Cancun

Since I'll be having this baby in just over 2 weeks (!!!) I figured I should do some updating on this bloggity blog.

Remember how last summer Austin worked in South Carolina for 4 months?  Well when we eventually came back, we had the chance to go to Cancun with his company.  (This was in November...so I'm obviously behind on this thing.)  We stayed at the Riu Palace Los Americas.  It was amazing!  Since Austin's brother, Dalton, was engaged but not quite married, he had to tag along by himself with us, the old married couple.  We got there early in the morning and even though we were exhausted from the red-eye flight, we found ourselves a pina colada and started off our trip right!

Since we stayed at an all inclusive resort, most of our time was spent either on the beach or in the buffet room eating.  I don't remember where we ate the first night, but we didn't go to the normal buffet and we missed out on some amazing lobster that EVERYONE was talking about.  We went back every night and they never had it again.  Bummer.  The food was great though.  The whole time we were there, we'd compare it to a cruise to see the pros and cons of each.  One thing we liked about a resort is the fact that (at least this one) had a lot of local food, rather than just American type stuff.  I can't even tell you how much guacamole I had over the course of 3 days.  Soooo good.  Plus there was always lots of dessert.

As for our beach time, it consisted of a lot of laying out and hanging out on the beach.  They had a sand volleyball court where we spent lots of time.  With a huge group of salesguys and their wives, there was almost always 6 on 6 playing pretty competitively.  We'd play for a bit then chill and have a pina colada or some other type of frozen deliciousness.  I think we tried every virgin drink they had and the bartenders got sick of us I'm sure, because they finally asked, "What is this group of people here?  I've never made so many virgin drinks before!"  We asked him if they were harder to make than alcoholic ones and he said, "Yes, a lot harder!  You guys actually want them to taste good."  But that didn't stop us from still ordering one every chance we could.  Our favorite was a "coco cobana" which was a mix of pina colada and strawberry daiquiri.  

This drink looks good, but it was super nasty.

They have tons of excursions you can go on, kind of like a cruise.  We went across the street to a little mall and after hours of bartering with a couple excursion people, our group (of 25) decided to go to Tulum to see the ancient ruins as well as some snorkeling in the cenotes.  It was quite the experience to witness the bartering going on to get the deal we got.  We were a huge group of a few technicians, but mostly salesguys.  Because of that, we were at the mall for literally 1-2 hours with one salesguy running back and forth between two different excursion companies trying to get the best deal.  It was hilariously entertaining.  Anyway, I'm not a huge fan of snorkeling, let alone confined spaces...so I took a floatie tube with me to the cenotes and they let me just float around with my feet safely in the air away from creatures. :)  We also took a little tour around a reptile zoo sort of thing.  All I remember is lots of snakes.  Big ones.  We had some authentic Mexican food at lunch.  It was a great excursion!  Don't mind how I look in a hard hat...looks like a trucker with a mullet.

This is Austin & Dalton with their manager, Mark.

The whole trip we'd see people drinking out of coconuts and they looked so tropical and delicious!  We finally got one and I ended up going back to get a Coke because it was disgusting.  Austin and Dalton enjoyed them though.

The rest of the time we just hung out and did nothing, which was the best thing ever.  It was only 3 days, but it was one of the most relaxing trips I've been on.  A funny thing that happened.....

One night we had prime rib (I love prime rib and have never had a problem with meat that is too raw.) and as Austin and Dalton are chowing down, I am completely disgusted by it and couldn't eat even one bite!  If that wasn't weird enough, the next night they had a guy there who was making sushi custom to what you wanted in it.  I got two rolls for all 3 of us and I ended up eating one whole roll and most of the other one, which was super weird because I don't even really like sushi...only the fried kind.  :)  We found out the day we came back that I was pregnant, which totally explained the prime rib/sushi mix up.

It was a short but fantastic trip!  On our red-eye flight home (yikes), I woke up to find Austin's gum squished between my leg and my iPad.  How it got there?  I have no idea, but it was pretty funny.  

These two were jealous of my amazing leg room thanks to my very short legs.

We can't wait to go back to Cancun someday!

Also, the day we came home we were able to meet our new nephew, Jacob Bruiser!  He was born the day before we left.  He looks totally different now obviously, but here are a couple pics of him.  He's such a cutie.