WHALE SHARK VIDEOS

So after almost a month of trying I finally got TWO of my FIVE whale shark videos to upload.  Sadly neither of the ones that uploaded was the one where Clayton is kicking me in the face with his fin.

Maybe one day Blogger won't be stupid and I can up load the other three.

Enjoy!

KARMA???

Wanna hear a story?

You know you do.

Once upon a time the Box Elder County fair came to town and we HAD to make the 30 minute drive to Tremonton to partake in the highly touted fairburger.  Some claim them to be the best EVER (some = biased people in Box Elder County that have absolutely ZERO taste buds).  That is pretty high praise, which I totally disagree with.  But I have already voiced my opinions of that on post in 2008, 2009, and 2010. 

Anyway back to the story at hand...

So there we were.  Getting our fairburgers.  Thankfully we skipped out on part of the parade (sorry Rachel but you really didn't tell me that you were in the parade!!!) and made our way to the fairburger stand before the crowds came.  I still don't think you people realize how big of a deal the fairburger is.  People come out in droves for it.  Lines are miles long.  The fairburger is to Tremonton what the golden calf was to the Children of Israel.  You think I'm stretching the truth a bit?  You don't know these folks.  

Again getting off on a tangent.  Sorry.  I just can't help myself.

So we beat the crowds and got our fairburgers.  As I was dressing my burger up with tomatoes, onions and pickles I felt something wet hit my leg and foot.  I turned and saw a kid rush by with his mom.  I figured it was water or something, but decided to look at the afflicted area anyway.

And that is when I saw IT

BARF!

THROW UP!

VOMIT!

CHUNKS OF REGURGITATED GROSSNESS!

As the kid was rushing to the garbage can to eliminate his golden calf (aka fairburger) he threw up on me!

This picture does not do the damage justice.  You can barely see the throw up.  Trust me it was of the chunky clear kind.  Lots of it.

Clayton said it was Karma for all my fairburger hating remarks.

I disagree.   

I think it was a sick kid whose stomach finally realized that the golden fairburger isn't all it is cracked up to be.

Anyway back to more important matters.  Like...the fact that my foot and part of my leg was covered in vomit!  I wanted to throw up myself.  Clayton was so kind to rinse my foot off with his water bottle.  But even after that I still felt the chunky aftereffects.  All I wanted to do was go home and scrub my leg, foot, and flipflop with Clorox Bleach and if needed cut it off and purchase a prosthetic leg. 

the end.

good story, eh!?!

As we were on our way to Yogurtland last week I asked Clayton if he gets giddy about eating any kinda food like I do about frozen yogurt.  At first he said, "no", but then changed his mind and said that the fairburger makes him giddy.  And now I leave you with pictures of the Clayton and the fairburger. 

   ATTENTION TREMONTON PEOPLE AND ALL YOU OTHER FOLKS IN BOX ELDER COUNTY: please don't hate me.  I know I make the fairburgers come across as awful, but they really aren't.  I just don't think they are the BEST. BURGER. EVER.  I think they are average.  I feel like the burgers we make on our grill at home are better. 

can we still be friends?

MEXICO IN REVIEW

MEXICO IN REVIEW

We had such a great trip and I want to thank Clayton one more time for working so hard for it.

There are a few things that I would like to remember from the trip

1. Shout out to Jullian cus you are the man!

2. Shout out to Mr. Bean on the airplane (not the real Mr. Bean, but a guy who looked just like him according to Clayton.

3. The day we got stuck in a traffic jam and were entertained by watching men get out of their cars and pee on the side of the road. 

4. VW van.  It was driving on the freeway with no side door.  The passenger?  A handicap man in a wheel chair.  awesome?  oh yeah!

5. Who could forget the rain tantrum at Chichen Itza

6.  The poor lady in the bathroom at one of the swap meet places who asked for a tip when she gave me a paper towel to dry my hands.

7. Tamales in Mexico (according to Jullian) are usually made with cinnamon and raisins.

8. Spending 1700 Peso's one night for dinner.  That is close to $140 USD.  Sad thing is...that wasn't our most expensive meal either.  Thank heavens we didn't have to pay for anything.

9. WHALE SHARKS ARE AWESOME

10. CLAYTON PUKING IS AWESOME (and sad...mostly sad)

11. trying all sorts of different drinks

12. dessert brought up by room service every night

13. not having to pay for all the berries room service brought us up for breakfast every morning.

14. stashing away all the items in the mini bar every day so that they would refill it

15. Yoplait vanilla yogurt.  Tastes different (in a great way) in Mexico.

16. it was very common to see military/police everywhere (side of freeway, in front of stores, etc) with their big machine guns

Here are the posts from MEXICO linked for your reading pleasure

Day #1

Day #2

Day #3

Day #4

Day #5

Day #6

Day #7



 stay tuned for whale shark videos...if blogger ever decides that it wants to upload them.

VIVA MEXICO DAY #7: last day

VIVA MEXICO DIA NUMERO SIETE

last day

*sigh*

Seeing how we had to leave for the airport at 12 noon we didn't have time to do much.  But typical for us we tried to fit in as much as we could.

