i'm back...

it's good to be back.. i've resisted looking at any of my work emails.. i am going to hold out until tomorrow. i picked up p-head today. cath was more than happy to get rid of her, and she was SOOOO happy to see me.

i'm mostly caught up on all the shows that i missed this week.. 'cept a couple that my stupid dvr didn't record, biggest loser, and SNL. wtf.

i'm doing my laundry and procrastinating unpacking.. i'm still wading through personal emails while i watch my shows.

when i went to retrieve my mail yesterday i realized that i had left the front door completely unlocked. omg.. i am so dumb. thank god noone broke in, or even just walked in. as far as i can tell all my belongings are still here.

of course now that i am back i feel like i am getting a cold. my nose is running, and i keep sneezing, and of course the *mexican flu* is still working it's way out of my body one toilet full at a time.

amazing race looks pretty intense tonight. what is the *sign* for bitch?

the pictures are starting to come in from the trip..

here are the ones i took at easter with the kellys..

here are the ones i took in mexico.

here are CFs mexico pics and

here are EHs mexico pics.

i'll post the other pics when i get them...

disentary

this is te hibachi dinner we ate wednesday night. we shared the grill with some very friendly british people. one in particular, "james" is very friendly.

somehow i have picked up a GI disease. it's not very plesant. esp when i am wearing a bathing suit most of the day. in addition to the disentary i drank way too much on wed night at the hibachi and afterwards and threw up in my room. it was so bad that KT and i took my sheets, the towells we used to clean the mess, the bathmat, and threw them out in the trash can in the hallway.. last night we had a note slipped under our door saying we needed to talk to the customer service people. they want to charge us 500 pesos (roughly $50) to pay for the cleaning of the linens. KT argued that the towels aren't worth 500 pesos... we might get out of it... that is to be determined.

today we leave for home. it doesn't seem like we were here all that long.


we went to the marina yesterday and i had my hair braided.. it looks so cute! :)


RH has been such a good participant.. he has participated in almost all of the activities the entertainment staff has put forth.. yesterday he did an iron man competition, the first day he did a beer drinking contest, he always plays water polo... the "rah rahs" know his name, and call him over the announcement system when they are gathering people for their activities. this is a photo of him and EH in thier water polo uniforms.

excursion

this was the beach at the ruins at tulum.


this is the 6 of us at the ruins.

today we went to see the ruins at tulum. i was not as impressed with these ruins as i was with the ones at chichen itza. but there was WAY more shade with these.. and we were just 6 people, so we had the guide to ourselves. after the ruins, we went to a cenote called Dos Ojos and snorkled with carlos and angel. it was pretty awesome. i will totally go snorkling next opportunity i get.. seriously amazing.

afterwards we came back to the hotel and drank and swam.. then we had a snack and now are getting ready to go to the hibachi.. people are taking such good pics, i can't wait to share everyones photos.. :)

we are really having a good time. EH and i are laughing our asses off at every opportunity. its really fun to go on vacation with your relatives and just have fun. hopefully someday SH will be able to afford a vacation.





last night we saw a show that the "rah rahs", the entertainment staff put on called Lion King.. the most funny part was that at the END of the show ryan says.. "hey... i think one of those people are the rah rahs.." (everyone in the show was a rah rah...) we laughed at him.



KT has been pestered all week by the massage guy.. he even gave her a free "5" minute massage... more like 20 minute massage..

must. stop. eating. almond. joys.

we are off to dinner.. and i can't stop eating my easter present.

here is a pic of em doing a flaming sot the waiter brought to her because it was her b-day. lol.

mexico...

so i made it.. transferring in philly was terrible, but none the less i made it. KT and i met up at customs just like planned, then we bought 2 pina coladas and some pringles from the bar right outside the airport and it cost us $23. we got hosed. KT thinks she left her jacket in the shuttle bus that took us form the airport. hopefully she can get it back.

E&R just happened to be walking in the lobby as we were walking off the shuttle.. os that was convenient. and C&J showed up 15 minutes later..

we swam at the pool after we got settled in our rooms.. then we ate dinner and flited between bars until about 10-11pm. we were all pretty beat..

