My trip to Peurto Plata with Mom

I just got back from the Dominican Republic! Mom and I just spent a week in Peurto Plata relaxing in the sun and working on our tan, also a bit of shopping! We left on Jan. 18 and got back on the 25th. We were a bit disappointed with the resort we stayed at but still had a great time. I can't believe how fast a week can go by! I was missing my kids by the end of the week though, and was ready to rejoin my family. Jared took 3 days, and worked from home, and my good friend Gina came over for three of the days to watch the kids (thanks Gina!). Everything went very smoothly (at least that's what they tell me).

Above is the view from our ground floor patio door, not exactly the ocean view we requested. The resort, Holiday Village Golden Beach, is an elusive Signature resort, they give it 4 stars, we give it 3 at the most! We also requested two double beds and got one double and a mattress on the floor!!!! Have you ever heard of a hotel putting a mattress on the floor! We shared the double. The staff at this resort was horrible, if something was missing out of your room(in our case toilette paper, coffee, and batteries for the remote) it didn't matter how many times they sent someone to your room to restock the item, no one ever came. Also there were power outages everyday and the water was out the first day. Also we never got shampoo in our room, thank goodness Mom packed some. Anyway, enough complaining, we didn't spend much time in our rooms anyway. The other pic. is of Mom in front of our room. They were two story villa style buildings. The weather was great, just right, not to hot but nice enough to be on the beach (I think Mom would say it could have been hotter) we did have some clouds though. We met many many many friendly Dominicans, the waiters, and men in the market can be a bit over friendly! They like blonds! The last day we went on a catamaran boat to do some snorkeling, it was so fun to see all the different fish! While we were snorkeling the guide called everyone back to the boat for lunch, so we headed back for lunch. I climbed on board, removed all my snorkel gear then realized it was the wrong boat! Mom hadn't climbed on board yet so I yelled down to her "It's the wrong boat!" This got a laugh from everyone on board, as well as the guide who invited me to stay for a quasadia! We were to worried that our own boat would leave without us so I declined and we swam over to our own boat (I didn't know Mom could swim so fast!). We made it back on time for lunch on our own boat, just buns and ham though, quasadia sounded better to me. I got burnt on the boat ride, my nose is peeling now. We had a great time, and were glad for the time together.