Result...

complete and utter exhaustion

One thing I wanted to do on this trip was go to one of the results fitness classes (pilates, yoga, Zumba, etc.).  Friday morning we finally fit a class in.  Boot Camp on the Beach.  Because everyone else was too busy sleeping in or checking out it was just me, Clayton and the instructor in the class.  Holy Crap!  He kicked our butts.  I had watched this instructor teaching Zumba earlier in the week while I was running in the gym one morning and pretty much came to the conclusion (ok ... judgement) that he was definitely gay.  So thinking that I would be taking a class taught by a gay instructor I thought "piece of cake."  Oh how I was wrong.  So very, VERY wrong.  My muscles reminded me days later how wrong I was.

After that intense workout we had to take 2 cold showers to stop sweating.  Then room service for breakfast followed by a marathon packing session and then a run down to the beach for the wave runners.

It kinda sucked because we had to stay within a certain area, which was pretty large but still...

More puking pictures

just kidding

but neither of us felt that great.

next we grabbed one last taste of ceviche and headed to the airport.

sad...

VIVA MEXICO DAY #6: Aukmal

VIVA MEXICO DIA NUMERO SEIS

also AUGUST 4th

also our anniversary

6 years and counting
Go us!

I have watched the sun set over the ocean a number of times.  But it isn't very often that I get to watch it rise over the ocean.  So waking up to this each morning was amazing.

Today's Anniversary agenda

1. Aukmal
2. paddle board
3. relax in the sun
4. order up more free drinks
5. Mmmmm...ceviche (a new found favorite)
6. Edward Jones good-bye dinner on the beach
7. Enjoy our last night and our anniversary

We had heard from a few people that Aukmal was a great place to snorkel.  Especially if you wanted to see turtles.  So we decided to check it our for ourselves.  

Within being in the water for 2 minutes we saw our first turtle.  And we chased him.  Until he went under a boat. 

This one is of a barracuda we saw.  Unfortunately you can barely tell because blogger is making all my pictures and videos look grainy lately.  They look fine on my computer and then once they hit blogger... BAM...grain city.

and some lovely Squid

After a few hours we decided to head back to the resort to relax.

View of our resort, Grand Velas from the beach

One of our favorite eats on this trip was Mexican ceviche.  When the butler was making his rounds on the beach we ordered us up some drinks and ceviche.

This was my only complaint about the resort.  We were told that all NON-motorized water sports were free to use (i.e. kayaks, etc).  So when we decided to take their paddle boards out for a spin they told us that it would be $60/board for one hour!  Since when did paddle boards grow motors?  Last time I checked our at home then didn't have motors.  Maybe they grow them different here in Mexico.  Thanks to my quick thinking I plead the "but its our anniversary" card and got them to knock the price down a lot!  It wasn't free, but it was way better than $60 a board for an hour.

That night we went to the farwell dinner on the beach.  After dinner they had a DJ and dancing.  If you know us at all you know that we don't dance.  So we promptly excused ourselves and left.

At Grand Velas we had our own personal concierge/butler assigned to us for the entire stay.  He seriously catered to our every need.  Literally EVERY need.  If we had needed assistance in the bathroom, I'm sure he would have helped out with a smile on his face.  When we had issues getting a response from the company that booked us for the Whale Shark tour he took matters into his own hands and got confirmation and instruction for us.  His name was Jullian and Clayton fell head over heels in love with him.  He even wants to name our first born (male or female) Jullian.

Clayton had snuck out at some point during the day (without me knowing) and told them that it was anniversary.  He asked them if they could do anything for our anniversary, like drop off a rose or something. 

After we snuck out of the dancing we headed back to our room and found this beautiful bouquet.

This might be TMI, but they even filled up our tub and put rose pedals.

Anniversary card from Grand Velas

There was also a single rose on the bed.

Needless to say it was a very special night.  I am so thankful for a husband that even on vacation (because that in itself is special enough) he will go the extra mile to make things memorable.  Also thanks to the wonderful people at Grand Velas who went out of the way to help us celebrate this special day.

VIVA MEXICO DAY #5: Cozumel

VIVA MEXICO DIA NUMERO CINCO

Today we ventured off island to...

COZUMEL

GOAL: Rent a scooter and tour the island all on our own.  Stopping when and where we want to.  Doing our own thing.  Just us, our scooter and the road.

Ferry from Playa del Carmen to Cozumel

 Which one of these is not like the other???

 No going to lie...Clayton has never driven a scooter before and ... it was a little scary at first.  Even the rental guy told us that he was nervous.  But once Clayton got the feel of the wind rushing through his hair (I'm sure there were times he missed the old mullet) he was a natural.  My nervousness then changed to "Holy crap he is going so fast we are going to die!"  When he started passing cars that didn't calm my fears too much either. 

Here are some places we stopped to hang out.

 This one below is of San Francisco Beach.  We didn't discover it until the very end.  We decided to take the later ferry back so we could spend more time here.

 Getting ready to go down the slide...

 Doing a back flip off of an inflatable toy is harder than doing a back flip off of a solid surface.  Luckily his ear was there to break his fall.

 Our faces in these next two are simply spectacular.

 Once we got back to Playa we walked around the shops for a bit.  And then we saw it...

MONKEYS!

I wanted to do this so bad.  So Clayton being the good husband he is granted me my wish.

Of course there was a stop for gelato

 And then we found a street vendor selling tamales.  She told us that they were pork and chicken.  We purchased them and headed back to enjoy them at the resort.  Apparently pork and chicken in Spanish means cinnamon and raisins.   

 And with that we called it a night