Monday, June 20, 2011

A Sparklicious Vacation

So, vacations pretty much rock the majority of the time, and the one I just took absolutely rocked!  Talk about a vacation with sparkle...

8 friends.

2 condos in West Palm Beach, Florida on Singer Island.

Sun.

Fun.

Sparkle.

We all descended on Singer Island and made our way to a friend's condos.  We dumped our stuff off, changed into shorts, admired the view of the turquoise Atlantic Ocean, and then went to lunch.

It was hot.  And humid.  But somehow it didn't matter because we were all on VACATION!

AG, JB, JL, MS, CB, MM, LI, and me - enjoying a break from the everyday grind, and having a ton of fun.

After lunch, we went to the grocery store, stocked up on food, drinks, snacks, and headed back to the condo.

We sunscreened up and headed to the beach.  I was so eager to go in the ocean - I love being in water, and had never been in the Atlantic Ocean before.  The water was so warm and clear and amazing.  LOVE.

This was my view for the week.  Sparkly toes, hot sand, and beautiful turquoise water.  Thankfully we had a wonderful ocean breeze to cool us down each day.  Without it, it wouldn't be so much love.

It felt so decadent to have dedicated lounge chairs each day with a big umbrella to provide some much needed shade from the strong, hot sun.

The guy who managed the lounge chairs took very good care of our group.  One day when he came by to collect the pads, he noticed that I had 2 pads on my chair.  I explained that my back hurt with only one because there wasn't enough give to the chair.  The next day when I came down, he had 3 pads for me on my chair.  So sweet.

Lauren commented that she felt like she was starring in her own Corona commercial.  We all were.

Beach.  Sun.  Cold beer.  Love.

I decided to take a scuba dive while we were in Florida.  That's me on the dive boat on the way to the 2nd dive site.  It was pretty great diving - lots of different types of fish and coral than I've seen before.  I saw 2 eels, some lobsters, lion fish, natural sea sponges, fan coral, trumpet fish, and all kinds of other fish that I don't know the names of.  It was pretty cool.

On the boat ride to the 2nd dive site, we saw a pod of dolphins playing in the wake of the boat.  One even jumped straight up out of the water and seemed to hang in the air for many seconds before diving back into the ocean.  I soooo wanted to jump in the water and swim with them.  The captain advised that they were a type of dolphins that didn't really play with humans in the water...



What could have more sparkle than good friends?

This is the amazing group of girls & guy that were on the trip.

We went to a bunch of fabulous restaurants, a bunch of interesting bars and clubs, and had a grand, sparklicious time.
A few of us even enjoyed a spa day - massages, workouts, and champagne.  That's the life!

On our last night together, we had a wonderful dinner at a Cuban restaurant called Cubana Nuevo Latino, a little away from the main stretch of Clamatis Street (one of the main streets in West Palm).  Mojitos came by the pitcher, and we enjoyed great service and a wonderful meal.







After dinner, we headed to a rooftop bar & dance club and danced our asses off until 2am.

Drenched in sweat, we hopped in cabs and headed back to the condo.  We all put our bathing suits on and headed down to the beach - yes, it was around 2:45am.


We had some sparkle to attend to.  Sparklers, to be more exact.  Sparklers that I bought at CVS Pharmacy.  Yes, fireworks at CVS.  Gotta love Florida!

So, at 3am, we're on the beach in bikinis, playing with sparklers!!!

It was so much fun, and so amazing to be out at the beach in the dark frolicking without a care in the world.

Talk about some major sparkle.

LOVE!

And, then AG and I went in the ocean.  At 3am.  In the dark.  It was AMAZING.  There was enough moonlight to allow us to see through the water to the sandy bottom.  We didn't go in very deep, but deep enough to enjoy the warm ocean water (and rinse off the sweat from dancing all night).


Here's to a fun-filled, sun-filled, amazing, relaxing, week in Florida.  
We all agreed that this must become an annual trip.

Can't wait for next year and another sparklicious vacation!

My final thought - we earn our vacation days, so make the most of them.  Do something fun.  Do something you enjoy.  Do something that makes you happy.  

These few days in Florida made us all happy like an unexpected rainbow on a sunny day!