Well as you can tell, we spent a lot of time on the beach on our vacation.... and what better way to vacation! I'm not someone that can just sit out in the sun all day, so I was mostly hiding in the shade while my sexy husband did a little archery. Todd loves shooting his bow at home and does so quite often in my parents back yard, so of course he was up for a little competition. He didn't win- and I almost divorced him for it.
The boys really wanted to go snorkeling, and we finally got the chance on our last day there. You had to rent the gear and such, so it was a little bit of a process. I'm not going to lie, the beach where our hotel was had quite a bit of seaweed and so Em and I weren't too interested in going, so we sat on the beach, chatted and enjoyed getting wasted behind our husbands backs (Totally joking!)
The beach on our excursion was a whole different story. Not that our hotel beach wasn't beautiful.... but this beach was seriously unbelievable!!! I've never stepped foot onto such an amazing beach. The water was so blue and the waves were so fun to attempt to swim in!
We signed up for two excursions, one was a buggy tour of the city and the other; a jeep safari. If you ever go to an all inclusive resort, I highly recommend going on some excursions. It was way cool to venture out into the city and explore a little bit and see a glimpse of how people live there. On our jeep safari, the four of us loaded up for an all day adventure of seeing plantations, zip lining, horse riding, lunch and the beach. I was amazed at the plantations.
This my friends is a vanilla plant- you literally squeeze out the vanilla
And this weird slimy plant..... CHOCOLATE! Can you believe that?? I was in shock. You pop that slimy little capsule open and wah laa, you have a cocoa bean! I was beyond myself at this point. We got to taste some hot chocolate and their fruit which was so fresh and unlike anything you get at home. So cool!
It was really green and beautiful there, and we did a lot of driving through the city on our jeep safari. It makes you realize how spoiled we are when you see how people in other places of the world live everyday and what they do just to survive and provide food for their families. These people have nothing but a small small home with a dirt floor, and we re over here feeling sorry for ourselves when our hair doesn't cooperate. It makes me feel so selfish and spoiled and is always so eye opening to be in places such as this.
We got to do some zip lining through the jungle!
And the most humorous part of the whole adventure..... the horse back riding. You know how you sign up to ride horses and they bring the horses out and you feel completely guilty riding them because they look like they haven't been fed in a year and dont have an ounce of energy- yep our horses fit that bill! That's my white stallion that was the old wise leader of the bunch (or so I imagined cause it would just wander off the path)
I'm sure you are wondering whats so humorous about a horse ride- well it was Larry's horse! I'm giggling just writing this. Larrys horse had more problems than just some forced anorexia and no time for rest with pushy americans lining up to ride you, I have never in my life seen a horse do what this one did. It would stretch its back legs out and lunge way forward like it was just going to rest its belly on the ground! This is a terrible pic cause my stallion was trying to take off, so its hard to get the full affect, but just take my word for it- this was seriously entertaining. And the best part was that it was Larry's horse! He was feeling a little sketchy about riding them in the first place!
This was at the sugar cane plantation which is what these guys are holding in the picture. This was blowing our minds too, but you just chop into that branch looking plant there and you get sugar. You hear about where these foods come from but to actually see it first hand is such a cool experience. These young boys were so cute, so as we were leaving I gave them a dollar and that older one to my right came and tried to steal it from the boy in the blue right as I was handing it to him. Don't worry, I held on to that dollar and made sure it got to the boy in blue which probably wasn't the smartest idea to mess with a guy with a machette. I wish I had tons of money to give to everyone.
We also got to visit a cave that was just unreal. There was 25 ft of natural spring water that filled this cave so everyone got to jump in.
Here is Emily about to take the jump! She is so brave!
And the buggys!!!! Soo much fun! It reminded me of our 4 wheeling days right out of high school!
And then the beach, we got to go to this beautiful beach twice (once on each excursion) and I thought this was a cute pic of the boys. They were so exciting to go play in the waves that they just took off!
We never stopped eating at the resort, so here we are enjoying a fancy dinner!
This vacation was just what we needed! I was so hesitant to leave my boys for an entire week especially when Payton was only 4 months old, but they could not have been in better hands with my mom and Todd's sister and I really felt that Todd deserved this after 7 years of school. Boy am I glad that we did! It was seriously a dream vacation and Emily and Larry were the absolute perfect couple to go with. We just love them and could not have asked for better company!
