Color Palettes Inspired by Dream Vacations

I’ve been keeping a secret from you.

I haven’t been keeping it because there’s some awesome secret blog thing going on.  I haven’t been keeping it because of my fears of an ax murder showing up at my door.  No, I was keeping it because I was afraid someone might come over and try to steal my furniture.

A few weeks ago, Tom and I took a trip – ALONE – to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary.  We hadn’t taken a vacation without the kids since Zack was born (over 8 years ago), and we where thrilled to have some time to ourselves.  We all flew to Florida, handed Zack and Emma over to my parents, and boarded a cruise ship to the Southern Caribbean.

To say that we had the time of our lives would be an understatement.  We ate more than we should have, drank WAY more than we should have, met new friends from all over the world and saw some of the most beautiful islands imaginable.  Over our 8 night cruise, we visited Grand Turk, Dominican Republic, Curaçao and Aruba, as well as had 3 total days “at sea” where we didn’t get off the ship.

The time away was perfect to rest, relax and recharge.  In fact, one day at sea, we woke up at noon. NOON!  And we didn’t even realize we had slept that late until we looked at the clock.  Do you know the last time I’ve slept until noon?  It definitely hasn’t been my last 8 “mommy” years, I can tell you!

Without free and fast phone or Internet, I thought that I might explode.  What if my blog went down?  It did, and we were able to fix it using the 75-cents a minute satellite Internet access (Tom is fast!).  What if my Facebook page went crazy?  It didn’t.  What if someone started tweeting that they hate me? They didn’t (and I probably took my “what ifs” to an insane level, huh?).  At any rate, I survived it, and I loved not being so connected.  It was really good for my soul.

But you can take a phone and computer away from a Blogger, but you can never take her camera.  I took tons of pictures of the gorgeous scenery in the islands.

Of course, I did.

Willemstad, Curaço

Willemstad, Curaço

Willemstad, Curaço

Are you bored yet?

Grand Turk

 Grand Turk

As my friend joked, this is the new “come to my house for my vacation slideshow.”

 La Romana, Dominican Republic

La Romana, Dominican Republic

I’ve taken all of these pictures and used them for good, though.  Over at Glidden’s My Colortopia blog, I have pulled color palettes from some of my favorite scenes so show how you can use a favorite vacation – or even bucket list vacation spots – to influence your home decor.  Such color palettes will always make you happy, since they will subconsciously remind you of your favorite places.  I’ve always been a tropical locale girl, but you can do this with images of snow capped mountains or dry desert scenes.  Click here to go to that post.

Okay, that’s enough from my vacation.  Also?  I may move to Curaçao and never come back.  If I just disappear one day, that’s what happened.  Well, that or the ax murder.