jamaica 2015: part one

i'm going to start categorizing all of my jamaica posts according to their year, since it seems to be our go-to tropical destination over and over (not a bad problem to have, i guess).  jamaica holds a special place in our hearts because we got engaged there in 2013 (here and here) and it's also where we went on our honeymoon in 2014 (here).  we always joke that we should try somewhere different, but really... why would we?  the beaches there are absolutely amazing and the people are super nice!

this year we returned to negril and stayed in the same resort we stayed at in 2013, kuyaba.  the hotel is located along the beautiful white sand 7-mile beach.  in between eating, sleeping, laying out, and eating some more... we went on a few adventures including cory jumping off the cliffs at rick's cafe, a snorkeling cruise to booby cay island where we were served freshly grilled lobster, and a peaceful dinner on the cliffs at the gorgeous rockhouse hotel!  there was plenty of relaxing too, involving fresh fruit on the beach, resting on our balcony during a rainstorm, and plenty of red stripes and "dirty bananas" (i'll explain those in part two).

here's a little video montage i created of our vacation highlights, and several photos of us around the hotel and our snorkeling cruise to booby cay...

a little pit-stop on the 1.5 hour drive from the airport to negril...

 cory loves to carry my floral suitcase ;)

nothing else says "welcome to jamaica" better than a rum punch with a drink umbrella!

a view of our hotel from the beach side (we got engaged in that little upper level hut two years ago).

our hotel has such beautiful and lush landscaping!

everything was so green!

 buddy is the coolest bird.  ever.  he will shake your hand and say "hello"!

jerk chicken.  all day, every day.

my view.  all day, every day.  :)

i found a random coconut floating in the ocean.  also, i'd like to buy that house.

cory stole my hat!

relaxin' in the lounge.

our boat with one of our captains.

a beautiful view of seven mile beach from our boat.

snorkelin'

i could snorkel in the ocean literally all day!  it's such a peaceful, mesmerizing world down there!

approaching booby cay island...

our other boat captain, pulling our lunch out of the ocean :)

it doesn't get much fresher than that!

life doesn't get any better than this!

our boat captain and one of the locals preparing our lobster lunch.

cory and our lobsters (they were still moving while they were cooking!)

eeeek!

there are no words worthy of attempting to describe how good this was.

one of the many jungle-like trails on booby cay island.

cory found the cutest little hermit crab!


part two highlighting a few visits to the cliffs to follow :)