Belated Birthday Blessings!

Ok, well not truly belated but belated in regards to being recognized here on the blog. While Hubby & I were gone to Mexico, my dad celebrated his birthday & my mom's was on Wednesday. I had certainly already wished them a happy birthday but we hadn't had a chance to celebrate. So...last night we got together with my brother & SIL and had dinner with my parents at their favorite local restaurant, The Metropolitan Grille. Oh the food was so yummy!!!

After dinner we all headed to our house to meet up with both sets of grandparents to have a nice little celebration for my parents involving cake & ice cream. Chocolate cake with homemade cream cheese icing was requested, my favorite as well!!!

Their combination celebration cake...don't mock the decorating-I was pressed for time!

The guests of honor!

Make a wish!

Love you guys! Hope your birthday was fabulous & here's to many, many more!

Riviera Maya Recap...Time to Relax

And so the recaps begin. I couldn't have really asked for a smoother, easier travel process. We hopped on our first plane, made our connection, met up with our transfer, checked into our hotel and everything was just as I'd hoped. We were on the beach by 4 and were able to spend a few hours in the sun on our first night.

I had mentioned to the resort prior to our arrival that we would be traveling soon after our 3-year anniversary. They surprised us with our own personal cake & champagne when we walked into the room.

We had turn down service almost every night & when we didn't have turn down service we had towel animals on our bed. I think we had an elephant, a dog & a flower throughout the course of the trip. The turn-down service was definitely a nice touch...not to mention the chocolates on your pillow!


The lobby is beautiful & open-air. We were greeted with a mimosa and a cold towel after our slightly long ride from the airport. Oh how I love resorts that have the service aspect down to a science!


Just a view of our beach area on the first full beach day. I loved the abundance of shade available but there were also plenty of full-sun spots for those sunlovers. I need a bit of both throughout the day so this was perfect. As with any resort, the towel wars were in full effect with people probably getting up around 5 to get a prime spot under a palapa. We definitely weren't getting up that early on vacation...so when we did make it down to the beach around 9 each day we had plenty of options under the palm trees.


Just one of the many, many friends that we encountered on our walk to & from the beach each day. I've got tons more pictures of the wildlife so stay tuned.

We tried to balance our trip with the right amount of activity & also plenty of loungy beach time. It was fabulous. Hubby & I are both fairly picky eaters and we discovered early on that the main breakfast location was not air-conditioned & very, very warm in the mornings. So...what's the remedy for that? Free room service!! With almost everything you could want. We ordered this the majority of mornings so we didn't have to waste time sitting down to breakfast & could get to the beach or on to our activity ASAP!

Headed to dinner the first night...this was part of the path we took each day. They had nice relaxing music playing & it was really a pleasant walk each day. No rooms have ocean view and I was a little concerned with this...but how much time do you really spend in your room anyway!?!?

Hubby at dinner in the Royal Grille. This was our favorite place and the most beautiful setting.

More of the walkway closer to the lobby....there was a small lagoon that they kept just beautiful!

End of night 1. We are such an old-married couple. If I had one complaint from the resort it would be the complete lack of nightlife. They only had one show each night that didn't start until 10 or so (since we were in Mexico, timing was always relative). Well, for those of us who eat a fairly early dinner...say around 7 or 7:30...we got a little bored and never even saw a show because we headed to bed so early! Most nights we did walk either on the beach or around the resort, which was still a great end to each day.

Next up...Golfing at El Cameleon Mayakoba.

Memorial Day Weekend Rewind

Well as is quite obvious, most of our Memorial Day Weekend consisted of finishing up our trip to Mexico, traveling home, & then playing catchup with household duties such as laundry, mowing the lawn & grocery shopping. Ughhh...the realites of coming home from a week-long vacation.

Our beach from our chairs on the first afternoon.

We have plans to spend the evening with our dear friends for a traditional, informal cookout complete with burgers, rotel, & rice krispy treats. I've got all the photos from our trip put on the computer but I hope to edit them a bit before posting. Hopefully I'll be able to get to that quickly & do a recap shortly.

The most important thing is that we had an incredible time & most everything went off without a hitch (minus a couple of mild cases of Montezuma's revenge & Hubby's first case of swimmer's ear which we are still dealing with). Other than that things were fantastic. The weather was beautiful, the resort was just as we'd expected, & the food was decent.

I'll leave you with a tidbit of our week & how we enjoyed it in paradise!

We walked down the beach for dinner at an open-air restaurant.

Hubby played golf at a beautiful course while I cheered him on & played photographer!

We put on our adventurous hats or helmets in this case & went ziplining, drove amphibious vehicles, & swam in underground caves where the water was only 75 degrees!

We continued our adventure with some snorkeling with sea turtles!

But finished off the week with this view from our chairs, a good book, a final strawberry colada, & a gorgeous day.

We spent 7 amazing days & 8 wonderful nights together and capped everything off with dinner right here.

Oh don't you worry, there is much more to come!

Adios Amigas y Hola Mexico!!!

Well today is my last day of work until after Memorial Day. YIPPEE!!! We're leaving on a 6:35 am flight tomorrow morning and hopefully we'll be on the beach by mid-afternoon. I can't wait & I'm so excited...now if only I would hurry up and finish packing!!!

I'll leave you with a few Trip Advisor shots of the Riviera Maya beachfront...isn't it gorgeous!?!?

Say Cheese!