RH was the only one with a hangover this morning. :) shocking.. lol.

we just made our reservations this morning for dinner tomorrow and thursday nights. all the other nights were full.. good thin we got in. we'll be eating buffet the rest of the time.

we are going to see if we can get a trip to go see the ruins in tulum tomorrow.. then E,R & KT are going to golf on thursday morn.

alright. i'm off to join the kids at the pool.

just like i thought...

i broke down and saw a podiatrist this morning.. he confirmed my beliefs that i have a bone spur. i also have an inflamed plantar fascia. the xrays showed pretty much exactly what you see above.. it's like there is a little hook at the bottom of the bone of my heel.

the good dr prescribed me some anti inflammatory that i will take for 2 weeks, and i will be fitted for orthodics that will go in my shoes to hopefully immobilize the muscle/tendon so it can heal. i have stretches to do, and might have to wear a boot at night that stretches the tendon. he said though that i have very high arches, so the orthodics will be difficult to wear in "dress shoes". that is fine, because as of late, i only feel comfortable in my sneakers anyway..

if none of those things alleviate the pain enough he said we could do physical therapy and a shot of cortisone. cross your fingers these other things work, i'm a little apprehensive of a cortisone shot.

[Day 3 - The Wedding]

the day started out with TC and i sleeping in and rolling on down to breakfast at the buffet.. it was delicious.

then we headed straight for the beach. we had been there 2 days so far and had yet to soak up the sun! i'm really not an ocean lover, but this water was unbelievably blue and clear and void of animals, rocks, anything! the waves were fun but made me a little motion sick.. so i went back to the beach.

when we were trudging across the campus to lunch i took a spill on the tiles near the main pools and seemingly didn't injure myself. later i learned that it was because my camera seemed to take the brunt of the fall. :( i have broken yet another view finder panel on yet another nikon camera. this is a sign to ditch that delicate camera and get something a little more durable. the camera itself still works fine, i just can't frame up the shot, see if it was blurry, switch my flash options, delete photos from the camera, etc. it's rather annoying. i'm going to see if i could take it somewhere..

that evening was the wedding. the resort had roped off an area and cleared it of chairs. this bold topless sunbather and her man friend disregarded the ropes and set up shop inside. when we came back to the area "tits magee" was just outside the ropes with a front row seat for the festivities. i think she left actually before the ceremony really got started. topless sunbathing is something that i just don't get. i tried to take some pictures of the few people we saw, but with my crappy broken camera, it turns out i never got the pics. :(

the wedding itself was so beautiful. even with my aversion to sand and the ocean, i still thought it was pretty dreamy and romantic. destination weddings are a thumbs up in my book! the resort did a great job transforming the beach into a pretty sophisticated area. they sunk these tropical looking plants in the sand that created the aisle, they had these white lacy pieces of fabric that they hung from the rafters in the gazebo and buried in the sand. then there were there guys with guitars that sang for us.

DCs dress was so beautiful. it fit her like a glove.. the wedding took place at 5pm, which is the time the sun starts to set. so their photographer got some great beach shots. after the ceremony we had dinner in one of the restaurants. then they opened the disco for 2 hours for us.. it was great. one of GFs (DC's new husband) brothers is a stunt man, and used to be a part of cirque du soliel. he had more energy than anyone i've ever seen. he danced away most of the night, and luca followed him around and imitated him all night. it was adorable. i have some video of this (i think). when i get around to downloading the video i will try to post it.

one very awesome part of the wedding was the spectators... they were lining up and down the ropes and even boldly wandering around behind the official and the wedding party to take photos. you would have thought D&G were celebrities.

we ate dinner at the same place we ate at the night before, then went over to the disco that was opened up special for us and did some dancing (and shots). the only drawback to the disco was the smoke they kept piping into the room. i think my eyes were bleeding by the time i left.

this was another rather early night.. surprisingly. :)

here are the photos. you'd be so proud, i cut them down from 138 to 85. woot, go me!

[Day 4 - the last day]

TC and i woke up this morning and just barely made it to breakfast... after that i went in search of an internet fix and internetted for approximately 2 hours. then i took my time and got ready for the pool. i decided not to go to the beach today because i love pools.. and the pool was much closer to the bar. :) i got to the beach and the sky was looking pretty black. after about 5 minutes it started pouring and didn't let up for at least 45 minutes. by then it was time for lunch.. after lunch i took my computer with me back down to the beach and wrote down some of the activities and organized my photos.

it was all in all a pretty chill relaxing day.

the whole trip in general was fantastic, i am so glad i was able to make it. seeing my cousins that i really never see was a delight, and spending so much time with my favorite aunts and uncles was also crazy fun. i'd do it again in a heartbeat.

here are the final few pictures i took that day.

