This is super late but better late than never, right? 2 months ago, I stopped for a hot minute in the Dominican Republic for my best friend’s wedding. We were only there for 2 days but it was a much needed reprieve since my husband and I haven’t been on vacation together in a while.

Something about me is I LOVE tropical places. I love the beautiful turquoise blue waters, I love the sun, I love wearing skimpy cute outfits, I love it all. Despite not knowing how to swim, I love being in the water. It’s in my blood, being from the tropics.

And on top of that, I really do enjoy all inclusive type vacations not having to worry about everything and just enjoying the amenities. This trip really made me miss cruising because I love waking up every morning to a new itinerary full of stuff I can do and yet still have the option to do absolutely nothing and just relax (even though I’ll never truly do that because I’m restless and get cabin fever so easily). I still have traveling to Bora Bora and vacationing in an overwater bungalow one of these days on my bucket list. I’ve dreamed of doing it ever since high school days seeing in the Vin Diesel XXX movie. It just looks so amazing.

But I digress.

For this trip, we stayed at the Dreams Royal Beach resort. It’s one of two resorts on the property, Dreams being the family friendly one and Secrets being the adults only one. The cool thing is we did have access to Secrets as we were allowed to walk around their grounds and use their pools and certain amenities and restaurants as well. But because we were only there for the weekend and mostly wedding related events, we didn’t have much time to explore and experience it all. We did what we could in our limited time there but we still enjoyed it. The rooms are very spacious and lush; our room had a jacuzzi tub on our balcony, overlooking the resort which was really nice. The beach front was also stunning, with beds available to lounge on overlooking the water, but if sand isn’t your thing, there’s an abundance of pools in both resorts, with tons of beds everywhere, pool chairs to lounge on, and cute little hammocks. Just walking around the property to get my steps in for the weekend felt like I was walking through a dream. It was just really nice to be there in beautiful weather and warm sun on my skin. We got a rain shower here and there and it felt really refreshing too.

We attended the welcome dinner our first night there and then the wedding the following night. The next morning was the goodbye brunch but because of the timing of our flight, we weren’t able to make the last wedding event, but at our breakfast we were able to see everyone and say our goodbyes. I was so happy to see her family equally happy to have us there and appreciate us making the trip. In my mind for some reason, I didn’t think our presence would be that important to them but they continuously thanked us all weekend for making the trip, reminding us how much they enjoyed our wedding and how we grew up together. The wedding was also very intimate because of the nature of it being a destination wedding. Part of me wishes sometimes my wedding was smaller. I definitely had the people I wanted there and I still talk to a lot of my friends who were present at my wedding today, but if I’m being honest, I really hate that weddings are used by parents as a showing off event and their own friends and family add so much to the guest count. I don’t talk to any of those people today and if I could do it all over, I would choose not to give our parents their own guest list. If I ever had the resources and finances to do a vow renewal, I would love an intimate dinner with my inner circle. I just want to have fun making memories with my loved ones, when it comes down to it. And that’s what my best friend’s wedding really was. I had a lot of fun dancing the night away with her and I got really teary eyed watching the ceremony. It makes me so happy to see my loved ones experiencing true happiness with their chosen partners. I remember our high school days where we would write in our slam books about the boys we crushed on and how we’d draw what our wedding dresses would look like and fantasize about our future lives and relationships. It’s crazy. I love that we were and still are both so different but we just clicked in a way that only we could understand and connect as best friends. And I absolutely love that despite not always keeping in touch as well as we wish we did, we always pick up where we left off. I have so much love for her and her family and how much they have done for me growing up. I’m so happy I made this trip, despite worrying about how much this trip was going to set me back. When I was lamenting about it, my coworker put it into words for me in the best way; you can always make back the money but you won’t be able to make back the time. So truly take the time and make the time to spend with your loved ones now and don’t choose to forgo the memories just because you want to save money. That’s not to say, be frivolous. Just don’t let it be the thing holding you back from things you can’t experience again. You don’t want to miss these moments. Tomorrow is not promised. So stop making excuses, stop wasting time, and enjoy life. I need to embrace this more.

P.S. Totally irrelevant but I find pharmacies in different countries interesting. Especially on what you can buy without need of a prescription. Although I definitely don’t know if I can trust if these products are genuine, lol.