Joe was so excited that he qualified for the awards trip at work again this year! The location was Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic. Although last year we extended the trip and took the kids with us to Maui, we decided that the poor timing this year, along with the expense of going that far was just too much. So we got my mom to come down and stay with the kids for a few days, and the two of us packed our passports and suitcases and got ready for the trip.
The travel was lengthy, and we had a long layover in Miami, but the views were beautiful as we landed in Punta Cana.
While driving to the resort, we passed one of the downtown areas. Unfortunately, not such a nice area...
We stayed at the Hard Rock Resort and Casino. The resort is huge. We checked in and found our room, which was fantastic.
My first priority was heading straight to the beach! Wow, was all I could say! It was truly stunning!
We sure enjoyed our 3 night stay! We did have some work functions to attend though. They did a huge awards ceremony, which included entertainment from the comedian/actor Jason Alexander. He was really funny!
They awarded their top performers. Way to go Joe!!
I love that this company always incorporates a community service project in their trips. This time, we all assembled over 100,000 food meals for the local community. Since 43% of the Dominican population is in poverty, this one was pretty neat to be a part of (even if we did have to wear hair nets!) We had a great time with our team.
We spent some time at the casino and wandered around the Hard Rock. Joe even made $20 on the penny slots. :)
There is so much memorabilia from the music industry throughout the hotel.
Since it's an all inclusive resort, we could have ice cream whenever we wanted. We definitely took advantage of that!
The outside of the resort is really nice too. There are several pools, a lazy river and slides, and restaurants and snack shops.
They concluded our last night with a big gala dinner.
It was a delicious steak and lobster dinner, with some fantastic desserts...
One of the best parts of this trip (aside from the amazing beach) was getting to reconnect with a good friend from high school! When we were sitting in the Miami airport waiting for our connecting flight, we ran into my friend Jackson, and his wife Sarah, who also happened to win the Awards trip. We haven't seen each other in almost 20 years, only catching up on Facebook, so it was quite a shock! It was so much fun reminiscing and getting to spend some more fun times together.
We spent almost every moment of our free time during the day at the beach. I just couldn't tear myself away! We did get a few tropical storms that dumped some rain and brought some wind, but they moved through quickly, and within 10 minutes the sun was out again!
I could not get over how warm this water was! We spent a lot of time playing in the waves and enjoying the warmth.
We saw a beautiful rainbow...
and beautiful skies...
Our last couple of hours were spent walking up and down the beach. There is just nothing like the clear turquoise blue water and light, fine sand.
The sky was such a brilliant blue, and such a stunning contrast to the white puffy clouds! I could've taken a million pictures.
We had such a great time, but I sure missed my kids. I am thankful we got the opportunity to go, and thankful that my mom was able to take such good care of them! Our flight home was long, another 17 hours of travel, but it was well worth the getaway!
