Honeymoon

Since I'm waiting on our photographer's pictures before posting the full shebang about the wedding and reception (although I loved Rajean's post!), I figured I would share some pics from our honeymoon.

We had a fantastic time in Mexico and although Eric has decided he does NOT like flying (he experienced some fairly rough turbulence for his first flights ever), he is ready to go on another all-inclusive vacation! haha :)

We traveled a little south of Playa del Carmen, Mexico (which is 45 minutes south of Cancun) to a gated resort/condo community called Puerto Aventuras. It was fantastic! We stayed at the Dreams Puerta Aventuras resort, which only has the all-inclusive option, so it was nice not having to wear wrist bands all week denoting our perks.

The food was resort food...it was kinda meh. We never had anything terrible and goodness knows, we ate enough that you'd have thought the food was 5-star! ha There were 2 really great restaurants on the property, but we ate at each one only once due to their rotating schedules. We most enjoyed the beach and the bar (which was about 25 feet behind where we sat on the beach) which had a waiter come around to check on us every little bit. Eric definitely made the most of this feature and certainly consumed both of our shares thanks to the all-inclusive feature! hahahaha Room service is always a luxury to me when on an all-inclusive vacation, as it is not something I would typically consider since it always tends to be so expensive. We enjoyed our first night in the room with room service since we got in so late and also did that one other night for dinner because we were literally burnt out on the day after traveling to Tulum and Xel-ha.

...and that leads me to our only excursions the entire week...We booked a full day, all-inclusive package to see the Mayan city of Tulum and visit the beautiful nature preserve of Xel-ha. Tulum was interesting and our tour guide was beyond awesome. She spoke each phrase of the day in what we assumed to be 3 languages. Talk about keeping on your toes in order to stay in the loop! Our little vacation club guy at the hotel (Marco) was right though...Tulum is something you can do by yourself in about 45 minutes whereas the guided tour drags on a horribly hot 2 hours in the sunshine. The thing we disliked about the Mayan city is that there are no signs explaining what each of the buildings represented. Most Mayan ruins are ceremonial sites (like Chicken Itza, which is pretty well known), but this was an actual city where they lived. Inside the rock walls lived all the nobility and outside the walls would have been the commoners. Tulum overlooks the ocean and I believe it may have been my favorite part of the tour, to feel the cool ocean breeze on my baked self. That day was the hottest by far!

 From Tulum, we traveled to Xel-ha. Simply gorgeous! It's one of the few places in the world where a spring water inlet meets the saltwater, creating an environment where some very special fish make their home. We had been super excited about seeing sea turtles on our snorkeling adventure there, but unfortunately never saw any. We did see a few colorful fish (which was more of a first for Eric), saw lots of bigger stingrays, and swam into a cave. The snorkeling was great, despite the life jackets they make everyone wear. I know, I know...safety first, but as a swimmer, it's a pain in the butt! We spent the rest of our time while there relaxing and enjoying the self-serve beer stations. ha I wish we'd not a little better (the heat was taking a toll on me that day) so we could have done some of the other activities there (ziplining, inner-tubes through the mangroves, etc). We did watch the dolphins awhile and I of course did my best to avoid the iguanas! Ugh. Those things freak me out. And they were EVERYWHERE.

All in all it was a great week! It was wonderful getting to spend a week alone with my husband! :) So often our time is spent with the girls or my mom, so it was nice just getting that time to ourselves and being able to rest and recharge.