Komandoo has my heart

This is an overdue post. Life always takes my time and speeds it up.

If you missed my FB videos, Dan and I went to Komandoo. We are not fancy people. I shop at thrift stores. For this trip, we saved up for years. Dan worked his credit card points magic and used points for a lot of it. We narrowed it down and finally settled on the Maldives. Dan researched his little heart out and found the island of Komandoo.

I had to post a blog about it so I'd remember it all. My brain impressively forgets most things pretty quickly. It's why I had 4 kids. I forgot labor and childbirth like it didn't even happen. Haha I'm kidding. But yeah, I am extremely forgetful. I read through my blogs from time to time and laugh at my own jokes like it's the first time I've heard them.

So, I don't expect you to read through this and look at all the pics if you've already seen them. They are for me and Dan to look back on one day. And for anyone who is curious about the Maldives, here's a peak. I only have one island to write about but I'm pretty sure it's the best one.

We were one of the few first-time visitors. Most of the guests had been there multiple times and come back every year. Since our budget doesn't permit that, we soaked up as much of it as we could.

Let's begin. Where are the Maldives located? The Maldives are a chain of islands located in the Indian Ocean a bit South/Southwest of India. How long did it take to get to the Maldives? 17 hours to Singapore, 5 hours to Male (Maldives capital) and a 45-min seaplane to Komandoo.

I will never get on a flight that lasts 17 hours again. It is more than I think I could handle twice in my life. The first-class passengers looked quite comfy though I must say, with recliners that turned into beds. I was able to catch up on all the latest movies so that was a plus. And Singapore Airlines is very nice. The flight attendants dress like movie starts and they fold the little toilet paper ends into points when there's no one in the bathrooms. Also, the food was really good. I was impressed. They even had vegetarian options. I would definitely fly with them again.

Flying makes me nervous. It didn't used to. After I had kids, I went from fearless to very nervous to do anything that may take me from my kids before they get married and have kids. They're going to need me when they have babies. Babies are hard and you need a village. So yeah, I'm a nervous flyer. The bigger planes are okay but that seaplane about did me in. I prayed the whole 45 minutes there and the whole 45 minutes back. 

Once we arrived on the island, it was magical from the start. It rained a bit on the first couple of days off and on but we didn't really mind because we were going to have a week of straight sun beating down on our white, tanless, coming straight from winter bodies. 

Immediately I was so excited to see everything swimming by. Right off of our back deck, we could see so clearly because the water was like a pool. We saw reef sharks, sting rays, turtles, tons of fish and even a manta ray swam by one day. I would have been happy just sitting there watching the sea life the whole time. It was a little slice of heaven.

But we did venture out daily. We snorkeled, paddle boarded, kayaked, went on a sunset cruise with dolphins swimming alongside the boat, went on a successful manta ray hunt where we got to swim with majestic manta rays AND were surprised to see 3 giant nurse sharks swimming under us with their entourage of cleaner fish. I was pretty nervous to see them and may have climbed on top of Dan in the water. 

The snorkeling was the best I've ever seen. The water was so clear that you could see all of the amazing fish from really far away. People from other islands came to our island because it had the best snorkeling around. So we were pretty spoiled to jump off of our back deck and see the most amazing sea life.

One of our top highlights was paddle boarding at sunrise. It was magical.

We ate at the most amazing buffet every day for breakfast, lunch and some dinners. We sat on the deck where we could see baby reef sharks swimming by. They pretty much lived there right outside the buffet restaurant. So cute. There was also a restaurant that overlooked the water where we ate most nights.

We met the most delightful people who came from all over. Most of them were British. One of my favorite things about the whole trip was sitting there with a smile on my face, talking to people with British accents and learning their fun phrases like, "Put the kettle on, I'm comin' over." And instead of saying "I'll catch up with you" they say "I'll catch you up." And they call vaccinations "jabs."  =) I wish I could remember them all. Debbie if you're reading this, feel free to comment with a few new ones ;)

The beauty of the Maldives is undescribable and the pics don't do it justice. If you ever get a chance to go, do it. And if you are looking for the perfect island, Komandoo is it. Here are a few pics in no order at all.

It's going to be really hard to top this vacay.

Fisher, camps & love

Look at me posting again so soon. I apologize ahead of time for all the Fisher photos. He's just so photogenic =)

I think Fisher knows he's ours now. He's definitely getting more comfortable. He still does puppy things like nibble on everything. He bit me in the butt this morning but I forgave him quickly. I can't stay mad at him. He follows me everywhere except upstairs because he's nervous about the unknown land that the stairs lead to. We're okay with that for now. He's pretty much potty trained. He hasn't had an accident for several weeks now. He does pee when he's scared though so we try not to scare him. I put him in his kennel so I could run the roomba. That was before I knew about his scared pee reaction to loud moving robots. He peed in his kennel. So the next time I ran it, I sat by his kennel and we talked about how the Roomba is helpful and although noisy, it's not mean. He did okay that time. 

He gets separation anxiety when I leave the house but we're working through that too. My neighbor told me she could hear him whining while I was at Costco so I try not to leave him unless I have to. I take him with me to run errands. 

He walks pretty well on a leash. Not perfectly, but he's improving.

He's addicted to woodchips which are all over our front and backyard, so that's fun. I talked Dan into clearing them all out of the back which he graciously agreed to. I haven't mentioned the front yard but I think that's next. 

He's learning not to chew on people or furniture or the car. We give him his bone every time he chews on something he's not supposed to. We very much love him already.

Our friends took Angus with them to a Monster Jam Rally. I think that's what it's called. I'm not really a truck rally kind of gal. Angus on the other hand was in heaven. Best day ever.

We had the pleasure of seeing two awesome people get married. The venue was so lovely and fun. I love weddings. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good pic of the happy couple but I got a few of some of the guests =)

Dan and I took this in the hotel room for Winter who asked to see our "fits." One of these days we'll take a good pic of us in nice clothes.

All the kids went to different Winter camps with the church last month. We're broke now but they all had a blast.

We celebrated our annual Valentine's Day fancy dinner at home. Dan made a lovely spread as usual.

And Mya made cake pops for her friends for Valentine's Day. I thought it was a bit ambitious since she'd never made them before but they actually turned out amazing.

If you don't know Dan well, he is type A. One of the things that bothers him the most is when I buy more of something like cereal when we have 2 or 3 half-eaten boxes of cereal. So he forbids the kids from opening the new cereal until the old cereal is finished. Even if that means that the old cereal and new cereal get old and moldy, as long as no one opens the new cereal before the old one is eaten. This is him explaining that the right side of the drawer is off limits until the right side of the drawer has been eaten. =) 

Happy almost March!