I don't know about you, but the self-timer on my Canon camera is probably one of my best friends. Without it Hubby & I would miss the opportunity to have so many great shots of us together! We would simply have to be satisfied with the one armed stretch shots which inevitably chop off the face of one of the people supposed to be included in the photo. Or you simply have a bunch of photos with just one of you, with a simple caption always included (Hubby was taking the picture or Wifey was taking the picture). So...with the self-timer I am so thrilled to be able to have a shot like the one below to document of 3rd Wedding Anniversary. Sure, the background isn't the greatest...our living room. But the subject matter is what's important...2 people who are very much in love!



And since the self-timer also has the ability to take multiple shots in a row, you also end up with photos like this! The perfect candid shot!

Apparently I was squeezing his neck/Adam's apple a little too tightly!

On this day...

...I married my best friend

I commit myself to your happiness & self-fulfillment as a person, to your usefulness in God's kingdom, and I promise to honor, trust, & serve you in sickness & in health, in adversity and prosperity and I promise to be true & loyal to you so long as we both shall live.

~our vows May 19, 2007

I've learned so many things in our three years of marriage, that it's hard to even put into words.


I've learned that immediately after you say "I Do" and honestly, even before then, life becomes not about you, or I, or me; but about us & we & our.

I've learned that having the ability to look at your spouse and say "I'm sorry" is one of the most powerful yet most difficult things to do.





I've learned that the honeymoon phase can come to an end, but only if you let it & it can easily be rekindled with a good old fashioned date night or weekend away.

I've learned that true communication is a priceless necessity & so much excitement can be created & so much trouble can be avoided by truly talking to one another.


I've learned that even if you both agree NOT to buy presents for your anniversary that you better have a back up...because you're going to be getting a present anyway! Thanks for the bracelet & earrings Hubby!

I've learned that true joy can come in the most quiet of times, laying softly next to the one you love.

I've learned that the old cliche' "the hard times will make you stronger" really isn't all that cliche' but so, so true.

I've learned that as long as my husband thinks I'm beautiful & loves me, nothing else in this world really matters...and he certainly does think I'm beautiful & loves me more than I know I deserve.
I've learned in our three short years of marriage, God had such a plan for us to be together, to compliment each other in every area of life where we are true opposites, and to support each other in those areas where we are identical. God placed Nick in my life to be my hero, my leader & my rock. Thank you Lord for providing me with such an incredibly man!

Weekend Rewind

Rain, rain, please STAY away! This morning actually started with sunshine & not rain clouds for the first time in about 5 days. YUCK!! According to our local weatherman, we've had about 5.4 inches of rain in the month of May and all about .15 of it came in the past week. That's over 5" of rain in a week! Ughhh...bring on the summer sunshine!

Needless to say any weekend plans we hoped to have this weekend were washed out. However, we made the most of the weekend & Hubby was able to get in some good, quality study time.

Friday night I was ready for a night away from the kitchen so we went to Qdoba & had a quick meal. We had plans to play cards with some of our friends and we had some free time before we were supposed to be there. So...we took advantage of the extra time & decided to satisfy our dreams by driving around one of the super nice neighborhoods in the area. We LOVE to dream about our future & what our dream house might look like someday! Definitely most of those homes are WAY in our dreams, but no harm in dreaming right?

We had a great time playing cards & spending time with our friends Derek & Andrea and their kiddos Dawson & Lydia. Nick was able to play Wii with Dawson and I allowed Lydia to "pretend" cut my hair before they headed off to bed. I even had the privilige of reading Lydia a bedtime story because that was the only way she would agree to go to bed. They are such precious kids & it does make me hope for a cute little family one of these days.

Saturday started off with more rain & I headed to work while Hubby stayed home to study. I spent the afternoon being a housewife by doing laundry and cleaning up around the house. We also both managed to squeeze in a nice nap which was definitely one of the highlights of my weekend!

Saturday evening we headed out to run some last minute errands for our Mexico trip & to pick up a late Mother's Day gift for Hubby's mom since she came into town last night. We live about 15 minutes from the original Bass Pro Shops and that was our first stop for some water shoes (not Aqua Socks! ;o) and also a mask & snorkel for each of us. We have plans to do some snorkeling & we both agreed that it's just a little weird to use the rented equipment! I don't want to stick a snorkel that a hundred other people have used in my mouth.

We had dinner at a local Chinese restaurant similar to PF Chang's. They have the BEST lobster wontons aka lobster rangoon! We quickly stopped at the mall for some jewelry for Hubby's mom, grabbed Hubby another new swimsuit & we headed home. It was such a great evening together with my wonderful husband!

Yesterday we woke up to more rain & rumbling thunder which made it incredibly hard to get out of bed for church. But we made it & enjoyed a great sermon about the landmines every couple can experience in their marriage. After lunch Hubby headed back into our office to study some more while I headed to Walmart for our weekly shopping trip.

Insert venting moment: They have recently completely updated our local Walmart & everything was absolute chaos for awhile! I dealt with it in order to recognize the need for improvement & just hoped for the day when everything would be complete. Well, they are done & it is still chaos! They have the sugar on one aisle & the flour on the next, part of the ceral on one aisle & the rest of the cereal/breakfast items on the next! Yes I realize I'll get used to it, but come on. I'm all about marketing strategy but that's being a little ridiculous! End of venting...

Mid afternoon we headed to the airport to pick up Hubby's mom & came back to the house for a bit before small group. It was our last official small group of the year but we've already got two different bbq's on the calendar. After small group we grabbed pizza and had a quick dinner before taking Bogey for his first walk in about 3 days. Poor guy, he's been stranded in the soggy, swampy back yard with all this rain.

We've got lots to do this week, Hubby's test is tomorrow-say a quick prayer, or a long one if you want, our anniversary is Wednesday & Saturday we leave for Mexico! I better get to packing!