A Happier Part Two in Playa...

After our tough morning, the rest of our first day of vacation was fun. A lot of laying around on the beautiful beach and sampling frozen drinks. That night we discovered our favorite restaraunt at the resort, Asiana. They had awesome sushi and we ate there about once a day during the trip. Trent, in his new effort to try foods outside of his very narrow comfort zone, discovered that he loves wasabi. Then later while strolling along 5th Avenue, he discovered that wasabi does not love him back. We are pretty sure that the NSAIDS he was taking for his shoulder must have caused an ulcer, which was not at all helped by the wasabi. So Trent actually spent most of the vacation curled up in a ball with stomach cramps. So I won't be winning any wife of the year awards but I completely abandoned him and hung out with our friends all week and had a great vacation.

So I haven't figured out the whole blogging thing yet and so the pics are out of order but this is Trent and I on the beach near our hotel. We had our 5th wedding anniversary while on the trip and I used this fact to force him into posing for some photos. Colby took them and they turned out really great, Thanks Colby and Trent : )
So what I actually did on our anniversary was leave Trent in the room and go snorkeling with the rest of the gang. We first went to a gorgeous beach where the sea turtles come to feed on the underwater sea grass. It was incredible. They were so peaceful and graceful. We saw four or five sea turtles and a spectacular coral reef with lots of colorful fish. Next we went to a nearby cenote. Cenote are a series of limestone caves filled with freshwater and connected by an underground river. People actually scuba dive through the water filled tunnels connecting the caves. It is supposed to be amazing, our guide told us kind of like being in outerspace because there is no water surface in the tunnel, it fills like floating. However I think I will stick with snorkeling in them because even that was a bit difficult for me with my combined claustrophobia and fear of the dark. The cenote was truly beautiful and very cold, i.e. the wet suit photos.

Colby, Emily, Amber and Moose on the platform going down to the water in the cenote. Our guide, Helen, is the the background.

This is the cenote that we snorkeled in

A sea turtle eating sea grass

Me, Emily, Colby, Amber and Moose getting ready to snorkle with sea turtles

The pristine beach where we snorkled with the sea turtles
So another fun thing we did was take the ferry across to the island of Cozumel and spend the day. First we had lunch at the Hard Rock. Then we went snorkeling. On the boat ride out to snorkle, Emily told us a story about how when she and Colby snorkled on their honeymoon, the guide told them to leave their jewelry on the boat because it attracted baracudas.....so low and behold, while snorkeling we see a baracuda. I am snorkeling next to Amber, who keeps grabbing my left hand and pointing it at the baracuda. I am thinking how sweet she is that she doesn't want me to miss out on seeing it but after the 3rd time she does it, I start thinking "hey, I'm not blind I see it!" Then we stick our heads out of the water and she is laughing hysterically. Turns out she could care less if I saw the baracuda, she was trying to feed me to it and was using my wedding ring as bait. So after narrowly escaping being fish food, Amber and Moose (or Aaron as his grown up friends refer to him) decided to go back to the resort and the rest of rented a jeep so we could drive around Cozumel and check out the beaches. We saw a Mayan ruin, ate at a really cool cliff top bar over looking a beach and collected shells and coral before taking the ferry back to Playa del Carmen. Those were our main excursions during the trip. We did a lot of relaxing on the beach or at the pool. Ate a ton of really great food and had a lot of laughs. I hope that we don't wait so long to take another trip together because it made me realize even more how much I miss hanging out with our incredible friends.

This is Trent on one of the beautiful beaches we found on our jeep trip. I really love this pic of him looking all thoughtful while staring at the water.

Relaxing and reading on the beach. Colby and I are currently having a contest to see who can read the most classic novels by Christmas....yes, we know we are nerds.

Trent took this photo of Emily while on the boat ride to snorkle in Cozumel. She looks so pretty and he was really proud of his photography.

I love this pic of Amber (also taken by Trent, I wonder if I should worry that he keeps taking pics of other women?)....anyway I think it completely captures her personality. She is one of the most fun people I know, you can not help but laugh when she is around!

Amber, Me and Emily on the beach in Playa del Carmen

I think this is a cool pic of Trent with a Tecate and cigar, pretty sure he was in paradise at that moment

Emily and I posing as hood ornaments on the jeep that we rented to drive around Cozumel

Our hubbies: Aaron Stachmus, Colby Carpenter and Trent Bliss

The ladies: Amber Stachmus, Emily Carpenter and me