tenerife...

Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain... If you ever get the chance, GO! I normally don't like going to the same place twice when travelling (just because I want to experience as much of the world as possible) but I would go back there again in less than a heartbeat. 

After all of this cold we've had in the UK, my hubby whisked Finni and I away to defrost and hopefully completely rid of our colds. This time of year Tenerife becomes full of vacationing families, so the resort we stayed at had so many children and so much for them to do. 

Here we are waking up on our first morning, snuggling together.

We spent that morning swimming in the pool. Finn basically fell asleep on this floaty mat after a few hours of crazy pool excitement. We were lucky enough to get a room and pool chairs right outside our room balcony, so when Finn took his nap in our room Chase and I relaxed for a few hours in the sun, and I got to make a dent in a new book I got for Christmas.

We had to wake Finn up from his nap (very tired kid) so we could walk around the town and enjoy the beach.

Finn loving the black sand in between is toes.

Chase and I feel very fortunate that many of the restaurants we've visited since "across the pond" have had some awesome people on the service staff. We've heard lots of funny stories, some have basically sat down and had dinner with us, and they've loved on our Finn. Dinning out has been more of an experience than a meal. This place was especially great to us-the Italian man running the first Mexican restaurant we've seen in 4 months was such a character. Finn ate a bowl of guacamole and half of my fajitas. We watched the sun set over the Sea and walked back to our hotel.

The next day we spent at the water park. I cannot imagine a better place suited for Finn at his age. There was loads of mini water slides and pools for him to run around in. We played all day, got to hold a family of parrots, and watched an amazing dolphin show. Finn ran around at top energy for 6 straight hours without one complaint until he slipped down some steps and landed on his head on the concrete. I thought for sure he cracked his head open, but he only cried for 3 minuets and ran straight for the same steps again. We had so much fun that day, but unfortunately didn't take our camera with us. We spent the evening back at the resort together.

Chase is going to explain our last day...

We decided to rent a car on the last day since our flight didn’t leave till 1930. So we got up and went for a drive. The island isn't that big (you can drive around it in 3 hours), so we headed up the volcano to take in the sights. The mountain (a volcano) is huge (over 12,000 feet) and you can drive almost all the way to the top.

Then we drove down the other side and were going to drive back around the coast to our resort. Problems started when we took a wrong turn (or didn’t turn when we should have) because we were taking pictures and checking out the amazing views. We ended up driving all the way to the NW tip of the island on the most beautiful (and treacherous) road I have ever been on in my life to find out it was a dead end and we needed to drive all the way back and find where we missed our turn.

Finally we found the road that was the “shortest” way back to the main road (also, roads are generally bad in Spain and slow going). This road then turned out to be the most beautiful and dangerous road. It was about 15 miles long and wound up and down these ridiculous valleys (I think we gained about 3000 feet before the end). Took us about 2 hour to go the 15 miles and I don’t think I got about of 1^st gear more than 5 times.

To continue with the story... We were already really late before we started up this road; we wanted to make it back to the hotel for lunch, to change, and drop of the rental car. Needless to say we missed lunch, and now were just trying to get back and catch our shuttle to the airport. About an hour before we made it back it was looking like we were not going to make it, but there just might be a chance. It’s at this point Finn’s stomach decides he is car sick (from all the twisty driving) and throws up all over himself in the back seat! Perfect! So, we stop, take him out, take off his clothes, wipe him all up, wipe out the car seat, and put Finn back in (who is now miraculously happy). We then drive back to the resort, get Finn out (who is only wearing his diaper at this point), get everything out of the car so Kim can get our bags from the hotel (they were in a luggage room because we couldn’t check out late), can get Finn some new clothes and change into something warmer for the flight home. I manage to somehow get the car returned in about 5 minutes and get back to the hotel to help carry all the bags out to the curb. We make it with about 5 minutes to spare. We then relax, tell ourselves we made it and wait for our ride. Shuttle shows up, we turn and get our bags, go out to the front only to watch our shuttle drive away without us! Luckily there is another couple who is waiting for their shuttle that leaves in 25 minutes, so we ask the bus driver when he arrives for a ride to find out his bus is “full”. After some more talking we find out that he has a couple extra seats he’s not supposed to use, but lets us on anyway. Now thinking we are in the clear, we ride around in this bus to 5 more hotels and watch all of our time before our flight tick away. We finally get to the airport, get checked in (they had to do some special stuff to make sure our bags made it on our flight), go through a really long security check, get out to our gate, to THEN find that they have delayed our flight an hour!

Anyway, Finn slept the whole flight, we are home safe and sound with a good story, a great vacation, all our stuff (minus one Crock of Finn's), and a stinky car seat.

: )