Several years ago Adam and I sat down one evening and made up a Vacation plan. One that not only incorporated vacation time as a family, but also couple time, and time away as individuals so that Adam could go on the occasional Alaska fishing trip with his brothers without nagging from me and so that I could get away on the occasional trip as well. At that point in our marriage the longest I’d been away from the kids on a personal getaway was two nights and only three times. Adam on the other hand has always been much better at taking trips with his brothers and making sure he gets that “away time.”
We came up with a budget for all of our vacations per year and even a time schedule and how many days we’d both get per year for personal use etc. and which year each of us got our personal leave. It was almost as if we were setting up our own little corporation! But that’s what you get when two people who got their Masters degrees in business together. đ ha ha.
So the plan was set. Adam had spent a week fishing in Alaska in 2011 and so we decided that 2013 would be my year for a personal trip. However, I’ve always felt sort of weird about taking a trip on my own. If I’m going to go someplace fun I want Adam or the kids there with me. It felt so foreign to be planning something without them and I really really struggled with it. It felt so selfish and wrong for some reason.
I was so hesitant and even cried up until the day I left on my trip and I worried and worried and worried and fretted about everything, about leaving my family, about being on my own in a foreign country, leaving my kids with a babysitter, etc. etc. etc. But in the end I am SO GLAD I went. I came home a NEW WOMAN and now I get it. I completely understand why the trips Adam has taken mean so much to him and why his time in the Winds or up in Alaska with his brothers is so awesome (even though we his family aren’t with him). It truly opened my eyes and was just what I needed to ground myself and re-energize my batteries. I’m so glad that after 10 years of marriage I finally got the courage to go out on my own and do something I enjoy. It has completely changed the way I view all the trips Adam goes on and now I see how important they are to him.
In order to plan my girls get-away I started subscribing to lots of travel sites where I could see the good deals that pop up from time to time, and then as I’d see the deals I would figure out just what kind of an experience sounded right to me. Did I want to run off to Ireland in the Spring and drive around Europe? Did I want to go back to my mission for a quick trip? Did I want to go someplace warm? somewhere with beaches? a cruise maybe? something all inclusive? It was fun to dream and explore different options and figure out the kind of experience I wanted to have.
In the end I ended up finding a killer deal on an all inclusive trip to Mexico. It was in February or March and was right within my budget leaving me $500 in spending money for excursions and shopping too. So I decided THAT was what I wanted to do. Go someplace warm, with beautiful beaches, food I didn’t have to prepare, and in a beautiful place with lots of color where I could sit in the sun and read a good book. The best part too was that I was able to convince my wonderful mother (who like me had also never been on a week long girls trip) to go with me! That instantly made me about 150 times more excited about going as I’d never had that much time with just me and my Mom. It all sounded so perfect!
So we booked our tickets, put the date on our calendar, and anxiously awaited the day of our departure. I ended up sleeping over at my Mom’s house the night before we left and then early the next morning at 4:30 am we woke up, finished up our last minute packing, had some breakfast and drove up to the Salt Lake Airport to catch our plane to Denver at 7:10 in the morning.
We had to laugh though when we discovered at check in – that unfortunately our two airplane carriers didn’t mesh well and weren’t excepting each others luggage. Which meant that once we got to Denver we had to go get our bags from baggage claim (instead of our airline just forwarding our bag to our next flight) and then re-check in, AND go through security again. That made us a little nervous considering we didn’t have a lot of time before the next leg of our flight so we enlisted the help of our flight attendants who gave us directions on how to get from point A to point B the fastest. Luckily all went well though and we made our flight with no problems. In fact our second leg of our flight from Denver to Cancun got delayed about an hour and 15 minutes due to our plane having issues. They ended up having to re-assign us a different plane and then we had to wait out on the run way for quite awhile because we were so off schedule. It was a little crazy.
The plane ride over though was pretty nice up until the last 20 minutes or so when we started to descend and I got what my Mom calls “a squeeze.” Both my ears were in intense pain from the pressure of the plane and I couldn’t get them to pop no matter what I did. I tried gum, drinking water, plugging my nose and mouth and trying to breath out. I just couldn’t get those ears of mine to pop until the moment we hit ground. It was some of the most painful 20 minutes of my life! But luckily all was well once we landed.
We had to get our baggage right off the bat once we landed in order to go through customs but we had to laugh because halfway through unloading the luggage all the workers basically just stopped working and took a 5-10 minute break. It was the strangest thing and quite interesting to see how many people got really angry over it. There was a man that just kept going around fuming about how he couldn’t believe they were just taking a break in the middle of our luggage coming. It was pretty funny.
