December 5 - 18, 2009

We drove from Orlando to south Florida, actually the town name is Weston. It is a bedroom community and we thought rather high priced. I about choked when I was charged $65 for a hair cut. We walked through the shopping area each morning. I worked on paying end of the year bills and we went looking at IKEA. We wanted to check out the bookshelves that we want to put in the house. We were able to see our friends Joe and Yvonne Bruce when we found that they lived only 2 miles from the resort. We left our van at their house while we were gone the next 3 weeks. We also drove to Doral to see Corinna and little Daniel.

Corinna is one of the Thai girls that worked for me in Chiang Mai and she married Joe who is in the US Navy. It was great to see them.

December 11 we flew to Aruba and stayed at the Marriott Ocean Club.


We were able to take a bus from the resort into town for groceries and shopping. We went to a local cultural center for an evening program and thoroughly enjoyed local singing, dancing and especially the steel drums.




It is the best $5 program we have seen. It lasted 2 ½ hours.


This is the view from our balcony

and the beautiful sunset one evening.


We spent time at the pool


as well as did our friends.




The weather was warm but there is a constant breeze that helps to keep you cool.



One day we rented a car and explored the entire island. One of the first stops was the lighthouse.




Then we stopped at this church

and also toured the aloe plant.




The goats were walking along the road

and I was really enjoying the bright color of the houses. Which one would you choose?




There were many folks climbing up this rock but we just looked.

We did go to a park but couldn’t drive in very far because the car bottomed out in the very deep dips. Aruba is a beautiful island and the people were very friendly. It is small and of course had lots of shops for tourists. The cruise ships also stop here.