getting there, little adventures, and friends.

Time for my final vacation recap.

Getting there:
Our flight to Mexico left Texas at 5:45 am.  Add in the two-hours early for international flights and the half-hour drive to the airport, a little bit of time to crawl out of bed and get dressed, and we were waking up at 3 am that morning.

But it isn't hard to wake up that early when you know you are headed for a vacation on the beach!

The Foulks (4 hours of sleep total-combined between the two of them) and us (six and a half hours of sleep between the two of us) on the plane and ready to go! 
The flight was only a few hours long,
but it felt so weird--no one to entertain, no fingers to clean or sippy cups or toys or snacks.  Okay, so maybe we did have a few snacks.  But we weren't dropping them on the floor or throwing them over the seats so it still felt strange.

Look, I got to read a book! And have an empty lap on the plane! 
Flying was actually kind of fun!

When we got to our condo, we got settled in and then walked up to walmart to buy some groceries.
Walmart in Mexico is a scary place, take our word for it.
And walking five blocks to walmart in the 90 degree, a billion percent humidity afternoon, on only a couple hours of sleep...we'll just say it wasn't the best idea. We were tired, sweaty, and worn out. 

 When we got our food back to the condo and looked out the windows to see this, we just had to go play.
Before my waterproof camera proved to be not-so-waterproof, we got a few awesome swimming pictures:

 

 I love how the water is so blue that the sky looks kind of purple.

 

 

Little adventures:

 We tried not to go out to eat or spend money on Sunday;
a nice leisurely walk on the beach sounded like a good idea. 
Tony, our fishing boat crew member, told us that if we walked about twenty minutes down the beach we'd get to the uninhabited area and find some cenotes. 
Almost an hour of walking later and we weren't even close.  So we stopped where we were, ate a picnic lunch (complete with a little sand), and played in the waves for a while before walking all.the.way.back.

 We stayed up late one night at this restaurant/bar on the beach just so we could see the firedance show.  It was pretty awesome, and we were also entertained by all the drunk people there dancing and singing along to the live band.  Our waitress seemed pretty confused about why we were sticking around so long even though we weren't drinking.

One afternoon we ventured down the beach and found a guy who sold us a half-hour rental of wave runners. We paid for two, thinking that each couple would take one.
As we signed papers and got started, though, Mike realized it wasn't a good activity for him (he had neck/spine surgery a few months ago).  The young guy working there told us that they wouldn't give us our money back.  
Long story short, Alli and I rode one wave runner together while Kent rode the other.
It was a blast!  We tipped over in the waves a few times, threw each other off the back of the waverunner once or twice, and got thoroughly drenched in the ocean spray. 
We were soooo sore the next day.

Finding the fruit market was harder than we had anticipated-Kent and I went looking one morning (we woke up at 8:30 thinking we had slept in but the Foulks slept until 11--they win.)
We looked all over the street it was supposed to be on but couldn't find it.
Alli and I went back later and discovered Kent and I had been standing in front of it the whole time. Oops.

Allison and I felt like locals with our cute little baskets,
well except for the excessive picture taking, of course.

The Foulks were the best traveling pals.
We get along so well- even though Kent and Mike hadn't seen each other or talked for a year and a half, within moments they were laughing about obscure movie quotes just like always.

Having them with us was the perfect balance between having time just as couples to go out to dinner or walk hand in hand down the beach
and time with friends all four of us doing something fun
and time with just Alli and me, going out and getting a massage on the beach or strolling the streets in the twilight, drinking chocolate shakes and getting our fill of girl-time
while the tired husbands watched some guy movie back at the condo. 

 We had the most wonderful vacation;
it was everything we had hoped it to be.

And thank you, Mom and Dad for watching the kids.  A big part of the fun we had there was knowing that our kids were both well-taken care of and having the time of their lives at your house.  We didn't once worry about them while we were gone, and that was incredibly relaxing.

Until next time. 
Thailand...right, Foulks? Anyone else want to come with in 2016-ish?