Our main goal during this particular trip to Mexico was to sit, read, and relax, so there aren’t too many exciting and adventurous pictures and stories. I will, however, start off this series of Mexico posts with our extremely long travel day and the fabulous hotel we stayed at.

Our trip was organized by my Uncle. There were 6 of us traveling and he wanted to make sure all of our itineraries matched up. He organized everything, and emailed it to his travel agent to book. Everything seemed ok until she frantically called Chad one day at work saying we needed to pay NOW or we would lose our seats. Umm…pay now with out any info!? Something smelled a bit fishy. Having worked with her on our trip to Italy, we knew what to expect in terms of having all our flight info confirmed BEFORE paying so we were a bit weary with the way this trip was playing out. None the less, Chad paid. We weren’t the ones organizing the trip , and we didn’t want to lose our seats.

Fast forward to a month before our trip when we finally got our flight info. My Uncle calls because after reviewing everyone’s flight info he realizes all of OUR flights and wrong. Yes, they still get us to Mexico and back, but the timing of all of them are off. GREAT. He calls to try and have the flights changed  but it’s going to cost a whack load of money. We were not impressed. We were under the impression that for the price we paid we were getting the flights we requested, not the flights she decided to pick at random. And so, instead of forking over hundreds of dollars more, it took us 15 hours to get to Playa del Carmen…

Up at 4:30 am. In the cab by 5. Board the plane at 7:20. Arrive in Houston 2pm local time. Sit and wait during a 5 HOUR lay over. Board the plane at 6:30pm. Arrive in Cancun at 9:20pm local time. Drive and drive and drive to Playa del Carmen. Arrive at hotel just passed MIDNIGHT.

fack.

We think this is the top of Mount Baker.

Hello Texas.

In knowing we had lots of time to kill we decided to indulge in some Texas sized food fare. Pappa Deaux provided us with Mozzarella sticks (which were super tasting and filling), fried Catfish and Shrimp (my first time having Catfish. It’s pretty much flavourless), and a good ol’ Bacon Cheeseburger (for the man who doesn’t eat things from the Sea). The food was good but I will FULL in about 30 seconds.

After our American Food Explosion Chad awkwardly napped at a random gate while I sang Faux de Fa Fa and watched a girl walk her cat on a leash.

Finally in Cancun! Now for a 2 hour bus ride. Woot Woot!

We met the rest of our party at the Lobby bar that evening. I was dying from Grease Hair, Plane Sweats, Lack of Sleep, and a sudden Hunger attack. Chad grabbed some beer, I grabbed a basket of fruit and an hour later we were officially done for.

Aww…

The view from out deck. We were on the second floor with my Uncle and Aunt above us on the 3rd floor and their neighbours Cindy and Chris beside them.

We stayed at the Riu Palace Riviera Maya within the only gated community in Playa del Carmen called Playacar. Every detail of the hotel was amazing.

See. Gorgeous!

The hotel we stayed at for our Honeymoon was within walking distance to the center of town (5th Ave) but this hotel wasn’t too far away. A $7 cab ride and you’re there! This hotel was definitly bigger and had a better buffet but not as good room service. They Royal had a lot more room service options. Both however, were amazing in their own ways and I would gladly stay at either hotel the next time we come (because there is always a next time with Mexico!)

If only it hadn’t taken us so long to get there!

It’s always weird coming back home after a vacation, no  matter how long you’ve been away. Our apartment always smells different. It smells like it did when Chad first bought it and we were renovating. You’d think after 4 years the smell would stop coming back. Maybe the apartment always smells like that but we are immune to it when we are there every day. It doesn’t smell bad, it just smells a little sweet. I imagine it smells like the little old lady who use to live in it before us. Maybe she is still haunting the place. I should probably put out some doilies for her. I think she’d like that.

I’m stuffed full of Mexican Resort Food. The food was good, but I’m stuffed from it. I need to get back on a regular meal time schedule. Pasta and Sushi, the food of Champions. It’s weird that staying in a place where you have all this amazing food at your finger tips, the one thing Chad and I really craved were McDonald Cheeseburgers. We still haven’t fed the beast yet, but maybe tonight. Midnight.Food.Run.

I’m actually tanned for the first time in years. It’s half real / half fake. I’m also starting to peel so part of me looks super discoloured. Awesome sauce, I know. There is no sense in going to Mexico and not attempting to get a tan. Even though I don’t tan, I burn, and then I stay white and red, and then maybe, with some help in the sunless tanner department, I can start to turn golden brown.

I actually finished editing all my pictures from the trip on the plane yesterday. I will be picking up the pictures from the rest of the peeps tomorrow so on Monday I will ACTUALLY be organized with photos and stories including Zia Paula getting bit by a sea turtle, me puking in the golf of Mexico, and Chad becoming friends with Montezuma’s revenge.

