Sunday – Easter Departure

The most difficult day of our trip (by FAR) turned out to be our return day.

We had a quick “Easter” egg hunt with the kid’s breakfast boiled eggs.

And Kate sliced up the 2 tiny bananas that Theo had found along our walk between the beach and our villa.  They tasted like regular bananas, and evidently the island didn’t have a lot of insect pests as there weren’t any blemishes on the fruit as you’d see here with unsprayed apples. 

Theo’s reaction makes it look like the banana is sour, but he’s actually taking offense to something Zeke said at the moment I snapped the shot.

Here’s our departing shot from the balcony of the second floor…

 

We said goodbye to Nellie and Rosemary and Sandy, jumped in our taxi to the airport and arrived half an hour before the United windows opened.  FYI, they open at 11.  Weekends only?  Sundays only?  Easter only?  Who knows. Oh, and that 11 is Dominican time.  Someone finally showed up around 11:15.  I shouldn’t say ‘Dominican time’.  Most of what we experienced there was quite punctual, especially taxi’s arriving at our house for pickup.  But we did here the phrase, ‘Dominican minute’ quite a bit.  Which as my wife explained to the kids means really, in about a minute or 5 or 10.  Part of their laid back relaxed culture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was planning to sleep in the next morning, as the kids had late start (except for Zeke), but I woke automatically at 6:30 to find Zeke already awake.  Since I was awake I really wanted to pickup Ruby in the morn so the kids could see her before they went to school.  Both Theo and Maeve, during the last few days of the trip, had out of the blue said, “I don’t even remember what Ruby looks like.”  Theo also said he wanted to go with me in the morning to pick her up.  I wasn’t going to wake him, but he woke on his own so he went with me to drop Zeke at his school.  Along the way, we picked up Ruby.  I allowed Theo to ride in the front seat with Ruby. 

He reminded me that we needed to give Ruby his regular Monday morning walk, as well as get mom her regular Monday morning coffee.

In closing, I have to include the start of this thank-you that Kate wrote in the villa’s guestbook (followed by thank-yous from Jane and Maeve too)

Dear Harletta & Norm (Spencer),

Thanks so much for the fantastic family (of 7) vacation.  The kindnesses and guidance from first contact continued through to the last day of our experience.  You, Nelly, Rosemary, Willy, Sandy, Ramone, Gabino and Gus were all that you said, and this vacation that we thought was ‘too good to be true’ really was ‘too good’! but True!!!  We are blessed to have our children experience the DR, R&R on a beach and house pool and the exceptional people of another culture. All good!