Jesus loves Jamaica.

Our Jamaican vacation was exactly what this very pregnant mother of a hyperactive 19 month old could ever dream of. I had no idea how much I needed a little break from the hustle and bustle of the daily life keeping a toddler alive and well. And Aaron desperately needed the vacation. He spent three hard fought years in law school, an entire summer isolated and buried in ridiculously large and boring books studying for the Bar, and three brutal days actually taking the Bar. I don't necessarily believe he needed the vacation more than me, we just both needed it very badly in different ways.

This won't be a very interesting post because the vacation was simple, but it will definitely be long. I intend on posting all 184 of the pictures I took. The reason I say it was simple was because we spent six glorious days doing the exact same thing each day. We woke up around 8:30 to the sound of the waves hitting the shore 10 feet from our porch. Then we ate the most wonderful French toast we had ever tasted. We were on the beach by 10 and at some point we would take naps on the beach before we ate a grand lunch at one of the many restaurants on the resort. After lunch we'd lay on the beach or swim in one of the many pools from 2-6 and fit a second nap somewhere on the beach during those hours. Shower. Eat dinner. Watch whatever entertainment the Jamaicans were providing that night. Bed. Repeat. Simple. It was the most luxurious and beautiful week of my life.

When I think back about our week in Jamaica, I laugh really hard almost every single time. The week was hilarious for one reason and one reason alone, and that is because I was with Aaron Randall Rice. The truth is, we could have spent seven days in D'iberville, Mississippi and it likely would have been equally as awesome as Jamaica. You see, Aaron makes me laugh and smile more than any other person on God's green earth. And spending seven uninterrupted days with that guy made for some wonderful, hilarious memories that I will definitely reflect on for years to come.

Our flight was originally supposed to leave Jackson at 6:10 in the morning, and my brother, Drew, courageously offered to pick us up at our house at 5 a.m. to take us to the airport. Our flight ended up being delayed an hour but Drew had already picked us up, so what better way to kill time at 5 a.m. than go to Waffle House and stuff your face with a greasy, fattening breakfast right before you board a crowded airplane? Well that is what we did, and it was delicious, and Aaron spent the next 24 hours in an unfortunate, awkward state of flatulence as a result. So my piece of advice for anybody reading this: do not, under any circumstances, fly to another country with Aaron after he has just consumed anything from Waffle House. Results are not pretty. And because I was in the middle seat of a very crowded airplane, the innocent traveler sitting on the other side of me kept giving me strange and unwelcoming glances when the smell would enter his personal space. It wasn't embarrassing at all.

I honestly don't know where to begin to make you understand why we had so much fun on this particular trip. There is a high probability that not one single person who reads this will even crack a smile, and an even higher chance I lose the respect of at least two of you. But I'll risk it.

For our first full day on the beach, we inevitably spent every waking second in the crystal clear ocean or laying on comfy, plush beach chairs reading some great books. Well, my book was great. Aaron's, on the other hand, could not have possibly been more boring. How interesting can The Road to Serfdom, written by a man who has been dead for 70 years, really be? Anyway, Aaron got really into the book on the first day and wouldn't pry himself off the beach even for one second to go back to the room and reapply sunscreen or take a little break from the sun. But before I go on, let me take a moment to teach you a little something about Aaron, just in case you don't know this already.

If you know Aaron, you know that among other things, he rarely makes mistakes. He might be the most non-careless, overly cautious person you will ever know. He plans for the absolute worst case scenario in everything he does and strongly believes that everyone is out to screw him over. I am confident that law school does this to a person because he used to be quite normal, but that is neither here nor there. So what struck me as hilarious in Jamaica was the fact that bad things kept happening to Arnie and I laugh really hard when unlucky things happen to him. That is why I might be the worst possible wife and human being to ever exist. But what is even more important to note is that I always make mistakes and rarely think about consequences and unlucky is my middle name. Ok, so there is your history lesson for the day.

Example of Aaron being overly cautious by locating the safe in our room and

putting anything valued over $10 in it all times.

