Life is A Journey...Come Follow Our's: A Wonderful and Warm Thanksgiving

Each year Brad and I go scuba diving for our anniversary; however, this year, with an 8 week old, the timing just wasn't right. Instead, we decided to postpone the trip and go over Thanksgiving and what a good choice that was!

Brad, Quinn, and I left for Dallas last Saturday. I am always looking for a deal and decided to try my luck with http://www.cheaprooms.com/. Here I found a hotel called Element (http://www.elementdfwnorth.com/) that was only $69 a night. Now this price to me seemed pretty sketchy as I'm of the mindset that more expensive = nicer; however, I tried my luck anyway figuring we could always leave and go someplace else if it wasn't too nice. Oh my gosh were we ever pleasantly surprised. This hotel was AMAZING! The rooms were huge and had a sitting area and a fully equipped kitchen, the workout room was beautiful, breakfat was amazing, and they sold beer there (Brad was thrilled!). Check out these pics:

How nice does that look?!?!

Anyways, we planned to have a layover in Dallas so we could visit our good friends from Arizona, Meadow and Levi, who live there. You would think that with us living only 5 hours apart we'd see a lot more of each other, but with Meadow finishing her residency there and us always having something to do as well, we're lucky to see each other 2-3 times per year. They came over and the 5 of us went to dinner at this really cute little brick oven pizza restaurant, drank wine, and then came back to our fabulous room and hung out. What a great time we had! I'm so glad we got to see them as a part of our trip!

Meadow, Quinn, and Me...what a great pic, eh? Sadly the only one we have

Levi, Brad, and Goat, another friend from AZ

The next morning, after a great breakfast, we headed back to the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport to catch our flight to Cozumel. As an early Christmas present, we decided to take my mom with us this year. Quinn and I met her as she was coming to our gate and the 4 of us continued onto beautiful and sunny Cozumel.

We stayed at Fiesta Americana which is, so far, our favorite dive resort. It is nothing fancy, but is all-inclusive, the rooms are large, the food is good, and the dive shop/dive operation there is the best. Here are a few pictures of when we first arrived...exhausted, overworked, and lacking vitamin D:

My mom...Gigi

After a good lunch of grilled calamari, fajitas, grilled fish, fresh fruit, and I can't even remember what else, we headed over to the beach to give Quinn his first experience in the sand. He LOVED the beach as you can see here:

UNTIL....

...He Ate Sand!!! OOPS!

To say we had a good time would not be a fair assessment of our trip. We had a BLAST! Brad and I spent 3 days out on the boat scuba diving though I was only able to complete 4 of my 6 dives due to sinus issues and not being able to equalize the pressure during my descents, while Mom and Quinn took long walks and relaxed. Though I was only able to complete 4 dives, they were beautiful. We saw 6 lobster (not the kind you find at the grocery store but HUGE lobster) hanging out in a fallen/sunken tree, a shark, sea turtles, barracudas, lots of beautiful corral, and an abundance of fish. One of the coolest things was being able to hear, yes hear, the school of hundreds of sardines as they swam by!!!

After our mornings of diving, we'd return to the dock and Mom/Gigi and Quinn would be waiting for us. On the rare occasion they weren't, Quinn was enough of a celebrity at the resort that someone else would inform us of what he had been up to that morning ("We were just tickling Quinn's feet and he fell asleep, but that was about 40 minutes ago, so he should be waking up soon."). Everyone at the resort LOVED Quinn not only because he was the only baby there but also because he was just such a good traveler and was so darn happy! He was amazing!

We always took our afternoons slowly spending the rest of the day just relaxing either poolside, in our rooms, or by the bar, then eating dinner and going to bed by 9pm. It was so relaxing, so rejuvenating, so wonderful! We were so lucky to get to have my mom join us. Quinn loved his Gigi time and all the attention he got.

The verdict is, Thanksgiving abroad is the way to go. Why bother going North where it's cold and icky when you can be warm and in the sunshine of Cozumel or somewher else?!?!?

Some pictures from our trip...there's kind of a lot of them...sorry, but enjoy!