FINALLY!!

Ok, I FINALLY have pictures from my trip to Palau, or as I like to refer to it- Pa-WOW!!

I got the pictures tonight when I got together with my two PFF (Palau Friends Forever) for drinks and appetizers.  I almost didn't go tonight due to being late getting home from Don's SCUBA class (that's another topic for another day), but I am so glad that I did.  It was nice to catch up with the girls and now, I must admit, am writing this through winey-goggles...  But oh that wine tasted so good.  But on to Palau....

As several of you know, there is a little island off the coast of Alabama, that holds a very special place in my heart.  It is a place that no matter what my life was like when I arrived, I always left feeling centered and refreshed and relaxed.  As much as I love Guam and feel blessed to have a beach at my disposal, I really haven't been able to truly relax at the beach since arriving thanks to my little man and his penchant for putting seashells in his mouth, running into the water without warning, or wandering into the jungle on a whim.  (Wow, tipsy typing is really, really difficult.... thank God for spell check).  So when a friend asked me to join her and another gal for a girls' weekend in Palau, I immediately told her, "Don't ask me if you're just being nice, because I need a break and will do everything in my power will see if I can work it out and go."  Of course she asked me when I was a few glasses into a bottle of wine and Don was away in the land of plenty while I was stuck at home with a sick kid, and I wanted to be pretty much anywhere other than where I was at that particular moment.  So, in a very un-Terrell like manner, I worked it out with Don, bought my tickets and and knew I'd be heading to Palau in a few months.

Fast forward a few months and there I was, with tickets and plans to head to Palau without my husband or child, and with two people I didn't know as well as I would normally expect to know someone I was traveling to another country with (one of whom I didn't know AT ALL).  My brain was almost convinced the whole thing wasn't real, but then May 12 arrived and I was packed and my two travel companions knocked on my door and whisked me off to the airport.  I tried hard to keep the tears in check as I left Price (for the longest I had ever left him, wondering how I thought I was going to make it 5 days when I really couldn't remember a time I had left him for more than 5 hours. I'm pretty sure all of those thoughts that so consumed my brain are the reason I couldn't remember to make sure my camera had its memory card and was unable to to take my own pictures of this trip).

Several hours later, we arrived in Palau.  It was dark.  We were greeted by Customs.  I got my first stamp in my passport.  We smuggled somehow felt it was necessary to each bring a a 5 liter BOX of wine with us- yes, that would be 15 liters for 3 people for 4 days. AKA known as- a pretty impossible task.  Although one of us did get stopped at Customs, they let us through.  And we found a taxi.  It was here that our adventure truly started....