Punta Cana

Here are some pictures from our first couple nights of our trip. Pete and I got up early on Saturday morning (the 28th) and flew to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. We had decided to stay at an all-inclusive resort, since the main focus of our vacation was meant to be relaxation. Our travel agent did a nice job of finding us a place with a direct flight and decent prices, due to the fact that it's a brand new resort. She told them we were celebrating our 10th anniversary, so they gave us an upgrade to a room with an ocean view, which was so great. Here's the view from our deck...

 And the zoomed-in view of the beach.

 After spending a bit of time trying to figure out what had happened to Pete's iPhone (we never did find it) we finally just called home from the room phone. Then we went down for a drink in the main lobby bar.

 Here's our room with the Happy Anniversary banner.

 That first night it started raining right as the evening's show was about to begin. We all went to the indoor theater to watch the belly dance show. It was corny, but fun for a bit. We didn't stay too long.

 On the way back to our room Pete took my suggestion to try out the newly-installed swing at this pool bar. We know it was newly installed because they were in the process of putting it up when we were on our way to dinner.

 Our first full day at the resort we pretty much took it easy and hung out on the beach. We left our watches in the room, since we had no schedule or expectation on our time whatsoever. We read, played in the water, drank some drinks, napped and watched the people.

 I did not mean for this to be a feet picture, it just turned out that way. We had a nice spot under one of these palm umbrellas.

 Here's a nice shot of our empty Mai Tai glasses. This is actually one of my favorite moments of the entire trip. Pete was reading aloud to me an interesting part from his book. The weather was gorgeous and we were just enjoying life.

 After a while we went and had some lunch at this spot right by the beach. There were several restaurants to choose from. This was one of our favorites, due to its location.

 Then we went back to the beach. We played in the waves for a while and read some more. After a while it started to drizzle a bit and then this lovely rainbow came out.

 When it decided to rain a little more heavily we went back to the room and used the hot tub on the balcony. Or, rather, I spent time there with my book while Pete took a nap in the room.

 Then we dressed up a bit and went down for dinner. We put our names in at the French restaurant and then waited in the main bar for a bit. It was fun to talk to other people and find out where they were from. I think that night we spoke with a couple from Ohio, Poland and one guy from Florida.

 After a nice, long dinner we went back to the outdoor show area. There were big round couch-like seats where we were able to curl up. The show that night was a singer named Chris Blizzard (you haven't heard of him? He won a singing show on BET in 2009!) and then there was karaoke.

 I convinced Pete to get up and do a song, which was another favorite part of the trip. He sang Brown Eyed Girl and was definitely one of the best singers of the evening, though the others were fun as well. No, I'm not biased and Yes, I do have video.

 We ended that night with a can of el Presidente, the country's main beer.

 When we got back to our room that night they had put rose petals and Hershey's kisses on our bed. Such romance. We kept our air conditioning off and our patio door open every night to listen to the sounds of the ocean. It made for very nice sleeping!