When the Little Ocho started 1st grade, she made a new friend named Chase. They spent the next 5 years of elementary school in the same class and became the very best of friends. They have a lot in common and have very similar personalities. Chase's family have also become sweet friends of ours and have always been very kind and generous to our daughter. They've hosted her for countless sleepovers, a camping trip and many birthday parties. I couldn't have hand-picked a sweeter friend or a better family for my daughter to spend time with.
As a surprise at Christmas, Chase's mom Mary & I bought tickets for the girls to attend the Taylor Swift concert in September, which just happens to be the same night as Chase's 13th birthday. Both girls thought they'd have to wait until September to experience the best that 2013 would have to offer them.
They were wrong.
I will start this story by saying that Handiman and I have discussed over the last couple of years how Chase & Lydia would probably grow up to be "traveling friends". Kids reach a certain age where vacationing with just their family doesn't cut it anymore and they need a friend to make it tolerable. We knew the Ocho was fast approaching that age and we figured we'd start inviting Chase to go along on some of our (few and far between) vacations and Chase's family might do the same. We also knew that they traveled to way cooler places than us; Washington DC, Chicago, New York. There was no doubt that the Ocho would definitely be getting the better end of the deal when that invitation arrived.
Little did we know the day would arrive sooner than expected. And the way cooler place she would be going would completely blow my mind.
Mary called me up on a Monday afternoon about 4 weeks ago and said she needed to ask me a question and she was pretty sure I was going to say no.
She began to explain that they had been invited to travel with some friends of theirs, another family that has 2 young sons, on a trip the week of Memorial Day. She was worried that Chase would be bored with no girls on the trip and they really would love it if Lydia could come along. Of course, since I had seen it coming, I was preparing my"of course she can go" speech with complete understanding of their predicament when she started saying words that were confusing me.
Words like Bahamas. And Private Beach House. And Personal Chef and Driver. Then she dropped the "they are chartering a private plane" on me and I was done. I might have even blacked out for a minute or two. Once I regained my composure I'm pretty sure my first words were "Are you KIDDING ME?" or something equally as eloquent.
While Mary was worried we would have reservations about sending our child across the ocean for 8 days without us, I was trying to figure out a way to convince her to leave Chase & Lydia here and take me instead.
It took Handiman and I all of 10 minutes to discuss and come to the inevitable conclusion that She. Must. Go. Our decision was only solidified when she sent us pictures later that evening of where they'll be staying.
Here's the house:
And the beach:
Turns out this is where Penelope Cruz vacations every year. Isn't it nice to know that The Little Ocho and Penelope Cruz will have something to talk about if they ever run into each other?
Of course, the trip requires a passport which I had to have expedited, but as I said on Facebook we were fortunate to get it back in just 10 days.
There are no words to express how grateful we are to the Hunters for providing our daughter with this once in a lifetime experience. She is over-the-moon excited. They'll be leaving next weekend and I'm sending her with a journal to document each and every experience. Hopefully, she'll come back with some decent pictures and stories for me to tell.
But for now, my little Bahama Mama is counting down the days until she can use the sentence "livin' like a rockstar" without even a hint of irony.
