Our Lives in Blog: Did I tell you what I got for Christmas?

It's been a while since Christmas, I know, but I gotta tell you about my perfect gift (it will work EVERY time) - a beach vacation!

Brad tried his best to keep a secret but when his wife is super intuitive and smart it's mostly useless :) It doesn't help that Brad gets way too excited about surprises - he can never keep them!

He and I desperately needed a get-a-way. We've encountered a lot of changes and challenges in our lives recently, so it was perfect timing for us. The last time he and I were anywhere alone was on our honeymoon! That may not seem so bad to some of you (being that we've only been married almost 4 years) but it's bad for me. I don't just want to travel, I really need it :)

So we went to the El Dorado Royale in Riviera Maya Mexico. It was so beautiful. We had four days and three nights to relax without the kids. Brad's parents and my sister allowed us this vacation. We are forever grateful to them for watching our babies!

I am posting this now because we didn't have a digital underwater camera, so we had to get our underwater camera developed the "old fashioned" way. Can you believe that it takes nearly a week and costs around $8!!

The beach was gorgeous even with the sandbags out there, it was still beautiful. The sandbags were there to help rebuild the beach that was mostly destroyed after a hurricane.

I hate coconuts, unless they are fresh! We didn't eat any, but it reminded us of our honeymoon in Punta Cana where staff members were cutting them open upon request!

Yummy margaritas!!!

It wasn't really hot while we were there, but it was fantastic weather for January!

We took a day excursion to snorkel. This was at a natural sink hole fed from an underground river from a nearby cenote.

I jumped from that too, but I didn't make it look as cool and fun as Brad is doing right there :)

Here we went snorkeling in the cenote (which is actually a cave) full of stalactites, stalagmites and BATS!! I was freaked out just a bit.

Here is our picture with the gnome! If you don't know by now we got this gnome as a wedding gift and it goes on every trip with us (kinda like the Travelocity gnome, but I stole the idea from one of my favorite movies, Amelie).

The gnome weights nearly 10 pounds, but that is just he burden we have to endure. I tucked him away in my life vest while we were on our tour.

We got to snorkel in the lagoon and see some AMAZING sea life! This is Brad and the gnome in the lagoon (the last part of the tour)

We tried to get that kissing picture, but it didn't turn out as romantic and effortless as advertisements make it seem!

Everyone thought we were crazy taking the gnome with us. Last summer while Brad was in Portugal, the airport security asked why he had a leprechaun in his bag!! Haha!!

We almost paid for a more expensive tour to swim with turtles, good thing we didn't. We saw two!

We also got to see a massive sting ray! It immediately made me think of Steve Erwin, so I was nervous the remaining part of our snorkeling tour. The rest of our trip was spent relaxing!