Cancun! We went. We saw. We burned.

And we made it back to tell about it! Some of you already got an abridged version of the first few days, but I'm going to re-use that material and add more. And pictures! We'll see how blog savvy I can be here.

Day 1: Travel to Cincinnati. We checked into our room, then headed straight to the new IKEA store. We bought many happy things, including a new shelving system type thing for our kitchen. It's not yet installed, so I can't show pictures of it. Sorry. Anyway, this was our first trip to an IKEA store, and we were way overly impressed. They have pretty much every single thing you could ever need for the home, and more, for cheap. They started out as a Swedish company that catered to people living in small spaces, so their storage items are just fabulous. Now that have tons of stuff. We bought much of it.

After our shopping spree, we met up with my old high school friend, Carrie Mary Virginia Erwin. She took us out for some WONDERFUL Mediterranean food. We loved it. Thanks Carrie Mary!!!

Day 2: We arrived at the airport early and made the trip to Cancun. By early afternoon we were checking in here:

It's a hard life, but someone's gotta do it. We spent some time at the pool before dinner, then enjoyed the buffet.

Day 3: directly to the pool. do not pass go. my plan for the day is to get burned. however, after an hour or so, clay decides he might already be there, and we head in. i don't have so much as a pink line. we head out shopping, and guess what i find...YES jewelry and serving pieces. imagine that!




after we're shopped out, we head back to the hotel to hit the pool some more. While we're out, it starts to get a bit windy, and a little shower blows in. In his unending genius, Clay suggests that we take over a couple of the pool chairs under a big umbrella. We sat under our big umbrella and read our books and watched ALL of the rest of the people scatter from the pool area as it rained. It was one of my favorite memories of our vacation! We finally went in to do the special mexican restaurant. it's not SO special, but ok. the free entertainment for the evening is these seven people dancing so hard we get exhausted simply from watching, so we decide to call it a night.

Day 4: i'm so ready to get sunburned. but alas...its not in the cards. its super windy and very overcast. even raining a bit. what better day to do more shopping!! i scored some more good jewelry finds,

then we had some authentic mexican lunch.

scary, but turned out very well. the coke here is supreme. the clouds finally started to part, so we headed back to the hotel for some pool time. still overcast, and the most of the sun is already hiding behind the hotel, so i don't bother with sunscreen. neither does clay. a couple hours later, i look up from my book and realize i'm fried. pasty white boy clay...none. what in the world?? we stay out a little while longer reading by the pool. it was too perfect out to resist. there was still an awesome breeze coming in off the beach, and the sun was finally all the way through the clouds. by the time we get in and shower, i'm a lobster having chills, and clay is a nice light shade of pink. still not sure how it happened, but i'm pretty thrilled about it! i won't have to go to the tanning bed after all! for dinner tonight, we tried their specialty asian restaurant. wow...we both thought it most completely sucked, and left starving. the beauty of the all inclusive resort, though, is that we could walk right over to the general buffet where it was mexican night. wow...letting mexicans cook mexican food is a brilliant concept. we ate ourselves silly, then found the dessert bar. dulce de leche. we're in love. we're digesting and internetting, then contemplating going back for more. we love it here. cancun loves us right back.



Day 5: I wake up with my skin barely intact. I had chills all night, and my skin is rubbed raw from the sheets. We decide maybe we don't really need to head straight to the pool for more sun. We decide to head to Isla Mujeres. Isla is a long skinny island about an hour's ferry away from Cancun. It's much more traditional Mexican, but still pretty touristy. First, some pictures before we boarded the ferry:



We didn't actually ride the pirate ship over, but it was definitely a fun photo op. So we got to Isla, and it was SO cool. We rented a golf cart to tool about the island at our leisure.

We went all the way to the end of the island, where there was this big park area. I can't even describe it. Well, I'll show you pictures. But they don't do it justice.






We even climbed this cool light house!

I could go on and on about how cool this place was, but I'm getting bored here, so I'll just get the rest of the pictures printed to show off how much fun we had.

The last day was sad. We came home.

The end!