we would clean up for dinner.  One of the nannies would scrub the kids and the girls would re-appear in cute dresses with cool new hair braids.  I enjoyed showering in peace and getting unnecessarily dressed up for dinner.  How can you not dress up when you sit down to a table like this?  Besides, it's going to be months before I can wear my favorite summer dresses again.

We had super tasty food and lots of wine.  Mr. Aldeen taught the big kids how to do some of the fancy napkin folds.  They were generally really good about trying the new foods and rose to the occasion of eating like civilized people at a formally-set table.  And then we could leave the mess on the table, put the kids to bed, and enjoy reading real books on the deck over the sunset.

We all had SUCH a good time.  The staff removed virtually every difficult, tedious, or annoying aspect of parenting and adulting but left all the fun stuff.  We actually got to relax AND enjoy the kids.  Karl and I got one-on-one time with each kid and each other.  That never happens on a normal trip.  I read two gigantic books.  Like, actual paper books, not Kindle.  Because I had time to read that was not in the five minutes in bed in the dark before falling asleep.  The resort staff handled every single thing for us.  We did two outings -- visiting the primary school supported by the resort, and taking a glass-bottom boat ride around the bay -- and we just told the coordinator what we wanted to do and she arranged it.  The drinks and food were planned, shopped, prepared, served, and cleaned up.  The laundry magically appeared clean and folded and put away.  I didn't have to do a darn thing all week.

Henry did a ton of swimming and reading.  He cranked through three Captain Underpants books.  It was really funny to come upstairs in the morning to find him in a lounge chair with a book and a fruity drink like a miniature Karl.  He only complained intermittently about being too hot and missing hockey.  Never a fan of bugs, he lots his freaking mind when he saw the giant moths.

Ingrid was in heaven with a fancy bed and dessert every day.  She was the only kid who learned to snorkel and worked SO HARD at mastering it in the pool.  The water at our little beach was calm enough that she could swim and "surf" without getting bowled over.

Heidi wanted to be in pool every minute of every day.  This summer is going to be super fun with her!  When we play the animal game at dinner, her choice is always "the giant moth that flew down Mommy's back in Jamaica."

Fritz, as usual, is the star of everything.  Pool, sand, salamanders, chocolate bacon, fruity drinks, extra adult attention, and plaid shirts.  He was really living his best life.  

Beloved salamander

Being awesome is exhausting.

His hair was so curly in the humidity.  I was so right about not cutting it yet.

The airplane travel was as easy as it could be with four kids.  They were perfect on the way down.  They charmed everyone and I even picked up a new babysitter at the airport (true story).  The trip back got off on the wrong foot when Heidi barfed all over herself and the carseat on the way to the airport.  And then we almost missed our flight because the VIP lounge staff announced that our flight was "delayed" when what they should have said was "boarding now."  So there was some puking and sprinting, and then about 20 terrible minutes of Fritz screaming his protest that he was on a plane instead of in his bed at 1:30, but overall it was fine. 

Licking the window.  Sorry.

We came home to find a foot of fresh snow on the ground.  Luckily Dave had already shoveled our driveway and Bluefields had already done all of our laundry to soften the blow of re-entry into real life.  We're back to the grind but still coasting on the novel feeling of being rested and refreshed.  I didn't think that could actually happen with four kids, but it can!  And hopefully will again in about 49 weeks.  We're already talking about February 2019.  Vacation is just that good.