Sunday's flight to Mexico

Okay, so I finally have a few minutes while Gavin is at preschool. Here goes. So, we dropped the kids off on Saturday with my sister, then drove back home. By the time we got home, I had a KILLER headache, but while Brandon went to the Priesthood session of conference, I braved the crowds at Deseret Book to find a book to read during our vacation. (NEVER again with a headache! I was about ready to tell everybody to shut up right then and there. *sigh*)

But, when I got home, I was feeling dizzy and sick to my stomach, so I laid down for half an hour, then finally decided to call my sister to ask if there was anything I could do. (For the record, Tylenol does NOTHING for me! NOTHING!) She said that up until 20 weeks, it was okay to take some Ibuprofen, so I did. I laid on the kitchen floor while Brandon got him some dinner (it was actually very comfortable), and within 30 minutes I was feeling a lot better. Within an hour, I was fine. I LOVE Ibuprofen!!

We packed our suitcases, double checked that we had passports, books, gum, sunscreen . . . then finally went to bed at 11:30 that night. Three short hours later, my alarm went off. So, we got up, ate some breakfast, fed the cats, loaded the van, and headed out to pick up Brandon's parents. As we drove, we noticed that the moon was HUGE! It was awesome to watch it setting.

Anyway, we got to the airport, checked our luggage, and went through the security checkpoint where LaRean was pulled out of the crowd to have her purse searched. (This happened to her, once with their full suitcases in Mexico, four times, I believe. Just her. She was frustrated 'cause the workers just pawed through her stuff, or just dumped it on the counter. I would have been, too!) After that, we found our gate, then wandered to find a Burger King and a Cinnabon to have some breakfast. I was starving by then, and starting to feel a little sick to my stomach, so that sausage, egg, biscuit was HEAVEN!!!

We boarded our plane - a fairly small plane with only about 64 seats. We got the "privilege" of sitting right over the wings. Made for a noisy flight, especially at 7:30 in the morning! Inbetween watching us take off, trying to find Roosevelt or Vernal, and landing, I managed to snag about a ten minute nap. When we landed in Denver an hour and a half later, instead of connecting the plane to a walkway, we had to climb down some portable stairs, hike through some snow on the tarmac, and walk all the way through the airport to the other gate for our connecting flight.

Our first airplane - kind of small!

Awesome view of the Rockies at 27,000 feet

My ten minute catnap

Walking through the snow on the tarmac!

We noticed in SL that our tickets (just mine and Brandon's) didn't have a seat number for the flight to Mexico, so when we landed, we checked in with the attendant at our gate, and he gave us the very back seats in the plane. So, we had three seats to share between the two of us. It was nice. Anyway, we had about an hour to kill, so Brandon & I headed to Quizno's to get some lunch to take on the plane with us. Once we got back to the gate, I made him go back and get me some frozen yogurt, and his mom and I were getting a bit nervous because they'd already called for people to be boarded. But, since they had to check passports, there was still quite a line by the time the yogurt came!

Then, we boarded, took off, and we were on our way to Mexico. I tried to snooze a little, but it was kind of hard the first little bit, because we were seated right in front of the lavatories. People kept coming and going and coming and going. Finally there was a lull when the flight attendants served drinks, but once everybody had consumed their drinks, it was BUSY again. But, I finally caught about ten minutes of sleep while Brandon was busy taking pictures of the ocean, the cabin, us . . .

I was cold, so I borrowed Wayne's sweater. He just laughed at me!

When we got our first glimpse of Mexico bordered by the Caribbean Sea, it took my breath away! Wow! I've never seen water that blue. (Well, except for in a swimming pool, but that doesn't count!) Brandon also pointed out to me the landscape - pure jungle. It is so tight in there - it's no wonder that people are still discovering ancient civilizations!

Our first view of the coastline. The water is SO blue!


Mayan jungle

You can see just how dense the jungle is in the picture

Anyway, we landed in Mexico about four hours after we left Denver. There had been many people warn us about people at the airport who would try to suck you into a time share. So, once we had collected our luggage (and LaRean's bags had been searched, again) we headed out to find our transportation to the resort. A guy stopped us and asked us if we needed directions, so we told him we were trying to find the Lomas Travel Agency. He directed us to a lady at a booth and said that she would help us find where we needed to go. 20 minutes later, we finally got away from her. They sure sucked us into that one!

I slept on the way to the resort (The Grand Princess Riviera) (having had only three hours of sleep really wears a person out), but we finally got there. When we checked in, they put us in one building, and Wayne & LaRean way down in another building. We asked if we could have adjoining rooms, but that wasn't possible, but the girl that checked us in was able to get us rooms in the same building. We were actually just diagonal from each other, so that worked out. We also asked where we could get dinner. They had seven restaurants at the resort, but you had to make reservations for them the day before. But, they had four buffets that we could go to that were for anybody. They were pointed out to us on a map, so once we had gone to our rooms and gotten settled a bit, we ventured out for some dinner.

Our room - looking at the sliding door to our private balcony


Our bathroom, looking in through sliding windows right by the bed. It was really cool!

We wandered, and wandered, and walked, and turned in circles trying to find these buffets. Come to find out, there are only two that are open morning and night. The other two are only open during in the morning. So, since we had trekked almost down to the beach, we walked clear back up to the front of the resort, finally found the buffet, ate some good food, then wearily found our way back to our rooms. We crashed that night at 8:30, and slept for eleven hours!

Wandering among some cool statues

The pathway down to the beach - it seemed to go on FOREVER!!!