I would never consider myself a “beach person” due to the whole pale skin/not the best swimmer thing, but being on the water and relaxing to the sound of waves is incredible. Luckily, our in-laws are super generous and treated us to a little weekend getaway to Cancun over the 4th of July at Villa del Palmar:) So grateful to have parents on both sides who love hanging out with us. It was 3 days of doing mostly nothing but hang pool/beach side with pina coladas and it was perfect. Oh and we ate a lot too. We had to make the all inclusive worth it 😉 Preface: Dan uses beach vacas as an excuse to wear only tanks and my eyebrows get even curlier in the humidity. See documentation below.

 DAY UNO: Isla Mujeres

The beach here is just stunning. And we had to kick off our first day of vacation with a beer before we could explore further.

The island had some fun shops we checked out. I was on the hunt for a good hat and found a great deal- much better than the one I loved at J. Crew:) Dan’s mom was on the hunt for a giant thing of vanilla, which was surprisingly harder to find than expected. At least the giant version for a good price! I really enjoyed just walking around and seeing the murals/ every day life on the island.

Definitely our favorite stop ^^ It was a father/son studio with amazing wood work. We got a bowl, which is going to look great on our *future* island filled with fruit and Dan’s parents got a cutting board. The wood comes from Mexico and is incredibly heavy. It’s so tough that the artist uses a chain saw to do his work! Impressive. The dad invited us to sit down for a drink and we made a new friend in his dog. Just the friendliest family all around. Dan’s parents got his number and told him they’d treat him to a steak dinner if he were ever in Austin 🙂

We also found a really great, tiny, B&B on the rocky side of the island to hang out at for a bit. The owner was a bit of a jerk but the view couldn’t be beat. I also had the BEST mojito of my life. Dan and I have always struggled to make a good mojito on our own (hint: just use crystal light mojito mix- less calories, tastes great, so easy, even if it is cheating). But this was made using coconut water and mmmm yum.

DAY all the others 🙂

After we got back to the resort, we stayed put the rest of the trip and I did a lot of the above ^^^ Would highly recommend The Signature of All Things which is written by the same author of Eat, Pray, Love.  It got me through the whole trip (I’m a bit of a speed reader) and has so many stories within the story as it follows the dad’s life, and his daughter’s. It’s about a botanist in the 1800’s, but I promise, it’s much more intriguing than it sounds.

Dan built a killer sand castle and we spent loads of time throwing the frisbee. At one point, I ran into the ocean to try and make the catch, but hit a patch of rocks and face planted. Dan proceeded to leap over me in pursuit. His priorities: frisbee > wife. I guess it did keep us pretty entertained all weekend.

Every day it seemed someone joined us! Dan’s aunt and sister both arrived after we did and made it all the merrier. For the 4th of July, we saw an “American” rock band who played covers of all the classics. With fire dancers. They were actually really great musicians, but the lead singer tried to do our national anthem and totally butchered the lyrics. I was giggling the whole way through, which was probably very unpatriotic of me. But she was straight up making up lyrics- when you grow up in Mexico and not in America, I guess that makes sense. AND we pressured Dan into singing karaoke! He picked Better Together by Jack Johnson and dedicated it to me and it may have been the highlight of the trip 🙂 BTW- that last photo was the view from our shower. So cool.

Has anyone ever noticed that the air traffic control tower in Cancun has a Corona ad on it? Hope they aren’t drinking any beers up there! Until next time, Mexico!