Mexico

In the middle of July, Dan and I stayed at the Aventura Spa Palace Resort in the Maya Riviera, Mexico. This is the same place we went for our honeymoon. Here is the resort and random pics of Dan and me. It is a very beautiful place; it's all inclusive...unfortunately, we ate and drank waayyy too much.








Dan posing with naked lady out front.





Our room had a jacuzzi tub in it. :)





The resort doesn't have a "beach", but they have a lagoon area they built for swimming and snorkeling.






They had a climbing wall that Dan climbed. His fingers and arms were sore for days. I didn't even attempt it.


This is at the Japanese restaurant eating our favorite....tempura fried ice cream! Yum!




In the evenings, the entertainment would come to the restaurants to invite people to the show. These were 2 of the nights. I can't remember which shows they were promoting.....that's how entertaining they were, I guess. By the looks of them you would assume some sort of Dr. Suess/Cat in the Hat show followed by a pirate show the next night. Neither of those is correct.







Here are some critters we saw on our trip.

Woody the Woodpecker


Below is the ever-elusive, ever-fearful.....Mexican kitten!!! Hisss..... (He's black and white in the middle of the pic in case you can't find him.)

This place had a few cats, actually. This one was hungry. He's checking out the menu with Dan. Hahahahaha! This could be my favorite picture from the whole trip.

Lots of iguanas...this is actually a pretty funny picture. Dan doesn't like snakes, lizards, anything in reptile family - this is as close to the iguana that he was willing to get. He is smiling in the picture, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't feeling that way on the inside. Then, the iguana looks like he is watching Dan over his shoulder out of the corner of his eye.

Some type of little pig.

There is no animal in the picture above, it's just the coconut growing process that Dan found interesting.

One day, we went into Playa del Carmen for some shopping and hanging out at the Playacar Palace Resort. Their pool overlooked the beach and the ocean (Gulf of Mexico, actually).

Dan and the bartender played games as we waited for our shuttle to pick us up.

A tree in the lobby of the Playacar Resort. Very pretty. The resort, that is, not us. It was a very hot and very sweaty day.

This is Dan and the friend he made in the cigar shop in Playa.


Sometimes, I like to have Dan take some posed pics - I like to think of them as my Olan Mills pictures - like the super posed senior pictures. This one at the airport is not so bad.....however, Dan did balk at taking this one, that's how I know I'm successful.

Below is some type of hut they use for cleansing ceremonies.....followed by a shower in a straw shower stall.

Above could be one of my best ones. :)

Dan tries to get me to take some these senior portraits (see below), but I think mine are far better.

The little town next to our resort was named Aventura. We took a taxi there, did some shopping and watched the dolphins.

Below is a pewter tray that Dan bargained with the Mexican man for two days in Aventura. Dan finally got the price he wanted. This is a picture of Dan celebrating his victory.

We took a "Kitchen Tour" of our resort. It was mostly touring the kitchen, but some of it was touring their "behind the scenes", like their telephone answering department. I think they like to call it a kitchen tour so we would have to wear hair nets and chef hats. It was an interesting tour.

They had many of these posters. At the bottom of the picture is the English word for the item spelled phonetically in Spanish so the Spanish speakers can communicate more easily with the English speakers. They also offer free English classes for the employees.

Their motto: "Thank you for your smiles." Everyone was super friendly there, so I guess all these smiley faces work! Below is their recycling system. They were very environmentally friendly.

This is the man who carves the fruit. He is moving so fast his hand is blurry.

Ta-dah!

The best thing we did while on our vacation was the zipline. Dan and I had never been before. Once you get over the initial nervousness, it is great fun!

We are getting ready to go! They gave a few people brakes for the zipline - aka: a stick. Below is Dan and his brake.

I even went upside down! It's a lot more painful to be upside down than you would think. All of your weight is on the straps across your back. I guess since I have a lot fluff back there, it was a little painful to support all of myself. But, I did it!!

I hope you have enjoyed the memories of our trip to Mexico. I'm sure not as much as Dan and I do, but hopefully you felt like you were a small part of it. Thank you to Mom, Dad, and Melissa for watching the girls. We had a great, quiet vacation. :)

By the way, I don't know if I'm a complete idiot when it comes to blogger or, perhaps, I just chose too many picture to post, but this literally took me hours to compile. So, to the 3 of you that read this blog, I hope you enjoyed - I did it all for you!