Family Meeting and Family Vacation

The first week in February my family planned to take a family vacation to Aruba. My parents flew down to Philadelphia the day before the trip because I had arranged for them to meet Joe's family for the first time. I know what you're thinking, we've been together forever and have been living together for over a year and our families hadn't met? It wasn't that we didn't want them to. Its just we never found a time that was convenient for both of them. So, the night before the trip, we all went out to dinner in Manayunk. Joe and I were both pretty nervous but everything went very smoothly and they all seemed to really enjoy each other's company. Phew.. check that off the list.

The next morning my parents and I flew to Aruba and met up with my brother. We made it out just in time before they shut down both the Philly and NYC airport. We arrived in Aruba mid afternoon on Friday. We were staying at the same place that Joe and I stayed at when we went in March 2010, the Marriott Stellaris. We spent the majority of the days lounging by the pool or beach. One of the days we went snorkeling on old pirate ship style boat. The ship even had a rope swing where you could hang on and swing out into the water. Another day, we went on the jeep tour that Joe and I had also done the last time we were there. Our neighbors (at my parents house) were also in Aruba so we spent a few days hanging out with them. Each night we went to a nice dinner, the picture above is from our dinner at Simply fish. A beach side restaurant where your table is right on the sand!


We had a wonderful time and it was great to spend 7 days as a family.