Viva La Mexico!

Last week Dan and I got back from the best vacation ever! We spent a week on the beach in Akumal, Mexico with Lisa and Cody, Kevin and Lisa, and Cody's cousin and his wife, Jayson and Anne. A patient of Cody's donated the use of their beach house for a week to Lisa and she and Cody graciously invited us along. It was a much-needed vacation for Lisa since she was wrapping up her year of chemo treatments. She started her last round of chemo right after we got home. This was also the longest trip Dan and I have gone on away from the boys. My parents (aunts, cousins, and various neighbors) helped watch the kids for the week so we could take so time off. 

It was snowing when we left and I couldn't have been happier that we were getting out of Utah!

My dad drove us to the airport where we happily waved goodbye to the snow. 

We flew into Cancun on Saturday night and drove down to Casa Del Caribe in Akumal. Sunday morning the caretakers of the house made us a great breakfast with tons of fresh pineapple, mango, payapa, and juice. Fruit tastes so much better when it's so fresh! We spent the day snorkeling in the backyard, reading in hammocks and sunchairs, and generally relaxing on the beach. 

Lisa and Cody brought an underwater camera and took some great pictures of the marine life in the bay. 

We saw a few more of these giant black sea urchins throughout the week. They were huge!

 

The view was beautiful from the beach house. You could see the waves crashing on the reef in the distance. The whole bay was between 3-6ft deep. Needless to say, we had a lot of fun snorkeling, swimming, and kayaking out there. 

On Monday, the guys were going to try and go deep sea fishing but it was a little too windy so we all drove up to Playa Del Carmen and took the ferry over to Cozumel. It was pretty windy getting over to the island but once we got there we were on the leeway side of the island and the wind was perfect. We set up a snorkeling tour and went to get lunch while we waited for our boat. 

Kevin, Lisa, and I took this awesome picture on the pier in Cozumel to send to our brother Spencer , who is on his mission. He's in Southern California though so the weather probably looks like this every day.

Maybe next time Spencer!

We decided to eat at Senor Frog's for lunch. The food was great, reasonable priced, and the lunch time atmosphere was pretty tame. You could tell that at night or especially during Spring Break, this place would have been packed with a lot of party people. They kept blowing this really shrill whistle while trying to get us to do shots. I think the shot girl was disappointed that she didn't get any drinking tips from us. 

We also got to sport these awesome balloon hats during our meal. 

After lunch, we went back to the pier to catch our boat. Our tour took us to 3 coral reefs around the east side of the island to go snorkeling. These reefs were amazing! I loved the varieties of colorful fish we saw and they swam so close to you. The water was clear and such a beautiful color. 

Our snorkeling guide had some fish food that he used to lure tons of the fish over to our group. 

At one of the spots, he dove down to the bottom and brought up a sea cucumber for us to see. A giant sea slug...awesome. I didn't touch it, but the fish were cool. 

We also saw this huge parrot fish. Our guide said there was a big group of them that hung out in the deeper water about 50 yards away but only this one would come over to the snorkeling groups.

 After snorkeling, we took the ferry back to Playa and ate dinner back at the house. We made a lot of our meals at the beach house and we definitely ate extremely well! 

Tuesday the boys tried to go fishing again but the guides said the wind out on the open ocean were too strong so we decided to spend the day at some of the ruins instead. Kevin, Lisa, Jayson, and Anne went to Tulum in the morning while Lisa, Cody, Dan and I hung out at the house since we've already been there. We met up with them for lunch in Tulum before heading over to the Coba ruins. 

Coba is pretty impessive although I was surprised at how much is still covered in jungle or only partially excavated. Coba was a huge city and the ruins were spread out over quite a bit of land so we chose to rent bikes to ride to each location. It was really humid, muggy, and had no wind that far inland so the slight breeze you got while riding the bikes was a nice reprieve.

  Dan and I at the ball court. 

This was Nohoch Mul. It's the tallest Mayan temple in the Yucatan Peninsula. There was another temple right off to the left of this one that's probably just as tall and still covered in jungle. The fact that these people built this so preisely so long is astounding. You can see Lisa and I at the bottom just about the start our climb. 

Lisa, Anne, Me, Dan, Lisa, and Kevin at the top of the temple.

Another cool shot of the surrounding jungle from the temple. 

One Wednesday, the boys finally got to go on their fishing trip since the weather decided to cooperated. So they went off to do their male-bonding fishing and the girls stayed behind and relaxed at the house. 

All of the boys were able to at least hook a fish on their reels at one point. Well, Cody caught some coral. Apparently, it put up quite a fight before he finally reeled in a straggly piece of coral and someone else's old line.

Dan hooked something big on his line but then it took off through the water so fast that the reel was getting too hot and the guides had to pour water on it. The guides told him it must have been a bull shark since only sharks will do that to the lines. 

In the end, Jayson caught and landed the only fish from the trip. He caught a barracuda and an amberjack.

Look at those teeth!!

The guides filleted both fish and the guys brought them back to the house to eat. Cody made us barracuda steaks for lunch and they were seriously amazing. Very good eating! It was probably the best fish I had the entire trip.  We spent the rest of the day snorkeling, swimming, and relaxing until dinner and then we took Jayson's amberjack in to Akumal to eat at La Buena Vida, which was right on the beach. 

Absolutely beautiful! Very fun atmosphere for dinner. 

Dan and I waiting for our dinner.

The resturant will cook the fish if you bring it in so we waited and waited for them to cook our dinner. It must have been really busy since it took almost 2 hours to get our dinner. The atmosphere was nice though and it was only a little breezy. 

On Thursday, Cody, Anne, Dan, and I got up really early and drove over to AKumal. We decided to go snorkeling before any of the crowds from the cruises arrived. It was great! There was no one out on the beach yet and we could see turtles swimming out by some of the boats. Akumal is famous for the sea turtles that swim there and lay eggs on the beaches. You aren't allowed to touch them but it was so cool to be swimming over a 3ft long turtle. They are so graceful in the water. 

Kevin and Lisa went scuba diving in the same bay later that day and these are some of the pictures their guide took with his underwater camera. 

That afternoon my sibling and I Skyped with my dad who was attended the Utah Dental Convention. My Grandpa Foster (a retired dentist) received a distinguished service award for over 60 years of service in the dental community. So we were able to see the ceremony live and watch him receive the award. Big thanks to my dad who helped us so we could be there too!

That afternoon we drove over to El Gran Cenote to do some cave swimming and exploring. Cenotes are caves giving the Mayan people access to underground rivers. 

Above the water

Below the water

Above

Below

You could see scuba divers down through the caves when we were snorkeling. It was very cool to see the lights from their underwater flashlights coming out through some of deeper parts of the caves.

It's a little dark but you can see the cave and water behind us. 

There were a bunch of little turtles just hanging out on logs.

All the girls! 

On Friday morning, Lisa, Cody, Jayson, and Anne headed out to the Chitzen Itza ruins while we hung out with Lisa and Kevin. Their flight out was later that day so we went out to breakfast in Akumal and then headed back to the house to do some more snorkeling before driving them up to Playa Del Carmen to catch their bus back to the airport in Cancun. Afer we said goodbye, Dan and I hung out at the house and watched a movie until the others got back from the ruins. 

Gorgeous brick ceiling in the beach house.

This guy hung out on the pool patio ledge. We saw him almost everyday. 

That night we went out to eat at Lol Ha in Akumal and had yet another fantastic meal. 

Here's our group picture right before we left on the steps of the beach house. 

It was a fantastic trip! We had so much fun! A huge thanks to Cody and Lisa for inviting us!