Sorry for the interruption but I was out of town for most of the holiday (we left the 26th for Chicago, but thats a whole post on its own!). I did however, want to brag about some of the Christmas Gifts that blessed our house this season though.

Amy’s big gift this year is to have the Master Bath and Bedroom repainted. When we bought the house from her parents, we inherited the DEEP red color of the bath and bed room. Its a dark red (think maroon) that is hard to match colors with. Now we’re going for a lighter, beachier look and are painting them Beachnut (its a lowes color). The master bath is done (Amy found some Votive candle holders at a store in Nashville), next on to the bedroom!

Grace had a very Hannah Montanna Christmas. She got a Hannah Montanna Guitar Game (like Guitar Hero) that plugs in to the tv, a Hannah Costume, and doll. Its pretty cool and she likes pretending to be a rockstar. Maybe someday. I like playing her game (since I haven’t bought Guitar HEro World Tour yet) and she’s getting better at it.

Mose got a Trampoline. One of her favorite things to do is jump. We’d wake on Saturday mornings to the heavy thud of emma jumping up and down in our door way. Now she can do it all she wants and it doesn’t make the house shake. Its pretty cool and Grace and Emma take turns on it. Amy wanted to try it out, but its for people under 80 pounds (and neither of us meet that requirement!

The girls also got some tinkertoys, and some other little odds and ends that they like to play with, but the coolest by far is my Ultimate Wall-E Robot.

We saw the movie in the theaters and we’re big fans (mose loves him). We had seen the Ultimate Wall-e at the Disney Store but we weren’t going to get him because of the price tag. Needless to say, Santa found him on Sale and he was wrapped and under the tree for me on Christmas morning. He has fun dancing, chasing the dogs around and just exploring on his own. If you haven’t seen one yet, I’ll work on some video and see if I can get anything posted. Its pretty cool though and the way he can respond to voice commands or find his own way around the room is fairly smooth.

Was there one gift that you prized more than the others??

I got my first blackberry curve a little over a year ago. It was one of the original 8300’s at&t let out in to the wild. I quickly upgraded it to the 8320, the version with the GPS and I loved that tool. I won’t call it a phone, because RIM (research in motion) made it so much more than that. I could administer my Windows servers and Linux Boxes from it. I could chat with my friends via gtalk, aim, facebook, twitter. I could even record video with it (after I upgraded the firmware to a beta version). It took a lot for me to give it up. Until RIM came up with the BOLD. Granted, its not an iPhone, or the yet to be released in the states Blackberry Storm, but the BOLD is everything an admin or executive could want and more.

It came while I was out of town (I received notice via email on my curve) and I had to wait until today to get at it. It was quickly unboxed and up and running. I even managed to wait most of the day before I put the latest beta release firmware on it. Needless to say, the speed enhancements between the 3G and the wi-fi make this phone perfect as it is. The fact that it has GPS built in is even better. I’m still working on finding the perfect theme for it, and installing all the must have apps, but so far I have AIM, Gtalk, mobileAdmin, gpsed, viigo and some others installed. I haven’t purchased the iPhone Theme for BlackBerry yet. I had it on the curve, and I’m not sure if I want it again. It was a nice theme, but it doesn’t feel right.

I’m working on finding the rove screenshot tool again, but I haven’t had any luck yet, I don’t know if I can rescue it from the old laptop, but I’ll try. As soon as possible, I’ll post some screenshots, and maybe some video.

It started off a normal trip for us. Our ride was coming to the house to pick us up at 5:30am for an 8:40am flight out of Hartsfield-Jackson to Montego Bay, Jamaica. Which would have been great if I hadn’t slept through two alarms and woken up at 5:20. Luckily we packed the night before so all we had to do was brush teeth, shower and pack our toiletries. I was waiting for pops as he pulled in and Amy was finishing up. I had checked the weather earlier in the week and I knew that we could be expecting rain, I just didn’t know how much.

