Mexico is over and now it's back to reality

We're BAAAACCCKKK!!! So our Mexican vacation is over and we are home. We didn't have the best weather this time around but it sure beat the 18 degrees we were welcomed home to last night when we stepped off of the plane! This is going to be a long post and I really out of order. There were way to many pictures to blog all of them so I tried to just pick a few of my favorites. Second thing is there are a lot of self portraits of Ed and I. Since we went alone this time there wasn't anyone to take our picture except for the few times I asked a stranger. (which neuter of us likes to do)! Last thing is since the weather was cooler than we had expected I feel like alot of the pictures of me I have on the same jacket.. well that's because I didn't bring a light jacket and had to buy one there so I wore it almost every night! LOL

I love this place. Everything is so beautiful. The beaches are so clean and the you can actually see your feet when you stand in the water and tons of fish swimming all around. It's nothing like the Jersey shore. In some ways the beaches remind me of when I lived in Hawaii!

All of the landscaping at the resort is in perfect order. It seemed like there was constantly someone around straightening up or trimming something. The picture below is one of the pools where we spent most of our time. The little hut you see is a swim up bar. I didn't get in the water at all (to cool for me this time) but Ed hopped in a few times. If you don't feel like swimming over to the bar there is a waitress that comes by about every 2 seconds to see if you need more to drink. It was so nice just being lazy all week. No kids, No laundry, No work, no cooking... nothing just sit around and be waited on. I missed the kids a ton and Max, but boy is it hard to be back to all of the daily responsibilities!

One of the many self portraits!

Ed outside of Senor Frogs in Playa Del Carmen. Right next tot his place was a jewlrey store and standing out side of the store was some kind of security, but it was sort of scarry because he was guarding the store with what looked liek a freakin machine gun. I took a picture and I will have to remember to put it up later.

Thursday was the day with the most rain. We had a trip planned to snorkel in Isla Mujeres, but decided not to go when we woke up and saw that it was pouring! They were calling for rain on Friday to so we decided not to reschedule. Friday came and it didn't rain at all so we missed out. I guess there is always next time. We spent most of the day Thursday just hanging out inside the resort drinking and reading. ( I finally got to finish the third book in a series I have been reading since August, Twilight, LOVED IT! I can not wait to start the 4th). Once the rain stopped Ed and I found some lounge chairs under a covered area near the beach and hung out there for quite a while talking. It was so nice to have this time for just the two of us. It seems like life around our house is so hectic all of the time!

These last two pictures are of our room the day we arrived. Everything was in perfect order and the maid service comes around twice a day to clean your room for you!

Ed and I were talking and want to try to plan another trip back to Mexico hopefully right after Easter in 2010. This time we want to invite and many of our friends as possible and take the kids along. As soon as we find out pricing for 2010 I'm going to put the invitation out there for anyone that wants to join us..... hopefully we can get atleast a few other families to go. I think this place would be so much fun everyone to go together. It;s so big that you wouldn't have to spend every second with each other but if you wanted to you could.

A little side note.... The day we were leaving the bell boy came to our room to take our luggage and I noticed right away that did not have the regular Mexican accent that everyone else had. I asked him if he was from Mexico originally which he answered ye he was. He then went on to tell us a crazy story... He said that he was born in Mexico and when he was three months old his mom came to America (illegally). He lived in CA until he graduated from high school at which point he was offered a partial scholarship to a college in CA. In order for him to attend the college he had to get all of his paperwork straightened out (since technically he was illegal in the USA). His mother contacted an attorney and got the advice that he should return to Mexico and stay there for a few months and file the paper work and come back to the US the right way. SO he did. A few months later his mom is unable to find the lawyer that was helping her and he has been waiting for ther last 4 years for an answer to whether or not he can return to the US or not. OK so this story seemed absolutely crazy to me. I said why don't you just get a passport and go back and try to get it straightened out? He told me that they do not give out travel passports to the US very easily at all. His mom and two sisters live here and according to him.. once his mom had a baby in the US that made her legal and since the sisters were born here they are also legal. He is the only one stuck over there basically because of his mom's mistake. We then got in to the discussion about the resort and the people working there. Since it is all inclusive and they tell you NOT to tip, I was curious how much they got paid. He claimed that the salary of a "laborer" ie, bell boy, waitress, landscaping.... was only $6 a day... WHAT???? Are you joking?? was my reply.... He swore it was true. For some reason I have a really really hard time believing this. Anyway in the end I wondered if this was true or if he was just sort of going to extremes in hopes of a big tip??? Anyone have anything they would like to say? Think it's true????

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