Finally, a Bonaire trip report

It appears we timed things well for our trip....subzero temps in the Twin Cities and not much snow to speak of....when that happens, it's always nice to head south....WAY south. We took a late friday evening flight out of St Paul. Got into Houston around 11pm where we met up with Ben, Susan, and Emily. Unfortunately, our flight out of Houston was delayed for a bit...didn't leave until after 1am. At the time of booking, it seemed like a good idea to take evening flights...theoretically, the girls would sleep on the flight and arrive not as tired as normal. As with anything in life, things don't always turn out as planned. We arrived in Bonaire about 7:30am. Got our rental van (without seatbelts....who would have thought to ask if a van would have seat belts?!) and headed over to the house. Lolo immediately picked out "her" room, complete with twin beds and teddy bears! After settling in, the girls hit the pool in the afternoon. We discovered that Norah is perhaps more of a water bug than her sister....this crazy girl wouldn't stay in the shallow water, she would insist upon crawling/climbing into the "deep" end of the pool....at the beach, our crazy kid would walk/crawl into the water until it went over her head. Fearless and crazy. That's our Norah.
Via the internet, we found a local dive shop - Tropical Divers Bonaire. I took a Peak Performance Buoyancy class from them. And Jim and I took the Night Diver Specialty course from them. Unfortunately, on our last night dive, I stepped on a sea urchin (which went through my dive boot). Anyway, given that I had to pick spiny needles out of my boot and foot, we were unable to complete the last night dive. Long story short....we tried to reach the folks at the dive shop. They were unresponsive and not at the shop very often...mostly at the bar next door. Upon coming home, we find out that they aren't going to certify us for either class because we didn't fill out the appropriate paperwork (which I had asked them about earlier in the week but they weren't inclined to help us with at the time). DO NOT use this dive shop if you are ever in Bonaire. There are simply too many choices out there to waste your time with this shop. We'll be posting more on various other sites about our miserable experience with them - to help others avoid the bad "service".
But not to dwell on an icky topic.
Bonaire was great. We had a wonderful cook. Great weather. Diving was spectacular (despite the unfortunate sea urchin incident). The girls loved the beach and pool. And most of all, we're all CRAZY about Baby Emily....ok, we enjoyed catching up with her parents too, but E116 was the main draw ;-)
If anyone is up for a trip to Bonaire, let us know....we're itching (literally, the mosquitos got a little nuts with the girls....you should see Lolo's legs) to get back there.
Oh. Another reason to go back....Lolo lost her beloved woobie at the Bonaire airport when we were returning home. YIKES! We about had a major meltdown tragedy but mom was able to find a special "pink flower & butterfly woobie made just for special three year olds" once we got home. Whew. (Can't believe we got away with that one!) Plus, our girls love "dusty" roads. We took a dusty, potholed dirt road to Lac Cai. Lolo and Norah loved the whole thing....all the bumps and dust....the girls couldn't get enough. We were coming home from dinner tonight and Lolo was asking if we could go drive on a "dusty" road.
My trip photos aren't nearly as great as Susan's...so I would direct you to E116's blog for photos and additional accounts of the trip.