i've already talked about the trip home, but i forgot to mention the horrible movie they were playing on the way home on the plane. Dan in Real Life. oh my god. i thought i would like this since i am a huge steve carrell fan and i like dane cook enough. but it is replacing "joe vs the volcano" in my personal list of worst movies of all time. the whole premise of the movie is that steve carrell is a widower and has 3 girls. i thought from the previews it would be about him raising daughters, but it wasn't. it was about him meeting a woman in a bookstore for what seemed like the length of time it took to drink one cup of coffee. he is in his hometown with the kids and all his brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and parents. he then finds out the woman from the bookstore is his brothers girlfriend. they keep it a secret, but he acts like they were deeply in love and had met years and years ago. its disgustingly dumb! also... the family is obnoxious about playing games together and having all this family time. that is just so unrealistic. i kind of think that our family spends a great deal of time all together and this kind of crap would never happen. its the first time the family is meeting the woman that steve carell is secretly in love with. they seem to love her and fawn all over her. when does that happen. it's so dumb i wanted to throw up.. the girls are opening up to her and telling them their deepest secrets, the mom tells dane cook if he screws up this relationship he'll be kicked out of the family and they are going to keep her. she is annoying in her own right. i couldn't pinpoint her nationality, but she spoke in an almost broken english. it was horrible. i am getting so mad just re-thinking about this movie. i beg of you don't see this movie!

no more birthdays for me... :(

i'm having some severe anxiety surrounding the birth of my niece... i learned yesterday that she is going to be forced out of her warm warm womb the day before my birthday.. am i the only one that thinks its wrong to not let nature take its course and keep her warm and safe until march 1st? its been well documented that i am not a good sharer, and the most important day of my year is my birthday, i feel like my birthday is about to be taken away from me. :( i kind of feel guilty, like i am a bad person for voicing this, but my feelings and emotions are very real, and they are bubbling up and overflowing...

[Day 2 - Chichen Itza tour]



we started the day getting up hella early to watch the sunrise, it was a bust. (see yesterdays post)



then uncle P & aunt J, and aunt T and i went to see the chichen itza ruins. we were picked up at 7:50am and were dropped off at 7pm. the bus ride each way was about 2.5-3 hours. we did stop at a cenote along the way and were able to swim. a cenote is a natural mineral well. it was a couple hundred feet under ground. P, T and i went in. there were some steps built up along the side of it and P&T jumped into the water from it a couple of times. it was great. i didn't jump, but i got their picture jumping. TC was dawdling back to the bus taking pictures of plants and the bus almost drove off without her and JH.

we ate lunch at a warehouse of sorts. it was a huge hall with tons of tables, it seemed like they really flush the people through there.. the food was a buffet, not too bad. there were four or five performers that danced around on the stage while we shovelled food into our pie holes because we only had 45 minutes. what a cash cow that place is..

then it was back on the bus.

we drove through a typical town our guide pointed out the architecture and explained what the people standing next to the roads selling stuff were. i wish we had stopped though so i could get some pics of that.



right off the bat we saw a dog (all the mexican dogs i saw looked like the dog from the simpsons. no leashes, gauntly skinny, pointy faces. i expected to see only chihuahuas. i didn't see a one) that was laying in and amongst hundreds of people walking through the entrance building. it was alive because i saw it breathing, but it couldn't care less that it was in everyones way. it kind of reminded me of fatty. :) and every mexican dog i saw had nipples that practically dragged on the ground. apparently veterinarians are few and far between in mexico.



the ruins themselves were quite impressive. however they have stopped letting people climb them and explore them. that was A-OK with me, because after our little mini-hike down to the cenote i was really feeling it in my legs. i couldn't have imagined climbing the steps to the top of the great temple, or even worse, down... it was crazy steep and there were no handrails, etc..

the grounds have three areas where there are acoustic phenomenons. one is at the foot of the main temple, if you clap at the base, it reverberates back at you in a higher pitch. it's neat.. the 2 other places were in the "ball field". our guide asked for a volunteer to run from where we were at one end of a space that was like 2 football fields to the total other end, then he spoke in strong voice and asked the guy at the other end if he could here him. he could. then they counted back and forth to 10. we could here him as if he were right next to us. it was so neat. then we did a test across the width of the field and the clapping and whistles echoed back at us like 7 times.

the ruins had a lot of fertility themes. mostly fertility relating to the agriculture of the area. i wanted to get a little jaguar made of opal that the peddlers were hawking.. i offered 2 dollars and the woman laughed at me. she said it was $20. almost everyone was touting their products for $1. but this woman wouldn't go down to 2 dollars so i didn't get anything. oh well.

our tour guide was pretty entertaining.. he said he could speak fluently 4 languages. he was pretty hysterical in english, i can only imagine how funny he was in spanish.



that evening was the "rehearsal dinner". we weren't invited, but we happened to have dinner reservations for the same restaurant.. so we sat a few tables away and had a great time.. i even tried tuna steak for the first time ever. it was not what i expected. i don't know if i could eat a whole one, but a bite of it didn't kill me nor make me throw up.. maybe i'll try it again sometime.

