On the first day of the Mexico Vacation for my true love and me

Josh and I have wanted to go to Mexico for about 10 years. When our friends Travis and Kayleen lived in Salmon, we talked about the 4 of us going to Mexico together. But then they moved away, and we didn't do anything to make that desire materialize. The thought of vacationing in Mexico has been in the back of my mind for years, though, and during the summer last year (July 2014), I suddenly had an idea: if I could lose 40 pounds in 6 months, I wanted Josh to take me to Mexico in February. I needed some motivation, and I knew that having a huge reward incentive would help me. He isn't easily persuaded to go on international vacations (he likes the idea of vacations, but hates spending the money on them)--so I wasn't sure if he would agree to the terms I would propose. I woke him up after midnight the night I had that great idea, and he surprisingly agreed to it. I was suddenly super excited to get healthy and extremely motivated to lose weight. Within 3 months, I'd lost 20 pounds, but I knew that I would never make it to the 40-pound mark with the holidays approaching, so a year ago November, I cancelled my diet--and my plans for going to Mexico. Instead, I made plans to take Ammon with me to visit my sister and her family in Virginia in February. I'd wanted to do that for years, too, and I'm glad I went. But, I still felt disappointed in myself for not making my goal weight and getting my huge reward. Thankfully, all the talk about Mexico for so many months convinced Josh that he really wanted to go and that spending the money on the vacation would be worth it. So this spring, we decided that we would still go to Mexico, even if I didn't lose the weight that I'd originally intended. Instead of having it be a reward for me, we planned on going this November for Josh's birthday celebration. He would be turning 39 on November 7, and we decided it would be fun to end his 30's with a bang!!! 

I started researching and making official plans throughout the summer. I knew I wanted to go see multiple Mayan Ruins, but Josh just wanted to hang out on the beach. My original plans were go to visit a different Ruins site every day, but since it was Josh's birthday vacation, I wanted to comply with what he wanted. So I compromised: if he would just do one day of Ruins with me, I would not make official plans the remainder of our vacation time so we could just relax and spend time on the beach like he wanted.  It was SO hard for me to not have concrete plans! It was even harder for me to pick just one site to go to. I researched and read a lot of travel blogs, magazine articles, and online reviews, and finally decided on one. And once I decided on what ruins I wanted to go to on this trip, it helped me decide where we would stay during the remainder of our time as well. Originally, I couldn't decide if we should stay in Tulum, Playa Del Carmen, or Cancun: I wanted to be somewhere with things to do within walking distance of our hotel, somewhere that had beach access, and somewhere that would be within a reasonable distance of the airport and the ruins due to shuttling costs. We didn't want to deal with the hassle of renting a car, and we didn't want to be at a secluded resort that was miles away from the nearest town. I finally decided that Playa Del Carmen would be the best fit for us. And once I decided on the city, I spent days agonizing over which hotel to stay at. I finally narrowed it down to two, and made Josh pick. He picked The Reef Coco Beach Resort. Once I had the hotel picked, I discovered it was cheaper to book the airline tickets along with the hotel. I wanted to go to Mexico for 5 days, but Josh wanted to do 3. We met in the middle and did 4. I found a great deal on a red-eye flight, which would give us 4 full days in Mexico, and I booked our trip. I was giddy with excitement!

I started exercising and eating healthy again starting in August, wanting to be in better shape for my time in a swimsuit while on a beach. This time around, the weight didn't come off as easily as last year, although I did the exact same thing (no pop, no sugary treats, no eating after 9 at night). I did water aerobics, and yoga, walked daily on my treadmill, and did crunches every morning. I felt better about myself, but hated that the scale never reflected my hard work. After 2 months of hard effort, I'd only lost a measly 2 pounds. In October, I started tanning and I went on a 2-week south beach diet. The diet really helped, and I lost 10 pounds right before the trip. Josh did a spray-tan right before we went, and we both felt good about wearing swimsuits on the beach without our farmers tans showing! 

Our flight was scheduled to leave SLC 8:30 on the night of Wednesday, November 4. We left work at noon that afternoon to drive to Salt Lake. As we drove over Gilmore, it was snowy, and I couldn't help but think how happy I was to leave this bleak weather for somewhere that would be "sunny and 75"!

