The Cat's Out of the Bag

Well Mahkala now knows about our surprise trip next month. We, Kala & I, are going to the Bahamas to the Atlantis Resort. I am beyond excited! As long as I can make the flight, I'm set to go. Where did this all begin? Well, oddly enough, I first saw The Atlantis Resort in a Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen movie when Mahkala was about 4 years old. I thought "Wow. That would be a wonderful family trip!" I always swore one day we would go there. I figured maybe when she was a teen and I had married my millionaire husband (these were pre-Eric days). So I kept this thought in the back of my mind for future reference. So as we planned our family trip for this past January we went back and forth...Hawaii, Walt Disney World, Mexico, Atlantis? Out of the country was out because getting all the passports in time wasn't a possibility. Did I really want to spend a week doing Disney stuff? Nah-so we chose Hawaii which was wonderful. But I kept thinking "I want to go to the Atlantis. I want one more trip before I go back to work and can't take off excessive amounts of time and probably shouldn't pull Kala out of junior high." So I talked to Eric about it and the plan began. My travel agent came back with numbers for Walt Disney World and Atlantis. They weren't that much different. Plus I figured if I'm going to spend that much $ to ride the teacups I can do it here in Anaheim. The next step was getting Kala's passport. It was a bit frustrating since court papers weren't as tight as we thought they were but it all worked out and I was able to get her a passport (long story). So the trip was planned. I want Eric to come but he's very busy in the summer and can barely get a day off, let alone 7. We'll miss him but we understand. And really I'm going to be on the beach 24/7 anyway so he would have gotten bored!! At this point Mahkala still doesn't know about the trip. She thought we were getting the passport just in case we wanted to go somewhere. So then I go the the Atlantis website to checkout all the activities, fees, food, etc that they have and what do my wandering eyes see!?! The Jonas Brothers are holding a concert at the hotel on May 9th. WHAT THE HECK!?!?! I thought I might as well see...called my travel agent...she calls me back saying she has 2 tickets for us to go to the concert! Holy cow. So we go May 6-12 and Kala gets to watch the Jonas Brothers Concert at our hotel. I kept trying to figure out how to surprise her with the news. Last week in New Mexico, both my bro-in-law, Jeff, and sister, Susan, asked me about the trip in front of Kala. So needless to say, she now knows about the trip but I kept the concert part a secret. I arranged for Kala to be on independent study from school so she's not technically absent and since the 6th graders are about to do a country report, her teacher said she could do the Bahamas since we'll be there. And yes I'll admit I wasn't sure if the Bahamas was a "country" so I googled it! Lastly this morning on the way to school I told Kala I know something that will ease her nerves (today is the junior high cheer tryouts and she's beyond nervous-more about that another blog). So I told her we were going to see the J.B. (Jonas Bro.) in the Bahamas at our hotel. She kept saying, "At our hotel? In the Bahamas?" She was stunned but once it kicked in she was ecstatic. I let her focus on that all morning and brag to her friends so she'd quit thinking about tryouts. I'm nervous enough for the both of us. Now the cat is out of the bag, what an odd idiom, and Kala is so happy. I started tanning so I don't blind all the other guests but I burned myself the first day. Hopefully I'll be somewhat tan before we go in 3 weeks. I'm anxious about the flight but I have my "happy pills" to keep me going. It'll be about the same as Hawaii but it's still flying. I am very excited and can't wait to share our trip. We are going before summer hits because I don't want to be there during hurricane season (: Check out the website...it's a wonderful place and, yes, I'm rubbing it in a bit!!! Miley Cyrus is also performing there but we'll miss it by 4 days but I think Kala prefers the J.B. but either way she'll have a blast.


www.atlantis.com

I'm trying to make the link work but it won't!!