Honeymoon!!

Okay so it wasn't the day after being married... and honestly, it didn't feel like we were on our honeymoon.  But, that's not to say it wasn't tons of fun and we can't wait to go back!  Seriously.  If we hadn't just bought a house, we would have bought a dozen weeks at this resort.  It was awesome.  From the all-you-can-eat restaurants and drinks to all day activities and shows.  There really isn't any reason to leave the resort.  It's a "cruise on land" and I'm convinced it's even better (if we're talking Mexico).  Guess I should mention we went to the Riviera Maya(Cancun) & stayed at an all-inclusive resort called El Dorado.  Here's a look at some things we did:

Lots of this...

Even more of this...

We made up for the free alcohol by eating ALL the food we could. There was such a variety of restaurants and it was so fun(yummy) to try them all. There are people walking around the pools and beach offering drinks at every turn. LOVED it. And just when we think we can't eat anymore... we order late night room service :) It makes me sick to think about how much we consumed. Oh well. We were on vacation, right?  P.S. those mango daquiri's(top right) are SO delicious!  In fact, I could use one right now...

There was also a little of this...

We did leave the resort once to take a Book of Mormon tour to Chichen Itza & Ek Balam.  Top left you can see our tour guide, Nephi.  That's right.  His dad is Heleman, cousin Lemuel, and so on.  He was awesome and we learned lots of interesting things about the Mayan people here. Only I wish I would have recorded it all.  Bottom right is looking down on a baptistry.  There were many temples and speculations of what they were all used for.

Many of these people twisted the commandments and did strange things to offer sacrifice.  One them was by offering a "broken heart and a contrite spirit".  They would literally cut each others heart's out, lay them on an alter(middle), and set them on fire to do this. 

There was one temple in Ek Balam we were able to climb.  Don't let the pictures fool you.  These stairs are steep and narrow!   I was so nervous going up that I didn't think how I would get down! And, well, this was the only way I could come up with...

 

Matt said at the top was a cool view of all the other ruins- many that had not been uncovered.  I'll take his word for it.  I was busy devising my plan to get down. 

Then back to the resort for some activites...

Someone is feeling mighty fine here!  It's hard to see, but Matt is showing off his triple bullseye.  And while we're bragging, I got a one on my first round too!  Only, my game went downhill from there...

Other activites included beach soccer, volleyball, ping pong, chasing aguanas, tennis, checkers, etc.  You can ask Matt who dominated these games, but I doubt he tells the truth.  There were shows in the evening and, well, it was something to shower for after a long day.  Funny story:  Since I won the vacation, it was booked under my name.  Therefore we become Mr. and Mrs. Vandegrift :) I think Matt appreciates his four-letter last name a little more.

It was so sad to say bye.  But we were ready to get home and start some kind of a diet.  (Okay, that we're still working on).  Our last day here we got a massage on the beach(top left).  It was awesome.  I don't know that I'm mature enough for them though.  I almost kicked her in the face for touching my feet.  And for some reason my hands are so ticklish too.  Besides that, I would hire her any day.  It was a great way to end our stay at the El Dorado Royale.

*Side note*  The week we came here was random and really just the only time that would work. We figured out, however, that it was actually our 6 month anniversary and our 2 year since we met/started dating.  Crazy.