A day in life: Cuban vacation

One of the most common posts I see on blogs today is "a day in the life". Now, granted most of the blogs I follow are either from mommy-bloggers or healthy living bloggers.. but honestly, some of these things are a yawn!

But here's a REAL yawn for ya... our daily schedule while we were in Cuba for vacation. And I don't mean yawn like boring, yawn like HOW RELAXING. It was glorious. Without further ado, a day in the life: Cuban vacation.

5:30am: My dad and his best friend, Brian, wake up to an alarm and walk to the beach together with all 10 towels in hand. They choose their favourite 10 lounge chairs in the sand and then go back to bed. (This was vital: if you waited even til 7am all of them would be gone... 2,000 people at one resort, what can ya do!)

Between 7-8:00am: Oliver and I wake up. Sometimes Dakota too. We get dressed, grab a room key, sippy cup and all-natural sanitizer, and kiss Daddy goodbye. Sometimes we go see if other early-risers in our party are up, other times we head out alone. We find a big table at the breakfast buffet and fill our plates. I get a mug of hot, black coffee (mmmm), the kids get water (or this weird lactose-free milk), the we choose our favourite things from the buffet which were typically a fresh-to-order omelet, sweet potato croquettes, bacon (if it was crispy enough for us), smokey chickpeas, fresh smoothies from just-juiced fruits, hashbrowns, chocolate pastries, sauteed green peppers and onions (for the eggs), whole grain toast with butter, and all sorts of cheese. Over time the rest of our group of 12 show up (heck sometimes they even beat us) and then we all leisurely eat and enjoy each other's company/ discuss who has a hang over (just kidding, only ONE hang over was had all trip!)

We leave the restaurant and watch whatever entertainment is out that day -- Disney characters, live bands, all-male acapella singing groups, still statues that come to life to scare people, etc.

We all go to our own rooms and change into bathing suits, put on sunscreen, grab sunglasses, sand toys, etc. and meet at the beach.

9:30am - 1:00pm: We do not leave the beach. Most of us swim the entire time. We'll take a break to rent a kayak or have staff take us out on the hobi-cat boat for half an hour. We'll snorkel and watch schools of fish, or even find a star fish and become beach celebrities. We'll "tan"... under a cabana because the sun is too hot. We'll venture over to the bar for a pina colada or white russian. At exactly 10am Dakota will fall asleep on someone's lap. Around 10:30 or 11am other groups will start heading to the volleyball area and some of us (not me!) will engage in a few heated games. Ollie collects sea shells and meets new friends by saying "Hey I'm Ollie from London Can I Play With You" all one word. People will ohh-and-ahh at Dakota. We'll remember that swim diapers don't really keep the pee in. We'll rinse off in the ocean water. And then we'll find out if there's a pig roast on today.

1:00pm: If there's a pig roast on we'll head over and load up on delicious pork and black-bean-rice. If not, we'll find a large table at the ocean-side restaurant and fill up at their buffet. My favourite items were pasta with bechemel sauce (to share with the kids), roasted eggplant, stuffed peppers, battered fish (oh my life, I'll never forget how yummy!), paella with oysters, and a big scoop of coconut ice cream to finish.

Everyone under 30 heads over to the pool and camps out for the afternoon. Calvin rinses the sand off Dakota and then brings her up to our room for her afternoon nap. He chills in there the whole time to give himself much needed out-of-the-heat time. Sarah and I laugh at people making fools of themselves at the swim up bar. I attempt to drink a hot coffee from a small, flimsy plastic cup.

4:30pm: We realize it's probably time to get out of our bathing suits. We round up the crew and make sure everyone knows where to meet for dinner. If it's a night we have a reservation we try to dress fancier, if we're just eating at the dinner buffet we don't. We hang out bathing suits out to try. We shower or soak in the jacuzzi tub.

6:00pm: We eat dinner, often in 3-5 courses. At dinner we discuss our evening plans. Activities ranged from tennis to rock concerts to sun-set beach time to movie night. Unless we all want to do the same thing (i.e. Michael Jackson concert), one group will volunteer to stay in the room from 8:30pm on so the kids can sleep.

8:30pm: We get the kids into pj's, brush teeth, kissed heads. Dakota goes in her crib in a separate room. Oliver gets the movie "Big Hero 6" on his laptop in his cot bed beside ours. He crashes within 5 minutes, because he's had a busy day. If it's a stay-in night, we fire up a movie like Interstellar. If we're going out we might go dancing or have drinks at the lobby bar. I never fall asleep after 10pm.

And then we start again!