On December 30th I flew to Roatan, Honduras for
the New Year’s weekend. I had never been out of the country on a holiday before
so I was excited to see how other countries celebrate. (technically I was in Venezuela over the 4th
of July but they do not celebrate the US’s holiday over there so I wasn’t going
to count that).
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| You walk on the tarmac at this airport! |
My Aunt Tracy and Aunt Laura both greeted me at the airport
with a Monkey La La at the airport bar.
We went straight to the West End section of the island to pick up my
uncles and my cousin. We just hung out the
rest of the day and evening. It is
sooooo relaxing there!
The next day my uncle took me snorkeling. I FREAK OUT snorkeling in Roatan because the
water is so clear that you think fish are 4 feet away but they can really be
15+ feet away. BUT, you don’t realize
that in your head and you freak out. At least that’s what I do. My aunt’s house has a long dock on it that
has great snorkeling around it but you have to swim through turtle grass to get
to it. I know it’s irrational but it
freaks me out.
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| We also took the boat out one day |
Anyway, to fix my fear he made me hold on to a pink water
noodle and he stayed with me the entire time.
I did freak out a little but not as much as I did the last time when I
almost killed my aunt while snorkeling with her. Needless to say, my entire family doesn’t go
anywhere near me while snorkeling so it was quite a pleasant surprise when my uncle
helped me. :) My Uncle Roger always took
care of us when we were little though so I shouldn’t have been surprised. Thanks Uncle Rog!
That night we went to a restaurant in the West End called
the Blue Marlin for their New Year’s Eve celebration. I haven’t had so much fun on NYE before. I am forever spoiled by Roatan. The Blue Marlin had a steak and lobster
dinner with champagne, fireworks and dancing…all for $40! I usually spend between $100-$200 on NYE
(depending on what I am doing) so $40 is awesome. The food was awesome, the fireworks were
bright, and the dancing was fun! I can’t
even begin to explain how awesome it was.
When I got sick of dancing (I only like to dance to songs I know) I
would sit by the water and just listen to the waves crashing. So peaceful on one hand but exciting from the
music behind me.
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| I spent a lot of time reading in these hammocks! |
The next day my aunt had invited several of her friends from
the island over for lunch. I was on my
tablet when I saw a message on Facebook from my sister. I couldn’t open it for some reason so I figured
I would just wait until I could turn my phone’s wi-fi on. I figured it was just a note asking if I was
having fun. A few hours later I was able
to turn it on and saw that she had sent me a note saying that my dad had been
having chest pains and was about to go in for surgery. He had had a heart attack several years ago
so this wasn’t the first time. In the
days leading up to it he had what he though was heart burn but since it
continued for 3 days straight, they decided to go to the hospital. It turns out that one of his stints had come
loose and he needed it repaired.
I was a crying/sobbing mess that I couldn’t get anyone on
the phone and I couldn’t get there. There
is one flight back to Houston a day and it left at 2 pm. I didn’t have time to make it to the airport
on time, even if there had been space. I
was able to get ahold of my sister and then my step-mom and they assured me that
he was fine. They had asked the doctor
if they needed me to fly back right away but the doctor said he was ok and would
be fine to wait until I got home. I
talked to him that afternoon and felt much better about being so far away. It is so hard being that far away and pretty
much helpless because you can’t catch a flight back. People were starting to get to the house for
lunch so I went upstairs after I talked to him to regroup. Both my aunt and uncle came up to check on me
and see how I was doing. They’re
awesome.
After a while I felt ok enough to go downstairs and be with
people. Sometimes you just need a few
minutes by yourself after you get bad news.
We all ate lunch (including cabbage for money and peas for good luck)
and then played games well into the night.
I brought the Bean Boozled game from Jelly Belly with me and it was a
huge hit! We all took turns spinning the
wheel and eating good or bad jelly beans.
Some of the were really bad! :)
We all also played Cards Against Humanity which is hilarious! I had played a few times before but I especially
got into it for this game.
The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing on the beach or
dock. My aunt took me and her friend
Jackie to this abandoned resort on the east side of the island. It is still kept up really nice but no one
goes there anymore. There are guards at
the front gate but if you ask nicely they will let you take a peak. We stayed at the dock for about an hour just
talking.
My Uncle Roger and Aunt Laura left Sunday afternoon and we
left Monday afternoon. I did get a
chance to take a picture of this little fish that we think was protecting its
eggs. All of the snorkelers on the dock
were complaining this little grey fish was biting them when they were getting on/off
the ladder. On the other side of the
platform I saw a post that had a hole in it (that really needs repairing btw)
and a little grey fish just swimming by it and chasing all of the other fish
away. I asked and they think it probably
had laid its eggs in there and that’s why it was being so protective. I couldn’t really get a good picture, but you
can still sort of see.
