Today we had beautiful weather so Mandy, Tracy, and I spent some time at the zoo, where I had a chance to take some portrait photographs.

After a couple of days on airplanes and flying though Huston we are finally back home in Calgary!

This morning, after a little swim in the ocean and some nice cake for lunch, we started to head back home to Calgary. As soon as we arrived to the La Romana International Airport we got some bad news; our flight from Miami to Las Vegas was cancelled. Not having much luck talking on the phone with our travel agency, we decided to fly to Miami and see what will happen next.

When we arrived to Miami we found out that there were some mistakes made with our reservation and that we had to stay in Miami for the night. We were provided with a free hotel room and some food vouchers, meaning we could spend some time exploring the night life of Miami.

Our last day here at the Canoa Coral by Hilton all-inclusive resort. Tomorrow we have a very long trip back home to Calgary. As always I didn't take nearly as many photographs as I would like to, vacation was too short to do all the things we wanted to do, but overall we all had a great time!

I tried to take some sunset photographs today. It probably wasn't a very good idea to leave these shots for the end of our vacation, because in the evening it started to rain and I only ended up with couple of shots that I kind of liked. There aren't many locations at our resort where I can take that "postcard" shot, but I will try again tomorrow night.
The show tonight, here at the resort, was very nice, lots of dancing and very entertaining.

Today's text for my photographs is provided by Tracy Mulder:
We decided to venture out from the resort on a group excursion today. Most of all this reminded Sergei and I why we dislike group excursions--too much time sitting and waiting and being rewarded with not too much to see. Anyways, our trip took us first on an amphibious boat (traverses from land to water and vice versa) on the River Chavon. It was nice, but not worth the money in my opinion.

The highlight of the trip was going to Catalina Island. There lunch was included and we had 3 hours to relax, snorkel, etc. To be honest though, the island was hardly deserted as there were many tour groups, as well as merchants, not too mention the snorkeling was no better then here at our resort. Oh well, the Belski's (Sergei, his dad Viktor, and his sister Violetta) amused themselves by trying to emulate the locals by fetching themselves a coconut from a palm tree. Nice try guys, 'E' for effort! :)

Knowing Sergei, the cooking of the meat (chicken and lobster), was the most fascinating part, and a picture he had to have. After lunch we simply walked along the beach, enjoyed the surroundings (while swatting at swarms of mosquitoes--another not so grand attraction of this island) and went snorkeling. I must say for myself, the speed boat ride to and from the marina in La Romana was probably the most enjoyable part.

Next stop after the island was a stop at an esteemed cigar factory-- who knew it would be a small room with only 5 employees. It was actually quite neat though, and as you can see they made cigars of all sizes. One lady mixed a variety of leaves and filled the cigar preparing it for the press machine, while the second lady added the finishing touch after the pressing machine. According to our guide each employee must meet a minimum of 350 cigars per day to earn their wage--where any more would earn them a bonus.

Our last stop was the most interesting; a village called Altos de Chavon. The village overlooks the River de Chavon, built to look like old ruins, however in reality it was constructed in the 1970's simply as a tourist attraction. It is a neat idea that really does look old; with its church, many nice resaturants throughout, gift shops, great viewpoints, etc. This village has many great portrait opportunities that Sergei envisioned; too bad with the tour group we were only there for 30 minutes. The village even had a 5000 person ampitheater where many famous concerts are performed every year. Overall, the day was enjoyable, and it was good to get out of the resort at least for day!

Nothing is really new, still enjoying our life on the beach.

Just another day in paradise :) We spent some time kayaking this morning and in the evening we all went to take some family photographs. We also had dinner at a Mexican restaurant here at the resort.

Well, we started our vacation with the usual routine, me getting sun burnt (at least the weather is fine and there are no huricanes). We spent the day at our resort, the water in the ocean is great! My dad and I signed up for a table tennis tournament, after kicking his butt I moved on to lose to a guy who ended up being the champion. We tried our skills at some archery, although I loved it very much, we found out that I don't really have any skills in that. There is not as many restaurants as we had on our last trip but the food is good and we are having a good time!

We met up with my sister in Miami and after 5 hours of hanging around at the Miami International Airport we were on our way.