On the 5th {& final} Day of the Mexico Vacation for My True Love and Me

I'm sad to write about this last day of our vacation to Mexico. I actually cried uploading these videos. I'll be honest, for about a month afterward, I was sad every day I woke up and wasn't in Mexico. The only thing that's seemed to console me is having a plan to return!!

Our flight out of Cancun was scheduled to leave at 12:40, so we knew we had a couple hours left to enjoy our remaining time at the resort. I'd wanted to see the sunrise over the ocean every morning since arriving in Mexico, but had never woken up early enough to do it, so I made a commitment to myself that I would wake up early enough on Monday the 9th so that I could see it before we left. You know when you get so excited/nervous about something that you can't sleep well? Yeah, me too. I was so afraid that I would miss it again, that I kept waking up every half hour starting at 5:30am (which is actually 3:30 our home time). Finally at 7:30, I got up, got dressed, and headed down to the water, because I couldn't take it any more! One of the things I really loved about our time in Mexico was that it never felt cold. When the sun went down at night, everyone would leave the beach, but the temperature didn't change, so I would enjoy sitting out there even after dark. Apparently, it's the same in the early morning before the sun rises: it wasn't cold at all, and the beach was quiet, bare, and so peaceful! I could spot some paddle boarders off in the distance and watched them for a few minutes. Josh and I both agree that if we were to take a ferry in the future, morning would be a much better time than the evening (like we did), because the waters were so calm!!

Josh joined me a few minutes later, and we watched with delight as the sun slowly rose on the horizon!

7:50am

7:58am

8:01am

8:02am

8:03am

8:04am

8:05am

8:07am

9:00am - this was right before we decided it was time to leave the beach.

We loved staying at The Reef. We would totally come and stay here again!!!
I loved their logo--if you look close enough at that circle of reef, you can see the
name of the resort inside it. Their cups had the same logo on them, but it was
inside out & backwards. We had SO many mango daiquiries, and I kept trying to
figure out what the lettering represented on the cup. I finally discovered what the
inscription meant. That's actually when we realized the circle of reef even said
the resort's name! We thought it was genius! If they'd had shirts for sale with the
same logo on it, we totally would've bought them!

The pool was so vacant in the morning!! 

We headed inside for one last buffet breakfast, after soaking in as many of the sun's rays as time would allow. Staying at an all-inclusive resort was definitely the way to go. We loved having so many edible options at our fingertips every day without extra cost or transportation or stress. They had such a huge variety of items for every meal. There were always multiple proteins, fruits, vegetables, carbs, and drinks. And they made the food display so beautiful every day, too!

This was my favorite breakfast item: Chilaquiles.
I have no idea what it is, but I had it every morning!

I had this juice every morning, too: 75% orange and 25% green
I freaking loved it!!! My cup is under the green dispenser. Every day
Josh would tell me that my creation looked disgusting.

Every morning there was a cook who grilled on a large skillet different things made
to order. On the last morning there, he was making eggs to order. On my last trip around
the buffet, he made two over-easy for me: they are my favorite way to eat eggs! I was
 super happy to eat them, and obviously the way I plated my food reflected that
happiness, because after I sat down, I realized the food on my plate looked like
a smiley face!

Josh was done eating before me, and didn't want to wait for me to join
him again at the table since there was a line waiting for the grill cook,
so while I waited for my eggs and ate them, he went back to the room.
This is how I found him: enjoying our view on the deck one last time!

After breakfast, we packed our bags, and left the hotel about 10:00am. We got a taxi ride for the drive back to the Cancun airport, which is about 45 minutes away. We enjoyed the sights along the way much more than the first time we'd passed them all a few days earlier (after we'd ridden on an uncomfortable midnight flight and arrived in Mexico with super rainy weather). We passed by the Mayakoba resort which was scheduled to host the PGA tour just days later. It was about 15 miles away from our own resort (and a few days after we got home, we watched it on TV, and I cried several times seeing the beautiful Mexico beaches and trees). When we arrived at the Cancun airport, we printed up our tickets, and this time the Frontier scanning machine had no problem with our passports. We bought a few more souvenirs, and waited about an hour before we were set to board. I was SOOO tired (because I'd slept like crap to catch the sunrise, but it was totally worth it!) and I had a headache, so I took a power nap on the uncomfortable airport chairs. When I woke up to use the bathroom, I realized we were right next to a BubbaGump restaurant. I took this photo of the sign in front of the restaurant, because I can never quote Bubba just right from his famous quote in the Forrest Gump movie:

Our seats on the first flight were right over the wing, but as we took off from Cancun, I got some nice shots of the greenery and beaches that I'd fallen in love with while in Mexico.

