We had a blast spending time on the Caribbean Island of Barbados this year!

Here are a few pictures of our adventures on the island!

Welcome to Barbados!  Jake and I near the Welcome sign at Barbados, which is our last Caribbean Island before heading back to Puerto Rico!  We are ready for the fun adventures today.  When we stood at this sign we had no idea how many memories we could pack into one day at the beach on Barbados!

The big puffy clouds eventually turned into gray rain clouds, but they did not damper our time at the beach.  It was actually neat swimming in the ocean and hearing the pitter patter of rain drops clicking on the top of the water.  Yet another adventure I had never experienced before.  When you grow up in Kansas, the majority of your water experience is on lakes not at the ocean because you are so far away from any ocean beaches.  Actually the first time I saw the ocean was when I got engaged to my man, Jake, in Aruba (which is another amazing place to visit).

This is another “princess” looking cottage we took a picture of for Brina who loves anything pink and princess.  She is our “girly” girl who loves princesses, babies, and animals.  Although we missed them during our excursions it was nice to snag a few pictures to share with them.  They loved that we thought of them during our adventures away.

The water was BEAUTIFUL at Blue Monkey beach in Barbados.  It was the gorgeous turquoise blue that you could stand in and look down to the bottom of the ocean and see your feet.  The dark patches under the water in the picture above is where we saw the most colorful fish snorkeling and it was in a spot we could touch.  It was nice to relax, swim and look at the colorful fish swimming all around us.

For Christmas Jake got me a waterproof, shock proof camera that we were able to take into the water with us to capture some of the fish to share with the girls.  Here are a couple of the fish we encountered near the coral as we were swimming just off the beach at Barbados.  If you look closely you can see another fish down in near the sand in the corals.

This type of fish we saw several times.  I am not sure of the name but it was pretty with its face turquoise blue, a couple black stripes, and a golden yellow body.  We had the opportunity to see a lot of different fish but with us swimming, but the fish were moving quickly so it was hard to capture all them.

This was probably one of my favorite ones that we seen next to the beach.  It was really beautiful almost rainbow striped with vibrant colors (taking its’ picture under water doesn’t do it justice but it is the closest we could come).

I cannot express how much I enjoyed swimming with the turtles in Barbados!  It was such an amazing experience to be swimming right beside a huge turtle, beautiful and peaceful at the same time.  I could literally reach out and touch the turtles.  Turtles really are awesome swimming and it was almost relaxing just watching them glide through the water.   I hope to do this again some day!

Two sting rays were swimming together right beneath us.  Wonder if they were a family!  We seen them several times always near each other swimming.  I didn’t get as close to the two sting rays but it was very excited to see them swimming with us.

Gorgeous turtle swimming right in front of us.  I never thought of turtles as beautiful animals until this experience in Barbados.  We were blessed to have the opportunity to enjoy so much of our wonderful creation from animals to plants and so much more during our trip.  Karlie is our girl who loves sharks, rockets, planets, matchbox cars and animals.  She was so excited to see this turtle and amazed that we could be swimming with them.  She had two questions for us after seeing this picture – She wanted to know why we couldn’t bring it home with us to put him in our turtle tank, ha!  Her second question was “Did we get to swim with any sharks?”

One of the sting rays swimming below us on the ocean floor.  Simply amazing!

I had my first experience riding on a jet ski in Barbados as well.  It was all I could do to hold on and not fall off when we were racing across the ocean so there weren’t as many pictures of us ON the jet ski’s.   Shortly after we got on the jet ski’s I look over at Josh and Amber riding and see Amber hanging off the back followed by a crash and a flipped jet ski.  Although difficult we managed to get the jet ski flipped back over but they had to go into shore to get another one to ride.  Thankfully, we only had to do that once.  It was pretty funny sight to see though!

Mom relaxing in the shade and Dad sunning himself after getting wet jet skiing.  The tide was moving in during our time at the beach so Mom, Dad and Becky thankfully rescued our backpacks, shoes, water bottles and other stuff from floating out.  To this day I still don’t know how we didn’t lose something with the number of times we were chasing sandals in the current and moving the canopy back.

Beautiful flowers to welcome and wave us goodbye on the island of Barbados.  They thought the rain was refreshing and delightful as much as we did.  You can still see some of the rain drops on the flowers and leaves!

We had a blast on Barbados!  Swimming with the turtles, sting rays, snorkeling and jet skiing were amazing.  The time flew by so quickly!  It was a great day with family!  We created a lot of neat memories and had the opportunity to enjoy new experiences.  I highly recommend Blue Monkey beach if you ever get a chance to visit Barbados!!!

A Vacation To Remember series is a reflection on our recent trip and ways we relaxed.  Life is short and we were thrilled to have the opportunity to build memories with family and explore of of the most amazing places during our time away.  Go with a good attitude and looking for fun and it will be an awesome trip jammed packed with positive memories.  It is refreshing having some time away from the regular routine.  Make it a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet new people and learn.  You just might see or try something new that takes your breath away!