Tonight there is hockey out in Surrey and I will attempt to keep my sleepy ass awake for most of it. Did I mention that we didn’t get home until close to 2am and I didn’t fall asleep until close to 3 and that my alarm went off this morning but the volume was turned down so low that I didn’t hear it and got up an hour later then I was suppose to? True story.

I’m high on the fresh Vancouver air.

My head hit the pillow  at 10:30 and I was out like a light.

I woke up at 2 from a very strange dream about an 80 year old woman trying to run us off the road.

I couldn’t really fall back asleep.

Then I could hear the tarp on our deck (that is currently covering all our summer deck stuff) moving about. I immediatelythought someone was on our deck moving the tarp around looking for things to steal. I then realized the probability of that was very slim. I listened more and then realized we were in the middle of a wind storm. The whole building shook.

I dozed in an out of sleep but the sound of the trap was so loud I was going mental.

By 4am I felt crazy. The wind would not stop. Things were flapping around everywhere, and that Mother effing tarp WOULD NOT STOP MOVING.

Then I heard my phone beeping. I tried to ignore it, but with the wind, and the tarp, I couldn’t.

Check phone. Txt message from Rogers as to what my account balance is. Thanks Rogers, you read my mind. At 4am I was desperate to know WHAT MY FRIGGING ACCOUNT BALANCE WAS!

Serenity now. Serenity now.

While I was up I check out the deck. Crap everywhere. Tarp about. Wasn’t in the mood to fix any of it.

I go back to bed, where Chad was tossing and turning. I wrap my head in a blanket, fashion a breathing hole, snuggle up next to him and manage to pass out for about an hour, only to be woken up again by another dream.

This time we were in a parking lot at night and wild animals started to come out. A black panther was the first thing we saw, so we hoped in the car to protect ourselves. As we drove away the panther started to attack a rhino. There was a panda bear with her cubs off to the side, and a bull that came out of no where. The bull started to chase up and ram his horns into the car. We we OK until he came around the front and smashed in so hard that he pierced Chad right in his abdomen twice. I knew Chad was going to die from this and then I woke up sweating. Great. I love dreams like this!

Clearly this was not the best night of sleep for two very exhausted people. Thankfully I am not too out of it today.

Tonight Chad is staple gunning the mother friggin tarp to the floor if he has to. I am NOT listening to that again!

Frustration alert.

In other news, this week looks a little more free then last, so it will be back to your regular scheduled programming.

I should probably make this quick. Claudia and the Boss are leaving for L.A. tomorrow and I need to get a crap load of stuff done before they leave, so I won’t have a lot of time to hang around here today.

The weekend did not consist of a lot of pictures, so I’m pretty much going to sum it up right now.

FRIDAY

I ruined the potatoes because I used a new pan that apparently conducts heat better then my old one, so they were burnt on one side. Ugh. I was so mad. I love these potatoes and they were ruined!

The parentals ended up bring over the tree for us which saved us 30 minutes so that was awesome. Chad basically ate and ran off to play with Dario. I spent the rest of the evening cleaning and then to bed early as I had hoped for. I did however get this random txt from Adam, Alicias Boyfriend, which made me panic and think that he was trying to call me to tell me Alicia had been in an accident or something (you know because that’s a rational thing to think) when really it was just a txt about him moms basement leaking and him looking for an Italian to work on it. Crisis averted.

SATURDAY

We slept in even though I had gone to bed early. Really felt like I needed to catch up on my sleep. Went down to the storage locker and grabbed all our Christmas stuff. It took Chad almost two hours to figure out all the lights, then put the tree together to his liking and then put all the lights on the tree. He used three cords worth, that’s 72 feet of lights, on our tree. Sad part is, you can’t even tell. Once Chad was done it was time to decorate the tree and everything else. That was time consuming. We had to be at my Moms house for dinner at 5 so I only had time to set everything up, but not put anything away. It was a bit of a disaster.

It was the first time being at the house since the dog died. It was a little weird. Whenever you use to enter the office, where the dog slept, he would come out and bark at you if you woke him, and even though he isn’t around anymore, I still found myself tip toeing into the office expecting him to come out and bark at me. That was one of the weirder things. It was, however, the quietest dinner we have had in 15 years.

After dinner we skipped off to Church with the parentals and then off to the Johnny B Pub in Coquitlam to meet up with Ryan & Elise and their crew who were watching the hockey game. I had never been to the pub before and it was definitely a different clientele then what I am use to in Burnaby. (Hello Snob). Everyone in Coquitlam just seems so much older, and so stereotypically from Coquitlam. I don’t know how to describe it, but everyone just has a certain look about them.