Everything is so green!

Check out that blue, blue water. You can't even tell
where the water ends and the sky begins!!

This is Cancun from a distance. The water is truly that
light blue! It is breathtaking!

We arrived in Denver at 3:00, then had a 3-hour layover before boarding the flight to SLC. It took forever to go through customs. Thank goodness there's a terminal train inside that airport, because it felt like we walked forever to get to customs, but then we got to take the train back to the terminal that our next flight was at. We ate some dinner at KFC, and I was SO glad to have access to 'real' milk again! It was the first thing I bought at the airport! I took another nap while waiting for our flight (since Frontier flights are so uncomfortable, there's no sleeping on them!). We arrived in SLC about 7:45 that night. My sister Tabbi came and picked us up, took us to our car at her house, and we started the long journey home. We were not prepared for a huge snowstorm that hit us about an hour after Idaho Falls. We should've made it home about 2:00am, but driving through the un-plowed thick snow with an icy base, and having more snow falling also made it hard to see (comparable to the Star Wars intro), so we didn't get home until 3:00am. I'm glad we even made it! At one point, we weren't sure if we would. We had been following in a semi truck's path, but at Tendoy, the truck was pulled over and there were no tracks to follow. We were in the small silver box car, and even with our snow tires, we were sliding on the road, and the car was losing speed and we thought we might have to park on the side of the road and wait until the snowplows come. But we [slowly] made it all the way home! We were both beyond exhausted at that point after such a long day of traveling (and waking up early).

12:30am

1:15am

When we walked into our home, the lights were off, and the children were in bed (they'd taken care of themselves in our absence with the help of Grandpa and Grandma T. who live next door). The house was clean, the counters were cleared off, and the boys had hung a birthday banner for Josh, put some cookies on a plate for him, and put some of their Halloween candy in a bucket as a gift to him. It was super thoughtful, and made me tear up a bit. We were so glad to be home, and couldn't believe they'd been so kind!

Josh and I both went to work the next morning--errr, I mean THAT morning just a few hours later. And it was during that day that I started having severe cramps and diarrhea. I thought perhaps I'd had the flu, but after a few days, it didn't go away. I'll spare you the details, but essentially I had contracted a bacterial water-borne illness (most likely from the ice in my treasured horchata drink). It took several days on an antibiotic before I started feeling better (although in hindsight, I think it was  a blessing that I got so sick, because I lost almost all the weight that I'd gained back while we were on vacation!). Josh got sick, too, but in a different way: when we landed in SLC, he started feeling dizzy and his vertigo was off. He had altitude sickness, and it took over 2 weeks for him to stop feeling dizzy and the headache to go away. As I was sick, I kept crying that I just wanted to go back to Mexico because everything was happy there. But Josh felt differently when we first came home, he kept saying: "Mexico made us sick, and I don't want to go again if it feels this bad to come home", which just made me even more sad. Now that it's been nearly two months, though, I think we're both ready to go back because we feel better and we remember the good! Josh breathed and slept better while we were there (the humidity worked wonders on his throat), I was more relaxed (which is a gift because the older I get, the more anxiety I have), he was happy (at one point he even said to me "by the way, I love this" as we were sitting by the pool, and he very rarely makes such vocal expressions of happiness), and we enjoyed each other's company immensely (well, except for that last night, but that's to be expected). It was definitely my favorite vacation ever, and I can't wait to go again--this time hopefully we'll get others to join us, too! (Mark down February 2017 on your calendars!!!)