worth noting are the misspellings all over all the menus everywhere we went. that was always good for a laugh.

we were pretty beat after dinner, so we retired early.

here are the comprehensive pics from this day.

diarrhea, cha cha cha.

i was just in mexico for 5 days and had absolutely no digestive issues... i've had nothing but digestive issues now that i am back. wtf!! i'm thinking it was the nerves from spending more than 15 hours in transit home yesterday. grrrrr..

i left the resort at 6am-ish on a shuttle that stopped at a couple other resorts along the way to the airport. i was through check-in and security within an hour so i had about 2 hours to kill before my flight to philidelphia. my plane was on time and i arrived as scheduled in PA at about 1:45. in about an hour i was through customs and immigration and had re-checked my bag. then the waiting game began. i took my time wandering through PHL because my flight was originally supposed to leave at 4:30-5.. however it was pushed back, and pushed back.. then there was a gate change... the flight before mine headed to syracuse was cancelled... then finally we boarded at 6:20 and actually took off at about 7:30.. i could have so driven a rental car from there in half that amount of time. urgh. so frustrating. i stole some cat naps here and there in the airports and on the planes, but it was far from restful.

anyway.. even though the travels back was less than optimal i had a great time. i took more than 400 photos and have a bunch of video that i want to put out there.. so i'll be doing that as time allows. i'm going to break the photos out by day i think.. here is the first installment..

[the first day]

here are the photos from my travels there and my first day at the resort.

when we checked in the concierge asked us if we wanted some wine. it was so nice to sip wine as we checked in... everytime i go through the lobby i get a glass of champagne or whatever they have on ice there.

i love our hotel room bathroom. there are those bowl sinks that sit on top of the counter in every bathroom in this place. and our shower is all tile, with huge a huge glass wall. there is a seat in the back, and the shower fixture slides up and down and you can take it off and use it as a wand. so cool. that is what i am going to put in my house when i get it. :)

somehow the lock that only allows the door to be opened 3 inches was activated and we couldn't get into the room. we had to flag down the security guard guillermo and he didn't know what we were saying.. but he did leave and come back with a butter knife and successfully took the latch part off the door casing..

we had dinner this night at the mexican place and it was delicious. we laughed our way through the meal. in honor of the banana flambe uncle P rolled up his napkin and was threatening to set it on fire with the table candle to "show our appreciation" for the meal... the meal was a very great way to start the vacation.

we met up with a few more people at the bar afterwards and D&G (bride and groom) gave us beach bags with an insulated cup, a bracelet that would designate us as part of the party, and a mexican blanket inside. all items were monogrammed. it was a great surprising gift!

we didn't party really late because we had to wake up early the next morning to go on our tour of chichen itza.

we were meeting in the lobby to walk down to the bus stop to catch our tour bus at 7am. as we were preparing for bed aunt T and i decided that we wanted to get up extra early and catch the sunrise. we called the front desk to see what time the sun rises, but they didn't understand that line of questioning... i was bounced around a few times and noone could understand me.. so we did the math and because back in CO, the sun rises at 615-630, we figured that it would rise at 515-530 in mexico.. we set the alarm for 445 so we could jump out of bed and rush down to the beach and watch.. well, stupid us.... the reason for the time difference is so that the sun rises at the same time all over the place.. duh.. so we sat on the pitch black beach until 6ish and finally decided we had to leave to get ready for the day... you'll see some of those pics in the next album.

i've arrived

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free wifi!

the hancock airport has free wifi. how cool. i don't think i've been to an airport before with free wifi..

it's 730am, and so far so good. i tried to check in online yesterday but my first name was listed with an MS tacked on the end, and that is not what is on my passport, so i figured i had to go to the counter. the woman said it didn't matter. great. so i got up at 5AM for no reason, and cath got me here by 630 only so i could spend from 7-825 waiting to board my plane. so it's good there is free wifi.

i should get to the cancun airport at 145. my flight number going from charlotte to cancun is 815. i hope that is not an omen.. after i arrive, i wait till my aunt gets there at 3pm, then we will hopefully meet our cab driver and drive 45 min to the resort.

tonight we have dinner reservations at the resorts mexican restaurant. tomorrow morning we get up really early again and go to tour Chichen Itza. KT said she's done it and it's very similar to our bus trip out to bath. i hope the bus monitor doesn't make me throw out my Burger King before boarding the bus back. but i am going to assume that Burger King hasn't made it's way out to the mayan ruins.

here is a pic i have been meaning to post of the football treats we made. thanks AMC for designing the flags.. :)