What happens in Mexico...

I feel like I need to start this post out with Adele's song.

 

Hello, it's me.

I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet...

 

It's been a while. A long while. My last post was about Eric's 40th birthday...in May. Oops. Quite a lot has happened since then. If you remember, we were living with my parents after selling our house and waiting to build. That plan went awry...three times, and in September, we bought a house, moved in and life has been happening all the while.

 

Before we moved, though, we had a few fun things happen, one of which was celebrating our 15 year anniversary! 15! That's quite a milestone. Fifteen years of wonderful things, horrible things, love, laughter and life. To celebrate, we grabbed the other half of our Core Four and planned a trip to MEXICO! Eric had never flown outside of the United States, so it was a blast to get to experience this with him!

 

Peace out, America. Hello, Mexico!

 

 

 

After a full day of travel, we finally made it to our destination...an all inclusive resort about an hour south of Cancun. It was beautiful. And hot. We went in July, so you can imagine...

 

 

I could seriously post hundreds of pictures of the gorgeous resort, but I will just keep it to a few of my favorites. You're welcome. ;)

 

We explored the resort for a little while the first evening. Being the young and crazy people we are, we went to bed around 9 o'clock due to sheer exhaustion! Be jealous. You'd think that without our insane, early-rising kids around, we would have slept in and had a lazy morning. No. Sadly we were up around 5:00 in the morning, raring to go! We heard no peeps from our friends sleeping next door, so we grabbed the camera and headed off to catch a Mexico sunrise.   

 



 

It was so beautiful there. Breathtakingly beautiful. The water was such a pretty color of blue and even when you were swimming in the ocean, you could see the ocean floor.

Our trip was so much fun! We spent our days at the beach and pool and our evenings eating at new places. 

 

 

One of the things that cracked us up was the word "tequila". It was used just about as much as the word "hello". ;) We would go to breakfast, sit down barely awake, and wait for the waiter to ask for our drink order. "Orange pineapple juice, please." "With tequila?" "Um, no thank you." I mean, at 8:00 AM? Haha!!

Seriously, the views got old after a while... ;)



This was before dinner out at a great Italian place... 

 

 

One of our favorite days by far was when we got to rent a catamaran to take out. BY OURSELVES. Like, no joke, they let the FOUR of us take a catamaran out into the ocean after only an hour training session. And it was only Eric and Matt at the training session. Later, the guys admitted to us (ON THE CATAMARAN) that Eric thought Matt had been paying attention and Matt was sure that Eric was paying attention. Oh dear.

It was such a great time, though! Minus the few times that we screamed in shear terror because we thought our boat was TIPPING and were surely staring into the face of DEATH, it was pure bliss!
THAT WATER THOUGH...

Oh how I love these people.

Just some fun, random pictures...

 

Eating Japanese...

At our resort, outside the piano bar...

 

A day of shopping... (Eric's face SLAYS me)

 



And a few more around the beach...

 

 

 

Sadly, our trip came to an end. We couldn't have asked or a better vacation together! While waiting at the airport, the first order of business for our return to reality:



 

As we boarded the plane, no one really was ready to leave our fantastic little getaway behind, but we were looking forward to getting home to our babies. Kind of. Kidding! Sort of...

How appropriate...

And once we were home, all was right in our world again. Love.

 

Gulf Shores, I love you with my whole heart

Well, hello there. 

Yes, it's been over a month. I'm sorry. 

A sarcastic dear friend and I had a conversation via text a few nights ago where she reminded me that I had a blog. She also reminded me that every time she clicked on my blog to see if there was an update, she saw my muddy butt. Point taken. Time for a new post. ;-)

We had a fantastic time on Fall Break. My parents took us all to Gulf Shores and I do believe it was our best trip yet! Oh how I had missed the beach. I have a gazillion pictures to sort through and will do a vacation post soon, but thought I would show you some of the pictures we had done on the beach. Love them. 

(We even caught Dad smiling in a few of them!) 

My precious beach babies :-)

 

Tried recreating a picture we had taken before Maggie was born. Can't believe how big all the kids have gotten! 

Dear beach,

Let's not wait so long next time.

I miss you.

T

humidity + my hair = disaster, however, I trudge on...

It's almost the middle of September - WHAT?? I feel like school just started. I guess it kind of did, and we are into a nice little routine. Levi loves his new school and Maggie...well, she dominates the playground. Her teacher told me she is a born leader and sometimes we have to learn to let others lead, too. She totally gets that bossiness from her dad!

Me? I love preschool.

I get to visit my friend, Wendy who gives me diet cherry cokes. I do other things like go to Target BY MYSELF.

I also get to meet my momma for frequent lunch dates!

Don't get me wrong. I love my little ones to the core, but when I get two and a half hours to myself four days a week, I am in Heaven. ;-)

So, Labor Day rolled around and our Sunday School class decided to go camping. I kind of thought it would get cancelled DUE TO EXTREME HEAT, but it did not. People...it was 90 degrees. 90. Almost 100. My husband was still gungho about going. Since he is not on social media, I took to the Twitter to announce my bitterness. 

And, if you've been around this blog long enough, you understand me completely. 

Right??! Humidity and my hair do not mix well. At all. It is sad, but true.

I am proud to say that camping was a complete blast. I put my phone away (sadly, there are no pictures!) and we had a full 24 hours of family-friend time and it was blissful! The kids loved it, I loved it, and Eric loved it. :-)

The next day, we got a text from some friends: PACK YOUR SUITS AND SOME PILLOWS. WE'RE HEADED TO THE LAKEHOUSE. Eric didn't have to tell me twice! I love boating! We headed out for some more fun. 

Our friends invited us out to do some tubing on their boat -- aren't they cute?!

This was Maggie's first time on a boat. She was in all her glory.

{{Side note: Why can't my hair look this adorable all tousled in the wind? Mine is more like Medusa.}}

Levi went boating a few weeks ago, so he was an old pro. ;-)

Is there anything sweeter? Mags loves her daddy.

This here cracks me up! Maggie has a slight crush on Braden, their oldest son. And, I think the feeling is mutual. ;-)

Such a great few days with friends. I spent the whole afternoon trying to convince Eric we need another boat. ;-)

Such a fun weekend reconnecting and spending time enjoying God's beautiful creation.