A Little Bit of Paradise

After much preparation, we enjoyed an amazing trip to Cancun Mexico. When I say preparation, I think I must go a little overboard because Justin's comment the day before we left as I was frantically working on my 25 item to-do list was "I don't think I would ever want to go on vacation if I felt like I had to do what you do to get ready." So I completed my list and we headed to the airport with our fingers crossed that we would make it on our flight flying standby (tis the life of a pilot's family). We made it and even got to fly 1st class (the steak was amazing!) We had ahead of us 6 days of paradise. We left the kids behind with Grandma and Grandpa, with who the kids had a ball and didn't even seem to have missed us when we returned. Infact, Andrew cried when we told him that Grandpa (aka his constant buddy for the 7 days) would be leaving in the morning when we returned. Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you Grandma and Grandpa Hogge!

Our resort was absolutely beatiful. I could have spent 6 days sipping virigin pina coladas at the pool. The weather was perfect and the scenery what awesome!


Our first day we went on a tour of the ruins with Helaman Tours, as you can guess it was a LDS guided tour of the Mayan ruins. It was amazing. I had lots of "child free" time to practice taking some shots with my new camera and learning about Book of Mormon history. Here are a few shots:

Chichen Itza:

This type of tree is called the "Tree of Life", coincidence?

On another day we saw the beautiful ruins of Tulum that are right on the coast. I can definitely see why the Mayan people chose here to build their temples.
Definitely a favorite part of the trip was our "jungle tour" from Alltournatives. They took us on a wild jeep ride in the jungle (I truly wondered if we might roll the jeep or get bounced out-- a little more that I was anticipating), snorkeling in centotes (sink holes) and sea kayacking to a coral reef for more snorkeling:

There were a few more pics that I wanted to post (I think I took nearly 400!), but it's taking WAY too long to upload. So, I'll spare you and call it a night. So here's our trip in a nutshell.

Sugar, spice and almost everything nice!

I had this great plan of surprising my family with a nice Valentine's Day breakfast, but unfortunately they got this: (Some burned cinnimon rolls).

Opps! My breakfast plans were simple because I was suppose to be working, but lucky for me they called me off. So, instead of leaving a partially prepared breakfast and decorated table for them to find in the morning (while I prepared it in the wee hours of the moning at 4 am when I usually go to work), I attempted to make it for them at 8am. Unfortunately I got so excited about my hubbies valentine gift to me (a tripod for my camera) that I forgot about the baking rolls. Everyone was a good sport and ate them anyways along with the red pears and red strawberry kiwi juice.

I used my new tripod to take this family pic. Luckily the pink frosting helped cover up the burned cinnimon rolls, a little.

Later on that day I got called into work for 4 measly hours, not hardly worth the 30 minute drive each way, but I was still able to make it home for a fabulous dinner prepared by my hubby. He's a great cook. He even made some delicious chocolate dipped strawberries. He's certainly not your average husband. Since we just returned from a week long adult only trip to cancun on Sunday we decided to make it an evening at home with the fam! (more details to come on our trip later.) It was a great day! Even though Valentine's day definitely has it's commerical side, I loved having the chance to tell those that I care about how much I love them!