Crazy Summer 2018

Wow! It has been a crazy summer so far. School let out on June 8th. I don't have to go back to work until August 9th and the students' first day of school will be August 16th.  That is two weeks shorter than previous summers.

On June 10th, I took Boogs to his first ever sleep away camp - Band Camp at Texas State University.

It is about an hour away from our home. Boogs was nervous and excited about going. I think he handled it better than I did. Those kiddos worked hard on their music. The concert at the end of the week was outstanding!

While Boogs was at camp, my husband went to Canada for his 30th high school reunion. I actually had the house to myself for 2.5 days. It was too quiet. I picked Boogs up from camp, then my husband came home two days later. On Monday June 18th, I dropped Boogs off in Waco to spend a couple of nights with the JBoys. He came home for one day before we dropped him off at my parents house while my husband and I went to Chicago for four days.

Boogs had morning Soccer Camp the Week of June 25th through the 29th. After we picked him up from soccer camp at noon on Friday the 29th, we drove to Houston so we could catch an early morning flight to Bonaire on June 30th.

The past two summers, we have had our summer family vacation in the Florida Keys. Boogs completed his Jr. Advanced Open Water Scuba Certification in May. We decided to take him to a new place for diving. We went to Bonaire. Bonaire is a municipality of the Netherlands. It is located about 50 miles off the coast of South America near Venezuela. It is considered to be a diver's paradise as the island is fringed by coral reefs. The entire island coast is protected as a National Marine Park. The Park starts at the high water mark on land and extends to 200 ft of water depth. You have to pay a conservation fee to swim/dive in the water.

We stayed at the Port Bonaire Condos in the capital city of Kralendijk.  The view from our balcony was as good as advertised.

 The ocean was just off the pool deck.

There were even stairs that led down to an entry for scuba divers to enter the water. We were happy to see a diver's rinse take at the bottom of the steps. We used that rinse tank a lot during our stay.

We booked our Port Bonaire condo through HomeAway and got a really good deal for the week. I prefer to have my own kitchen and separate bedrooms rather than stay at a resort.

Our first full day on the island was a little sad. We woke up to an absolute downpour. It rained and sprinkled most of the day. One of the locals told us it had not rained in 4 months.

We didn't let the rain get us down. We ran errands, went to the grocery store, and set up our dives for the week at the Dive Friends dive shop. It is interesting trying to buy groceries when you can't understand what is written on the labels. Grocery prices are comparable to prices in the states. I found it a bit odd that the national currency of Bonaire is the U.S. dollar.  That made it easy for us, no exchange rate or money changing to worry about during our stay.

 Boogs didn't mind swimming in the rain. Daddy was okay with it, too.

The rain stopped around 3:30. We decided to head down to the Kralendijk waterfront, walk around, and look in some of the local shops. Once we arrived at the downtown waterfront, we found out the shops closed at 3 pm on Sundays. Oh well, we still enjoyed our walk.

 There were so many sailboats anchored near the shore.

This tree was covered in flipflops, toys, paper, and other items that had been pulled out of the water. It had a sign, but I don't read or speak Dutch so I assumed the sign was warning people about keeping the water clean.

The sun finally peeked out for the first time that day around 6pm. Boogs enjoyed reading on the balcony in the little bit of sunshine.

I'll post more of our Bonaire adventures later.

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