We met up with my sister Tabbi for a quick meal near her work in downtown SLC before heading to her house to leave our car. She drove us to the airport and dropped us off about 6:00. We flew with Frontier--but we will NEVER do that again!!!  We had a great deal with them--the total was about $300 less than any other flight company's offer, but on the day of our flight (when we could check in), they charged us for each seat, and they charged us for our carry-on bags. When we got to the airport, the Frontier scanners wouldn't accept our passports, so we had a flight attendant help us. Then when we were going through security, the officer had to do an additional step because our Frontier tickets weren't finalized. It was such a pain! I was SOOO mad about the additional charges. Because we were on two flights to Mexico, and two flights returning, all the extra charges totaled almost $300, which is what we thought we were saving. When we got on the aircraft, we realized that our seats didn't recline, there were no overhead TV's, and no food was free during the flight. It was terrible. The seats were uncomfortable and there was no leg room, and we hated it! We will definitely not be flying with them again, no matter how much better the deal seems to be!!

Waiting at the airport for our first flight--
Josh fit right in with the people nearby,
as they were all engrossed in their books, too.

Waiting at the airport for our first flight--
there wasn't any extra outlets or charging stations, so I sat
right by the check-in desk in order to charge my phone. 

The flight to Denver was uneventful. We had about a two-hour layover before departing Denver at midnight for Cancun. We hardly slept on the aircraft (which we anticipated), and we couldn't believe the amount of people traveling with babies. It was a noisy flight for being a red-eye. We arrived in Cancun at 5:30am, and had to go through customs. It took about an hour before we were out of the airport. It was pouring rain when we walked out of the airport. We had arranged for a shuttle to drive us to Playa, which is about 45 minutes south of Cancun. We found the area where our shuttle company was located at outside, and it took about another half hour to get our vehicle sorted out, because multiple people from our flight had booked the same shuttle company, and they were organizing the passengers into vans based on their destinations. As we were driving down the highway towards Playa with 3 other couples (we were the first ones to be dropped off in our vehicle), the sky looked bleak and it was not the sight we'd originally hoped for when planning our Mexico vacation! We arrived at our hotel about 7:00am. Our check-in time at the hotel wasn't until 3:00pm, but we figured we would just have them hold our bags, and we'd hang out on one of their couches or beach chairs until then. Thankfully, after we checked into the hotel, the guy at the front desk said we could go to our room immediately since it was already available. We were super happy. The room that was available had two double beds instead of a king bed like I'd reserved, but since it was available right away, and we were exhausted, we took it. We immediately laid on the beds and took a long nap.

Our hotel was an all-inclusive resort which means they have food and drinks and entertainment all included in the price of the stay. When we woke up from our naps, the breakfast time had ended, but in between meal times, there's a bar by the pool that makes snacks, so we headed down there in the rain to grab something to eat because we were both starving! We ordered a few different drinks, just to see what was good. We tried the virgin Miami Vice and the virgin Mango Daiquiri, and we both fell in love with the Mango Daiquiri. I think we had over 25 of them during our stay! And we just loved that they were free!!!  After our breakfast snack, we walked around a bit. The sun came out and the rain stopped, so we went back to our hotel room to change into our swimsuits for a stroll along the beach.

The view from our hotel balcony. The large hut is where the pool bar is located.
The hotel surrounded the pool in a giant U-shape,
and at the open end of the U-shape was the access to the beach. 

There was a dock located at both ends of the hotel's beach access. This is the
dock to the south. Our beach wasn't too far from a reef, so the waves here are smaller,
which is why the boats are anchored in the ocean water near our beach. The reef also
produces lots of sea grass that washes up on the beach, and is raked up daily by the staff.

Our first stroll along the beach in between
storms. Although it looks cold, it wasn't at all. 

This is the dock on the north side of our beach access, and a view of more
boats parked in the ocean waters near our hotel. 

Beach Selfie.
The humidity made my hair go crazy!

I had my toenails painted by Kerry before we left for Mexico.
I loved the contrast between the bright nails and the tan sand. 

Our first day really consisted of sleeping, eating, discovering our new surroundings, and sleeping and eating some more. We loved the buffet meals in the dining hall; there was such a huge assortment of food and every evening there was entertainment during the dinner meal which we enjoyed too. The rain continued off and on the entire first day, which we were bummed out about at first. We went outside a few more times whenever it let up, but it was actually a blessing to have it be bad weather when we first arrived, because then we didn't feel so guilty for sleeping so much and napping off and on that whole first day. We were able to get rid of the jet lag, and by the second day, when the sun came out to stay, we were ready to enjoy it!