Relaxation #1

 Sunrise day!  Jessi and I are early risers so we were up and dressed, ready to see the sun rise!  It's amazing when you walk out the door, how that heat and humidity hits you, even though it's only 6:00am!

We were disappointed to see that the beach was really covered in seaweed - oh well - we watched the sun rise which was just OK and decided to walk the other direction since the seaweed was so bad the other way!  It was fun to see the other little place next to us but we couldn't walk a long ways that way either!

But it was still a beautiful morning!

Jaime had a rough night with some respitory issues so she slept in - Jessi and I had our WONDERFUL coffee at Beloved again!

These 2 silly girls I guess were attempting to put on sunscreen!!  Who knows with them?

Jaime finally rallied so we sat with her while we drank our coffee!  She looks pretty darn good for a sleepless night!

It was a gorgeous beach day - the guys were out early raking up the seaweed!

Jessi and Jill decided to try out the bed and said it was really comfortable!

Just sitting in my beach chair, watching the waves......

Yum!  That looks like a strawberry mango drink!

We kept switching beach chairs when the sun would move - Jaime and I decided to go up by the buffet and sit on the couches for a while1

And then it was "shot" time!  I am NOT a tequila drinker so we told the bartender to bring 3 shots of tequila and something fruity!  HA!  He brought something that tasted like coffee!  I offered to drink that and it wasn't bad at all - but I sipped it!  I know, not the proper way to do a shot!

And then the bartender brought out 4 shots of a lemon tasting liquor - it was pretty good but again I just sipped it!  We had a lot of laughs trying to make the bartender understand what we wanted!

Swim time!  There was some seaweed in the water!   But the water was nice and warm and felt great so we all played in the waves once again!

Everyone was still a little burnt from that first day so we were careful not to stay in the sun very long!

Beach, sun and sand - a great combination!

Xplor #2

 Jill and Jessi decided they needed to drive the jeeps since Jaime and I go ATVing around home!  We were surprised there was no wait so listened to the directions and climbed in - the jeeps were filthy - ha!  But that didn't bother us!

Jessi had fun using the brakes because they hardly worked!!  And the pedal was super high so she really had to left her leg to brake!

Here's Jaime and Jill - they were the speed demons!

The Jeep drive is really fun because there are lots of curves, water and bridges and caves to drive through!

Eating time!!  They had a huge place to eat in - served buffet style with lots of different choices!  It was all really good!  It did take Jill a while to find someone to show her what was gluten free but she did end up having quite a few choices!  Their lemonade was great and we topped off lunch with ice cream!  This is one of my favorite pics!

We all did the hammock ride - this was a new ride and we thought it would be a nice, relaxing ride with a slow dip in the water - NOT!  It went pretty darn fast and you hit the water HARD!!  I had my glasses on so they got soaked of course and I could hardly see for a while!

We walked back to the "heart" mid-afternoon to see if Jessi's shoe had arrived - it had!!  Full of seawood of course !  We walked back up to the lockers so she could put her shoes back on and leave the water shoes there!

You could take a lot of pictures walking through the caves to get to the different activities so we stopped at most places and took pictures!

By this time, we had done everything but the "Adventure Walk" which again was new!  It was located in the cenote and since it's a 45 minute  walk, we got there at 4:15, just in time to do it!  We had no idea what to expect!  And let me put it this way - it's not something I would ever do again!!  You basically walked through the water (sounds easy) for a long ways - but it wasn't a gentle walk!  It was rocks underneath the water and if you stepped wrong, your foot would slip!  Kind of treacherous!!  We FINALLY figured out a way to walk so it didn't seem so hard - we basically raised each leg high and leaped through the water from foot to foot - I'm sure we looked ridiculous!!  Lots of laughs!  

And since it was kind of dark, you couldn't see what was ahead of you - Jaime hit her knee on a step that she didn't see and Jill hurt something but I don't remember what!  We were glad when we got out of the water and did some walking on dry land!  There was like a HUGE slip and slide down a canyon type driveway and that was fun!!  But all in all, not something I would repeat!

WE MADE IT THROUGH EVERY ACTIVITY!!!  And now it's 5:00 and it's closing so we walked out and got a taxi to head back to the resort!  Very tired but happy!!  It was such a fun day!

After showering (which sure felt great!) we headed to Beloved for our early evening reservations by the ocean!

Since we eat early, there were hardly any other people there which was nice!  And with the nice breeze, we didn't have to worry about mosquitos!  I think I'm drinking a pina colada!

The beach looked lovely in the background!

Not sure what Jill was drinking but it was mighty colorful!

Jaime got some color!!  This is one of her new dresses which was so cute!

After a wonderful meal, we headed back to our rooms as we were all exhausted!  We're such party animals!!

Jessi and I brought up the Xplor pictures we had all purchased (we paid in advance and had lots of fun pictures we shared!)   and once again, started laughing and just couldn't stop!  There was one girl that was kind of walking behind us for some of the pictures and we called her the "stoner" girl because she looked quite out of it!  Well, guess what - she's just standing there looking dazed and confused in one of our group photos and Jessi and I just laughed and laughed!  

What a fun day together! (and by the way, my watch read that we had walked 19, 900 steps that day)

Xplor #1

Another gorgeous morning - now who wouldn't like this?  It's really peaceful early morning!

We ate an early breakfast as we were heading to our only excursion outside of the resort - XPLOR!  Glenn and I had been to it with Patty & Leonard, Jim & Brenda on one of our trips and we had so much fun that I decided I wanted to go again since it had been many years!  We ordered our taxi from the lobby and within 10 minutes we were on our way!  It didn't take long at all to get there and such a nice taxi driver - the price is all preset so no problems with that!

