Zoe and Gavin .com

As a wedding gift, Gavin’s parents treated us to an awesome family vacation in CUBA! And to make you all jealous I’m posting some fun pictures.

This is the beach outside of the hotel where we were staying. One morning Gavin and I got up really early and watched the sunrise.

The ocean was warmer than the pool, and other than one rainy (ie: 2 rather cool) days, the whether was very hot and an awesome change from February in ON!

You can see a little bit of our sunburn on this picture, but the flash mostly washed it out

If we took a bus, we found ourselves on a much bigger beach (read: they drop us off on the start of the sand and we walk for more than 5 minutes straight towards the water without getting wet!) After we went for a swim, I buried Gavin in the sand.

The sand is coral, so it is very white. And as Gavin soon learned, this kind of sand embeds itself right into your skin. At least three showers that involve lots of scrubbing might get rid of it all!

I still found sand on my skin back in Canada! (Which is actually illegal - you get fined in Cuba if they catch you taking the sand out!)

On two of the days we rented some old rundown motor scooters to explore the island we were on (Cayo Largo). Boy were they fun! Here you see Gavin driving me around, but we took turns! They could actually go pretty fast - considering they were wobbly and had no windsheilds.

One time Gavin and I got stuck in the sand and stopped to pull it out, and we couldn’t get it to start again - meanwhile, Gavin’s dad, brother and cousin didn’t notice us fall behind for quite a while….

Eventually they came back though, and Gavin’s dad (who has considerably experience with vehicles that don’t like to start) got us going again!

My favourite part of swimming on the ocean is the giant waves. Blake kept being thrown onto the beach though, and he was pretty scratched up - not to mention the little girl he almost knocked over when she was in his flight path…

When we visited “the village” (where all the hotel employees for the island live) and they have a turtle farm there - we met a huge sea turtle name Maria, who has been popping out little turtles he whole life - and she’s 60 years old!

We got to play with her newest babies - and boy were there a lot of them!

We also went on a “Sunset Cruise” where we went snorkeling and we visited a natural pool (ie: a big shallow area in the ocean) and we visited Iguana Island!

It was a treacherous looking island made up of coral. One woman tripped and was bleeding for the rest of the day :S

But there were some very huge, and rather friendly Iguanas there! I’m pretty sure that they live entirely on the food that tourists bring them on the tour.

Remember when I said that we got up to watch the sunrise - that’s because we were burnt so bad we couldn’t sleep!

Anyway, this is how I was peeling when I got back. Pretty isn’t it?!

I’ve been working at the toy store all week, and it is a little slow here. I spend a lot of time playing with the toys. And my new computer
When you put those two together, this is what you get.

This is Gavin bored at the store.

This is Gavin playing a dice game. This is code for “REEEELAY HOT WATER”

This one says “FAT CHANCE”

And this one says “CHILI WITH KIDNEY BEEEEEEENS”

Then I hit myself in the face with one of these flying things

But Zoe came and made me feel better. She also played with some toys.

OH and I made THIS VIDEO:

Click here if the above doesn’t play

Christmas is awesome, and lots of fun stuff happened Christmas morning, but my favourite part was when Gavin got his present from me.
Usually when you give someone a christmas present, you want it to be a surprise. Sometimes they don’t even suspect what you are going to give them.

But rarely is your present both the last thing they expected to see, and something they absolutely love!

It’s even better when they don’t notice giant, incredibly recognizable logos on the side of the box!

But when it happens, it’s priceless!!

Gavin really wanted to have a macbook for christmas, and since he had such rotten luck with his last laptop (which was ultimately returned) I said that I would give him one for Christmas. But they are expensive, and even though the refurbs were much cheaper than the new ones, I told him I wanted to hold out until Boxing Day to see if there were any sales.

He was slightly bummed out that he would have to wait, but he said ok!

Meanwhile I ordered it and had it sent to my mom’s house where we were going to be Christmas morning. I charged Alanna with sticking it in her closet as soon as it arrived and everyone was sworn to secrecy!

On Christmas eve (I left it late so he wouldn’t get the chance to notice another present for him) I wrapped it up really quick, and got Zeth to write “Gavin” on a name tag - I was worried that if he saw a present from me he would know what it was.

When he started opening it on Christmas morning (the last thing) he was like “hey, who is this from? Hasn’t everyone already given me a present?” and we were like “Just hurry up and open it!”

And he was so oblivious, until he actually saw his pretty little laptop.

Everyone loves surprises!