We made it to the airport and got through security with plenty of time to spare. The flight to Jamaica was uneventful and the trip through customs there was the same. They’ve done a lot of work to the airport in MoBay since we were there in 2001 and its almost a big time airport. Nice thing about the way they sheapard you through there is that you miss most of the wholesale fashion jewelry shops that are waiting to tempt you on your way out of the country. Anyways, we made it out of the customs area to the new waiting area for the resorts. It seems that most of the big resorts now have their own lounges in the airport which is nice. I was able to have a red stripe while we waited on the other couple that would join us on our ride to Couples Swept Away.

The ride to the resort was fun as usual, Jamaica is a place where it is better to forgo the rental car and just take the bus or taxi and let someone else worry about the road. We made it to the resort in about an hour and a half (you can see the route at gpsed) and was about like I remembered it. Couples Swept Away is one of two Couples resorts in the Negril area, and perhaps the more laidback of them. Upon disembarking from the van, we were ushered to the check-in desk and handed a glass of champagne. Check in was painless and we were given the keys to our room.

We were shown to the room by a bellman and we were not disappointed. We had an Atrium Villa, which gave us a nice private balcony and a hammock. Despite the fact that we were in the “garden” area we still had a view of the ocean through the trees. It worked out rather nice for the weekend. The room was nice and big, big shower, nice king size bed, and no TV! Couldn’t have asked for better.

We freshened up a bit and made our way down to the beach where we walked along to the Patois Patio for lunch. Amy had a nice salad and a smoothie, I had a Spicy Jerk Chicken Pasta dish and a drink called a Snake Eye (as well as a rum and coke). Things were good. We spent the rest of the afternoon finding our way around the resort and did dinner at the Cabana Grille later in the evening. The nice thing about all inclusives is that you can usually find something to eat and drink 24 hours a day. Thursday night Amy had a hard time sleeping as the sounds of nature were all around. It was pretty cool.

Friday morning we woke up to a down pour. To our west and north, Hurricane Paloma was busy doing her worst to the Cayman Islands with her sights set on Cuba. It rained most of the day. But we were able to stroll down the beach to Margaritaville for a cheese burger in paradise. We spent most of the afternoon lounging on our porch in the hammock or on the bench and we picked up a deck of cards in the gift shop and spent much of the evening playing rummy. We did go to the “Beach Buffet” which was held in the Palms and we watched the Steel Drum Band and the other entertainers that evening. We went to bed Friday night and all was well (mostly) with the world.

Saturday morning we woke up and went out. It looked like the place had been hit bad. Up and down the beach, where there used to be path, there was nothing but sand. Needless to say, most of the water sport activities were canceled for the weekend due to the surf and mess in the water. The beach was ruined. We spent most of the day lounging by the pool instead of the beach. Saturday night we headed to Feathers for dinner. I had the Grilled Tenderloin while Amy enjoyed the Lobster. It was a good day despite the weather.

Sunday we were resigned to head over to the spa for a couples massage (Couples gave us a $50 certificate for the gift shop, and a half hour massage each since we were repeat guests) and then back to the beach for the rest of the day. The staff was hard at work clearing the debris and the weather was actually nice. We were able to go in the ocean, find some nice looking shells. We even saw a couple of starfish that kept washing close to the shore no matter how far out you took them. Things were beginning to get back to normal in paradise.

We did dinner at Feathers again Sunday night, simply because we liked the menu and we packed our bags. We looked in to staying one more day, but it was going to be too expensive once we changed flights. In all, we did ok. We were up by 7 the next morning and waiting in the lobby area for our bus back to Montego Bay. I think we’ve decided that 4 nights is too short to go to Jamaica and will try from now on to do nothing less then 7. That way, if you do have bad weather, at least there are more chances for good weather. We’d highly recommend the couples resorts to anyone looking to get away. The staff has been nice and the food and service excellent at both couples resorts so far.

If you want to see more photos, check out the gallery.Take the