Mom and I had to laugh too because we were both SO excited to escape the cold and gray and brown of our Utah weather to go down to Mexico where it was sunny and warm and green. But the day we flew in to Cancun it was storming, and gray, and rainy! ha ha. Mom just looked at me and said, “well its good traveling weather!” True dat.
After getting through customs we were greeted by our Fun Jet Vacations guide who took us to where we caught our van that would take us to our Hotel. We rode with 3 or 4 other couples and once again had to laugh when as luck would have it we were the very last stop on a long road of drop offs to hotels. So it took us almost 1.5 hours to get to our hotel.
We arrived probably around 7:00 at night and both of us were STARVING so we pretty much just dropped off our luggage and then headed straight for the buffet. Afterwards we went back to our room where we unpacked, jumped on beds (well I did. They were HARD and needed softening) and then we called our hubbies and then played the “Me Ball” for awhile which is a get to know you game my roomates and I made in college. It was so fun to get to know some new things about my Mom I didn’t know and to hear some of her childhood stories.
The next morning Mom was so cute and she surprised me with a few little gifts she’d gotten me for my birthday (we used the trip as an excuse to celebrate my February birthday and her March birthday). It really made me feel so loved and cared for. My Mommy sure does know how to make me feel special. Then we decided to walk around the resort for awhile to get a feel for our surroundings. We had breakfast in a cute little restaurant right on the beach and then we decided to head over to the Xcaret park (sort of like Sea World) where they had lots of fun things to do. Below are some pictures from our first real day at the resort.
Our bright orange Hotel room complete with a balcony right over a beautiful river. We woke up each morning to singing birds, and squawking animals.
This was the walkway we took to breakfast pretty much every morning. We both loved the vines.
I loved how the pool area had Spider Man.
I thought of Harry when I saw it and had to take a picture with his favorite super hero.
Unfortunately our first day in Mexico it was still a bit overcast, but the beach was still beautiful!
This was the little restaurant we had breakfast in every single morning we were in Mexico. We loved being right next to the water and hearing the waves crash as we ate each morning. The resort had several other places to eat as well but this was our favorite.
The restaurant is to my left and the resort beach is behind me.
On our walk around the resort we found lots of cool old Mayan ruins.
Acting Silly!
This river ran right smack in between the resort and was the river we overlooked from our balcony! I loved the Italian feel it gave to the resort. So pretty!
They had this Goldola you could take over to the Xcaret park each day too.
We took it the first day just for fun but then walked everyday afterwards.
Mom is pointing to the big Stadium at Xcaret park where they had a fabulous evening show every night! It was one of the high lights of the park and was very well done with real birds flying around, amazing costumes, and awesome dancing and singing.
We loved this building we passed each morning and named it the Cheerio Wall.
I was completely in love with all of the architecture within both our resort and the Xcaret park! I was taking pictures at almost every turn!
We couldn’t believe how plentiful the Iguanas were and how friendly they were for the most part too. You could barely walk 5 minutes without seeing one.
Both our resort and the Xcaret park had these beautiful birds all over too. We loved their bright colors!
One of the first activities we did in the park that first day was to go and float the Xcaret Rivers. They gave you a life jacket and fins and a snorkel (if you wanted them) and then you would float and swim down your choice of three different rivers. We decided to do the hardest one the first day and it was about half in the dark in caverns and half out in the light and took about an hour. It was so fun though to float and talk and laugh as we floated the river and we really enjoyed that time together.
Afterwards we were famished though and so we stopped at the Xcaret beach buffet for some lunch. We got our own little private spot right out on the water and loved just watching the waves and birds as we eat. We were in HEAVEN!
Then after lunch we decided to head over to one of Xcarets other beaches to go snorkeling. We loved exploring as we went.
They had a big Turtle pool and sand bar where Mommy Turtles can lay eggs.
Snorkeling was wonderful but unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of us to document that adventure but below is one of the random dances we saw as we were heading home from the park that evening.
We also got to catch some of the workers rehearsing their horse routine for that evenings show.
I couldn’t believe how giant these cacti were. My Mom is 5’9!
That evening we were pretty tired so we just stayed at the resort the rest of the night, went out to eat at the resorts Mexican restaurant and then we headed back to our hotel room to watch movies. We ended up watching “The Step Mother” with Julia Roberts and we both just sat and cried our eyes out over it. It became the joke the rest of the week. “Hey I know what we should do. We should go back to our hotel room and watch really sad movies and cry our eyes out!” I sure do love my Mom! We had so many precious moments together. And that is the end of day 1! đ