It was a little confusing once we got down the steps to figure out where to go so we just got in line and waited, only to realize when we got up there that we WERE in the wrong spot since we had prepaid!  Oh well, it didn't take long to get into the right line, fill out the liability form and get our orange hard hats on!

A camera is built into the helmet and there would be many, many places for pictures to be taken - some places you had to place your wrist band on a special place and then just SMILE!  And some cameras were just at the different activities and would take your picture without you really knowing about it!

Such cute places to take pictures!  And then we were off to the lockers!

This is the "heart" which basically is the starting paths to the different activities!

First up was zip-lining!  There was a little wait on this and of course you have to get all strapped into the gear before you start walking up to the first place -  there are actually 14 zip lines but we chose to only do the first 7!  A few times, 2 of us went together as they needed extra weight to get you all the way across!

This was Jessi's and Jill's first time to zip line!  Jaime and I had zip lined in Nicaragua and I have also ziplined in Costa Rica!  They have changed the zip line here just a little bit!  

It was fun to soar through the jungle, walk up more steps and then zip line some more!  Not sure if Jessi will ever do it again as it wasn't her best experience but for the most part, we all enjoyed it!  At the very end of the zip lining, you actually go backwards into the water with a huge force that kind of shocks you!!  Well, Jessi hit so hard that it knocked one of her shoes off!!  And the helpers won't go out further in the water to grab your shoe until mid afternoon!!!  OH MY GOSH!!!!  So she crawled out of the water with just one shoe on!  But luckily, Jaime and Jill had brought water shoes that were in the lockers so we hiked back to them and she put them on!!  Crisis averted!!

Lots of climbing up high structures on the zip line!

We were excited to do the cave swim since Glenn and I didn't get to do that the last time because we did ran out of time!  Life vests are required and then it's a LONG walk through the underground caves to the actual "cenote" where you do the swim!  Was the water cold?   YES!!  But once you were in it wasn't bad at all!  We took the long route which was about 30 to 45 minutes for the swim!

There were photo op places all along and we took a lot of pictures as we each had a wrist band we could use!  Loved the swim!

Aren't we cute?

Also in the cenotes and caves is the rafting - it's in a different part of the cenote and you get hand paddles to use to steer the raft!   It's harder than it looks!   Unfortunately, this one was busy so we had people right behind us most of the time!  And you had to keep pushing off from the rocks so you wouldn't hit them - we did a darn good job of rafting!

The girls were all smiles!

I loved this large Xplor sign!

You can see the zipline that goes through the water behind the skeleton!

More to come on our "fun" day!!

Beach Day #2

 AHHHHHH....... the beach!  It was absolutely gorgeous out!  There was a slight breeze which felt great and we lounged in our chairs with drinks in hand!

Jill and Jaime at lunch with a picture of all the desserts!  I tried the chocolate cream puffs with dark chocolate sticks another day and wasn't disappointed!

To say this was relaxing is an understatement!

The water was WONDERFUL!  We all got in a few times - the water was calm and you could walk out quite a ways before you couldn't touch any more!  Jessi and Jill had brought 3 blow up/mesh type loungers and we all enjoyed sharing them and just hanging out in the ocean!

Here's the view of the resort from way out in the water!

It was a lovely afternoon!   Later on we walked to the lobby to book our Xplor trip for the next day!  We decided to have the resort book us a taxi to take us there since it was not only cheaper, but we could arrive when WE wanted to instead of using the regular transport.

When I arrived back at my room, the resort had put this banner on our door - gosh did I feel special!

That night we had booked reservations at The Grill, which was a steakhouse!  It was nice that we were so close to the lobby so didn't have far to walk!  Again, we were served some type of special drink that was very good!

I ordered the tenderloin steak with the "rustic" potatoes! (gotta love the translations!)  My piece happened to be quite thick and I had ordered it medium rare - it was quite rare to be honest!  Jaime had ordered the same thing and she sent hers back as it was too rare - but when it came back, it was almost well done so I just opted to keep mine and eat around the edges since I can never finish a full steak anyway!

We all tried different desserts that night and tasted each others'.  I had the cheesecake with raspberry topping which was good but their cheesecake certainly isn't like ours!  

After dinner we changed into comfy clothes and walked down to the pool area, just for a walk since we were all so full!  The lights on the jungle walk were SO pretty and they change colors!  Of course you walk fast so the mosquitos don't get you, even though you're covered in bug spray!  But a small price to pay to be in paradise!

When we arrived back from our walk, the resort had left me a chocolate looking egg shaped dessert for my birthday!   I attempted to eat some of it but just couldn't finish it as I was so full from dinner!

Since we were going to Xplor the next day, I decided to go ahead and get our bag packed so pulled out the sunglass holders I had brought!  Apparently, the one pair got TOO hot arriving here and the 2" end on each side was horribly sticky, like it had melted!  I stuck it on my cheek and then Jessi and I started laughing and we couldn't stop!!  OMG!  Our stomachs hurt because we laughed SO HARD!  Jessi was getting ready to brush her teeth so was putting toothpaste on when I walked it with these things hanging from my cheeks and she about lost it!  She ran into the bedroom to grab her phone and when we were done playing and laughing, realized she had dropped her toothpaste someplace!  More laughter!  Maybe that's why we slept so good because we laughed every night!

And the next day was Xplor!