Mexico

The day after Easter Chris and I left town for our babymoon to Mexico. It was extremely difficult to leave Miles, but I knew he was in good hands at my parent’s house—with grandma, grandpa, Uncle Steve, two dogs, a cat, and LOTS of cars to play with, I doubt he even noticed our absence. But previous to this trip, I had never even slept under a different roof from Miles for even one night. But my mom insisted that everything would be okay, and I tried my best to not feel guilty.

We flew into Cancun on Monday afternoon and took a shuttle (non-stop so as to avoid spending three hours in a hot van dropping people off at every resort along the way) about an hour south of the airport in the Mayan Riviera. Our resort was beautiful! We used a travel agent to book everything and she got us a deal on a new 6-star resort that was running specials to get people in. It was super exclusive. And full of French Canadians.

We didn’t have much time the first night to do much but sit briefly at the pool and eat dinner. But it was nice to do those things without a toddler.

We spent the second day at the pool (before we had a meeting with our travel representative), in the room during a brief rain shower, and then at the beach for the afternoon. Chris spent the rain shower finishing the movie he started on the airplane—so adventurous.

 

I think we went out to a nice restaurant that night, but Chris deleted the picture because he said we didn’t look good. But the food was good, so that’s all I really care about.

We spent the second day on an excursion to Chichen-Itza, some Mayan ruins that have recently been named one of the new 7 Wonders of the World. I think there is still a lot of work to be done to make it a nice tourist destination, but it was really cool to learn about the amazing ways they built everything. We found it slightly amusing that they were trying so hard to de-bunk the “myth” of the bloodthirsty Mayans.

They no longer allow climbing on the ruins because they are trying to preserve it for the future, so this is the best picture we could get. Oh, how I hate pregnant pictures.

And because we did something adventurous on this day, we spent the entire next day at the private beach with our lounge chairs, cabana, and free drinks. Not bad, eh?

And Chris attempted snorkeling.

We also took out the sea kayaks after convincing them that I wouldn’t drown just because I’m pregnant. They only agreed to let us go if I had Chris sign for me. You know, because he should sign for my body. Whatever.

And here we are before going to dinner. This was before our extreme sunburns kicked in. As it turns out, no amount of sunscreen keeps us from burning. And Chris wonders why I put sunscreen on Miles for an hour and a half at the zoo.

We spent our last full day at a natural water park called Xel-ha (it’s where Brooke Shield’s filmed the movie “Blue Lagoon”). They have done an amazing job setting up a really cool experience. It helps that it’s an all-you-can-eat-and-drink park. The soft serve ice cream was fantastic. But we were able to snorkel around the lagoon, take a short bike ride on some very interesting bikes, and go on a natural lazy river (which they were hesitant to let the pregnant lady do even though I was wearing the required life jacket and sitting in a tube).

The only thing worse than normal pregnancy pictures are bathing suit pregnancy pictures.

We left for the airport in the morning on Saturday and spent about 7 hours at the airport before being put up in the Marriot for the night because our flight was canceled. I would tell the whole story, but I don’t have the energy for it. Let’s just say that customer service is different in a Mexican airport. They kind of leave it up to the passengers to figure things out and spread it around to everyone else. And five minutes does not mean five minutes.

But we made it home a day late and were very excited to see Miles. He apparently had started to ask for us the day before, but my mom assures me that he was a pleasure to have around. She just had to get up earlier than usual to be ready before he woke up. And oddly, he learned how to say “no” while he was there. 

We won’t be making trips without kids a regular thing, but it was so nice to have a great vacation to celebrate a new chapter in our lives. We missed Miles terribly (I actually told Chris not to talk about him for the first couple of days), but I know I needed the re-charge. And it’s always good for Chris and I to spend alone time together that isn’t just watching tv on the couch after bedtime.