OOOOOOOOOh Mexico...

I've never ever been there, but I'd like to go!

OK, that's not true, we just went a few weeks ago!!!! :)

Oh man, I don't even know where to begin on this one. The trip was fabulous! Taylor and I have been singing Jimmy Buffet's 'Oooooh Mexico' for weeks now.  Well, I guess I'll start from the beginning...

We were off...

Well, let me back up a bit. Somewhere around October or Novemberish, our good friends, Emily and Kirt started talking to us about joining them on their Mexico trip to Cancun and the ruins. They had planned this trip with our other friends, the Fry's. Since we are also friends, they were trying to talk us into coming. I've always wanted to go to the ruins in Mexico. I am usually the one who is all over things like this, and wanting to travel and go places. Ben is the one who is more conservative with money, and more leery about doing things like this. But he was all into it, so I went with it. He said that if I could get my mom to watch our kids for us for the week, then we would go! I just felt bad because she had just watched our kids for our anniversary weekend in September. So, cautiously I asked her, and of course, she said yes. Weather she actually wanted to or not, I'll never know. But she did and we are so very grateful! So...that was November. The trip was already planned for the first week of February. Kirt got us a room at their resort, and we just had to find airfare! Well, that didn't happen until Jan. 2nd. So...I guess it wasn't official official until then. It almost didn't seem real to me, because it all happened so fast! One month later, we were on a plane to Mexico!!! It just so happened to be Superbowl Sunday and if you look at the above picture, we flew through Denver. Ben really stood out with his Seahawks shirt on. I think he tried to get in a few fights, but...

When we got to our resort that evening, it was just about starting time, so we were able to watch it in Spanish in our room. Our friends didn't get in until later, so we had a few hours to ourselves to watch the game. We were tired, and hungry and so we didn't get to enjoy it like we wanted, plus the game kinda sucked --YAY that the Seahawks won!!!--but kind of a boring game anyway.

We also had some other issues that we had to deal with right off the bat. The resort that we were staying in had a few different resorts all in one location, so we were actually in a different resort than the rest of our friends, so we tried to get them to change our room, which they wouldn't. That totally frustrated Ben, and after being tired and traveling all day, we walked into our room and there were two full sized beds!!! Doesn't exactly set the romantic trip mood we were looking for. So, he tried again to get our room switched to no avail. So, we totally slept in separate beds all week. :) It was actually kind of nice and I slept SOOOO good! :) ha ha

Finally Kirt, Emily, Delphia & Cary got in and we had a late dinner at our resort, and hit the sack.

The next morning we hit Playa del Carmen. Our resort was actually about 30 minutes south of Cancun, and we didn't even go there much. We were closer to a city called Playa del Carmen. It was about 30 minutes south of us. Closer to the ruins. There, there was a Wal-mart and bigger stores and we wanted to get some food for the week, and just check it out a bit. I love Mexico so much. I honestly felt like I was right at home there (dorky, I know!!!) 3 of the 6 of us spoke Spanish, so it was nice being able to talk to our taxi drivers and waiters and find out the local things to do and the favorite local restaurants.

The main beach at Playa del Carmen, right by the main ferry that goes to Cozumel, you could actually see Cozumel from the beach. All of us whiteys in our covered clothing. You could tell it was our first day! :)

After grocery shopping, we headed back to our resort to do some swimming. Unbeknownst to me, Ben brought this pair of speedos he has, as a joke, to wear. So, we change and head down to the pool, and Ben strips down into these bad boys. Then...starts to do some stretches, a la Michael Phelps before his Olympic races. :) Everyone was dying. It was pretty funny!!!  Even funnier were the old men all around us really wearing speedos. (like that guy with the cigar sitting next to us in the picture. He also had some pretty sweet gold chains around his neck!) :) Sadly enough, that was the only time that those speedos made an appearance.

The resort the Christensen's and Fry's stayed in was called The Mayan Riviera, and ours was called the The Mayan Palace. Both were awesome. I was kind of confused as to why there were so many separate resorts all together, it was like they were one, with one entrance, and then they separated, but anyway, the Resort had this amazing pool!!! It is the largest resort pool in Latin-America! It was huge and beautiful!

The beach was also right there, and amazing. They all got in a pick up game of volleyball, I'm not much of a volleyball player, so I wandered around and took some pics.

This awesome gazebo over the water, where they do special dinners and weddings. It was awesome!

Our beach was a bit rocky, but there were beautiful beaches right around the corner.

Looking back at our resort. You can see everyone playing volleyball...

Some more of our resort...

The beautiful Caribbean sea...

After their intense game of volleyball, we all just relaxed and read in the sun. It was perfect weather, and so beautiful...

One view of our pool. This was probably about 1/16th of the pool... :)

It sure was a good start to a great week!!!