Cancun Escapades & Airport Sleeping

Whew!  It feels so good to be back home and into a normal routine again.  While our trip to Cancun was incredible, there is honestly nothing better than sleeping in your own bed again.  We left on June 7th for a nice getaway trip to Cancun for a week.  We've been to Cancun 3 times before - last year I chose to go there for my graduation trip, and two years before that we went together for spring break and it was my first time out of the country.  We love how safe Cancun is for visitors, and we really enjoy vacations where all you do is lay on the beach and relax all week.  When we were planning this trip, we thought we might actually do something adventurous this time - however, with myself being a teacher and Ryan being the Creative Arts Director at our church in town, we are adventurous everyday so we literally needed a week to be lazy and non-adventerous.  Not only was it a time for us to relax and refresh ourselves, but also a time for us to reconnect as a couple.  The last month of school was so crazy for myself and Ryan's job has him busier than anyone in his department so we really didn't see each other much in the month of May.  It made us feel like we were "dating" again being on the trip. We'd get dressed up for dinner, and literally enjoy each other's company.  I'm so lucky to be married to my best friend. He's the best.

Our days mostly consisted of waking up and going to get breakfast and then spending the rest of our days on the beach - I was able to finish 2 books while I was down there and do some teacher reading as well.  I love to read, but can't usually find the time or energy during the school year.  I read The Fault in Our Stars, as well as the second book in the Divergent series - Insurgent.  If you haven't read either of these I would highly recommend them.  They are both fabulous and nice little mind getaways. I also was able to read a few chapters in my Words Their Way book. Our district started Words Their Way last year for our "word work" time to get rid of weekly spelling tests.  I was familiar with it as my cooperating teacher (who was incredible by the way) used it during the time I was student teaching in her classroom.  I didn't actually take the time to invest my time into it like I would have liked to last year.  My kids did individualized and differentiated sorts and daily word work, but I never felt like I really had a grasp on it.  My kiddos did make progress so I'm hoping that what I did last year and reading more about it this summer will prepare me better for it next year. We were able to get an upgrade to a suite our second day there.  From our understanding, a water line had broken in the hotel and so when we went to take a shower we still had some water pressure, but not a ton.  When Ryan jumped in the shower, he got to putting shampoo in his hair before the water turned green and black.  Not exactly how you want to finish your shower.  We called down to the front desk and they are able to upgrade us as well as give us a spa credit. I told Ryan it was worth him having to finish showering with a bottle of water. We traveled down the street to the mall while we were in Cancun twice just to get out of the hotel for a little bit, but other than that we mostly stayed in our resort.  It was all-inclusive so we swam, ate, watched movies, and relaxed for 7 days.  Wonderful I tell you.  I would high recommend the LiveAqua if you are staying in Cancun. It's an adults only resort and totally worth every penny. We got a few massages in as well while we were there - basically, you're treated like royalty.  Loved it.

The day before we left we had a nice little decoration on our bed - they did little things like this everyday when we were there.  One night we walked in after dinner and found rose petals that stretched from our door to the bed, as well as little candles lit everywhere. They truly like to make your experience memorable. They must have had a sense that our trip would not be the greatest on 

the way home - and boy were they right. We were set to leave Cancun at 1:30 and land in Minneapolis airport around 6:00.  This was going to give Ryan and I plenty of time to get through customs and immigration in order to catch our connecting flight home at 10:00.  Well, there were terrible storms in the area (South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska - literally everywhere.)  So we didn't actually land in Minneapolis until 7:00 and then we had to wait in the airplane for a spot for us to open up to get off the plane which took a half hour.  The airport was so backed up.  We didn't actually think we were going to get to our flight in time because the line through customs and immigration was terribly long.  Way out the door.  Awful I tell you.  Luckily we made it to our connecting flight with a half hour or so to spare, and they weren't taking off on time either. I told my husband "perfect! let's grab some food and hang out before we head home tonight!"  

Back up though - we didn't get home that night.  We got onto our flight at 10:30 and literally had to wait in line behind 50 planes in order to take off.  But, we never did take off because by the time the storms had weaned off a little in order for us to take off, our pilots time in the air had "clocked out" and it was illegal for him to go anymore tonight.  From my understanding, they can only take 12 hours of actual in flight time during the day. So, after sitting on the runway for an hour and fifteen minutes, they dropped us back off at the terminal and said "have a good night!  there's mats down the hallway, you're flight leaves in the morning."  But, it was so nice of the airport people to say "It could leave in the morning, it could leave earlier. We don't even know!" - sense my sarcasm?  You can imagine my frustration.  So, our flight was delayed until 5:45am, but the Delta people told is that it could take off any time depending when they could get a flight crew.  So, Ryan and I grabbed some cots (just mats on the floor that daycare kids would sleep on) and had to spend the night in the airport.

It was miserable. That's all I can say. The airport lights never turned off, they didn't take our luggage off the plane so I couldn't brush my teeth or anything, and the TV's in the terminal stay loud and on all.night.long.  Our plane took off at 6:30 the following morning (see, still late from the original time) and we got back home around 8:00.  We picked up our puppy from the kennel and went straight to bed.  Sunday was just a catch up day for us. We did some laundry, slept, went grocery shopping, and tried to watch some of the shows on our DVR.  What an adventure.

Needless to say, I am glad that we are back to normalcy around here.  Ryan and I both went back to work at the church on Monday (I'm working their part-time during the summer) and then yesterday I was able to go swimming with my Goddaughter and her mom who happens to be my best friend. It was so good to see them again.  Love my little sweet God baby and her mom is seriously the best.  So glad our husbands became such good friends so that we had a chance to do the same.  The rest of the week will be spent getting ready for husbands birthday on Friday, and doing a few school summer things. Half day of work today, and still cleaning up from our trip.  Thankful for quiet time with Jesus and a cup of coffee to get the day going.

Until next time.