The pub was pretty good during the game. They had a lot of TVs and it was fun to watch, but once the game was over their live band hit the stage and it was a bit loud. That is probably one of our biggest pet peeves when going out, not being able to talk to each other because the music is so loud. We hung around for a bit, long enough to witness the creepiest, weirdest, possible gayest, 50 year old  man dance around ever. Chad wanted to video tape it because it was so bad but it would have been pretty obvious what we were doing from where we were sitting. We also realized that on three of their TVs they were playing some weird show that kept showing naked people every 5 minutes. It looked like Manswers but worse. It was funny at first but then just got weird and awkward. Needless to say, we left at around 10:30 and headed back to our place so we could actually have a conversation.

SUNDAY

The plan was for my Mom to come over at 10:30 and then for us to catch the Skytrain and head downtown for some Christmas Shopping. Only problem was that she showed up at 10 and I was still in bed. So I rushed to get ready and ended up looking like a pile of crap, but I got myself together enough to go out shopping. Thankfully it wasn’t raining downtown because that would have basically ruined the day. Everything I wanted to buy either wasn’t in stock, or was sold out, or was way more money then I was expecting it to be, so I only bought a few things. It was kind of disappointing. We had a sushi lunch in Pacific Centre and then caught the skytrain back to metrotown to see if there was anything there we could find. After Mom successfully purchasing a few gifts, but I was done for the day so we headed home. My plan was to clean up a little from the day before but I basically laid on the couch for 2 hours watching Sex and the City before getting ready for my work Christmas Party.

Picked up Claudia at 6 and headed over to the Bosses house where it is held every year. We were a little bit late which meant that we didn’t get a seat around the table of amazing appetizers. The food was, as always, the best ever. The company of everyone was good and there were such cute outfits.

Near the end of the night Claudia and I were sitting on the couch and one of the store employees came up to talk to us about what we do and what kind  of schooling we had. I don’t know how we got onto the subject but we started talking about how my voice sounds when I answer the front door on the intercom. Apparently it comes out really rough and aggressive (which actually isn’t that shocking). Then the girl asked if I was from around here because based on the sound of my voice and the way I talk she thought I was from Brooklyn. Ha. Best compliment ever!

At about the time this conversation was taking place I started to get a bit of a headache, which quickly turned into a migrane, so Claudia and I packed up and left. Time flew by because it was already 10pm and we were expecting it to be much earlier then that. The migraine got to the point where I thought I was going to puke everywhere, so I quickly got home, popped some Advil and went straight to bed. Ugh, it was the worst feeling ever.

I got a lot of flack for putting the Christmas stuff up a week early. The reason is, our Christmas Party is next Saturday, and every year it is a disaster trying to finish the tree, clean the apartment, and bake all in the same day. This year, I’m a head of the game. I also LOVE the way the apartment feels when all the Christmas decorations are out!

TONIGHT

Clean, relax, make some pasta, start on the Christmas Cards!!!

Last night was Matt’s birthday extravaganza. Well it wasn’t really an extravaganza it was just dinner at our favorite sushi place by Metrotown.

We talked business as usual. A bunch of people got laid off at his work, including 5 of his friends, but he was safe. He is a genius and they know it.

He had a work birthday dinner last week and the rule was everyone had to wear fur. So classic Matt. Reminds me of the time I bought him fur for his birthday many years ago.

After dinner we went and saw Zombieland. OMG the Bill Murray part was the best part of the whole movie. I think that’s why I loved the movie so much. Hahahaha when they started to act out Ghostbusters hahah PRICELESS. Damn I love BM.

Speaking of work, I have to go out to the warehouse this afternoon and clean the crap out of the Notions room. It is the only room in the entire building that has never been cleaned and organized and yours truly is left to the task. Piss me off.

I had to go in there yesterday to look for some binders and I blew a gasket. It is so gross in there I can not tell you. When they re-did that section of the roof they didn’t cover anything so there is a layer of dirt everywhere. It is so so so gross. Not to mention all the old crap they shove into corners and forget about instead of just chucking the stuff they don’t need anymore. It doesn’t make any sense.

I brought old clothes, an apron, and rubber gloves because I know half the stuff in there is going to need to be washed. Pretty sure when I signed up for this job it didn’t say warehouse maid. I mean I don’t mind cleaning up and organizing things, but this is ridiculous. I’m actually really annoyed about it. It seems that no one except the Italian Housewife cares enough to get off their ass and clean something. It is very frustrating. I spent three days last week cleaning different parts of the office, and if it wasn’t for me, no one would do it. No one would sweep or wash or organize. We would just live in more filth then we actually do. I tested it and when I wasn’t cleaning no one was cleaning. Ok, I’ve gone off on a rant here but I am just frustrated. I know people do help out in a small way here in there, it just seems like the big projects are left to me. Or maybe I just take the initiative to do it. Ugh, oh well.

I guess in the end, I am the one who needs to use the room the most and if I have a problem with it I should fix it. I just don’t like the idea of it being covered in dirt and grime.

If only I wasn’t so damn good at cleaning!!!