Back to Aaron. After a couple of hours in the sun, I made the unusual but very smart call to go inside and take a break from the heat. I asked Aaron to come and he said in a Jamaican voice, "We're in Jamaica, mon. We have to stay on the beach!" So I went inside and rested while Aaron baked in the Jamaican sun, and at the end of the day, when Aaron emerged from the beach, I smiled a big smile. The reason is because after eight or so hours in the direct sun, Aaron was brutally, horribly sunburned. You see, it felt so nice to not be in his shoes, for once. I always get sunburned, everywhere I go because I am an idiot who never wears sunscreen and Aaron lectures me all the dadgum time on the issue and I roll my eyes at him. This wasn't just any ole sunburn, though. He got blasted by the sun. He looked more like a ripe tomato than a human being, and he looked pretty miserable. It was funny. Don't curse me. Sadly, I didn't take a single picture to prove it.

So the reoccurring theme for the next four days was that I am smarter than Aaron and I got to laugh really hard every time I had to help him take his shirt off because he couldn't do it by himself. He also spent the remainder of the trip wearing a tshirt in the pool, in the ocean, under an umbrella on the beach, and at all times because he was in so much pain. He swam in a tshirt. Funny, I tell you.

Throughout the week, there were a series of unfortunate events that stalked Aaron and kept me in a constant state of laughter. One of the events included Aaron clogging our toilet and causing the 'engineering team' to be called to our room to resolve the problem, and another involves Aaron taking an almost incredibly painful fall on a slippery floor. What is ironic about the latter is that Aaron had spent the previous 24 hours teaching me liability law and emphasizing how reckless the resort was in laying floors that were so slippery. Sure enough, the next day we had to walk across the risky floor to get to a restaurant, and literally after Aaron took one step onto the floor, his foot slipped from under him, he made a ridiculous grunt and grabbed onto me to save himself. The grunt was hilarious, and the fact that he almost fell down was hilarious. Just thinking about it makes me laugh out loud. Seriously, I just laughed out loud. Slapstick comedy at its finest. If you were there and saw what I saw and did not laugh, then you have absolutely zero sense of humor. Or maybe my sense of humor is just sick.

We ate a lot of really good food and Griffin (the little baby boy in my belly) doubled, maybe even tripled, in size throughout the duration of the week. The Jamaicans loved to make me delicious, exotic fruit smoothies and always made sure I was "keeping the baby safe." Towards the end of the trip, all of the bartenders recognized me and would start blending the smoothie before I even approached the bar. At times, I simply wanted a glass of water but they insisted the baby needed fruit, and I gladly obliged. And perhaps the best part of the week was that I finally started feeling Griffin move while we were there, which was awesome and might just be one of the coolest feelings ever.

22 weeks

One of the best things about Jamaica, and our specific location in Jamaica, was the absolute seclusion and solitude of the beach and even the resort we stayed at. Most of the time we completely alone on the beach and there was rarely a soul in the ocean. Our room was on the corner of the resort and we had direct access to the beach, and this was our view from lying in bed:

It was absolutely breathtaking. The water was as crystal clear and aqua as I had ever seen or even knew existed. We got up close and personal with some octopus, starfish, sand dollars, etc. and loved hanging out with the Jamaicans. They are so dadgum nice and happy (and probably very high).

But after six full days of being in Jamaica, it was time to go home, and we were ready. A day less would have been too short of a vacation, and one more day would have been too long. It was just right. So even though we did the stereotypical, cliche frowny face picture because it was time to leave...

...we were actually very ready to board the plane and land in our country and scoop up our little man who we missed so painfully bad. He was clearly not as excited to see us as we were to see him, and he made that obvious as he screamed and cried the entire 90 minutes back home. Evidently he had a wonderful time in the Burg with his Geez and Gam.

So the vacation is definitely over now, especially for Arnie. He started working two days after we got home and they are definitely working the stew out of him. And the babymoon was taken just in time for Aaron's sunburn to calm down and the peeling to subside, leaving behind a nice little tan. Now all we are left to do is wait for Griffin Aaron Rice to get here and then the real party starts. Yeah mon.

Jesus hearts Jamaica. And we do too.