Thursday, June 13, 2013

Holbox Vacation, part III

We made a total of 3 treks into town during our vacation.  It was about a 15 minute walk up the beach to get into the town - so not too bad.  The first time, we left mid morning and walked around for quite a while and found a lunch place and some homemade fruit popsicles. It was hot in town, so the ice cream was definitely a treat. We even got the same ice cream when we went into town a few days later :)

The town was neat and you could tell it had been there a while.  Something that we found odd about the town, and even throughout our drives through Mexico, is the number of abandoned buildings.  They could be old, new, or under construction - and they are just abandoned.  People abandon buildings and homes here in the states, but it just seems so prevalent there.

Anyway, here are some photos from our treks into town.  I was busy trying to dodge the puddles / lakes so I didn't get a lot of pictures in town, but these can give you an idea of what it was like.

A basketball court in the town square - quite colorful and in disrepair


The little cafe we had lunch at while in town - the only meal we didn't eat at our hotel

Looking down a street - those puddles are actually getting smaller :)

You can see down the street to the ocean!

The fist view of town (or last if you're on the way back to the mainland on the ferry)

They had two varieties of road signs - rusted or painted on wood

You can read more about our Holbox Vacation here:


Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Holbox Vacation, part II

I left my first vacation post and the end of our first day, which was mainly travel.  We arrived in the evening, so there wasn't a lot of day light left for exploring.  We arrived at the same time as another couple that was celebrating their honeymoon, and we visited over our welcome empanadas, which were our first taste of Estella's cooking :)

The next couple days were spent on the beach.  We lounged around on the daybeds, hammocks, or the beach chairs, and switched back and forth from the pool to the ocean.  As promised, here are some pictures of the grounds of the hotel.


Looking towards the hotel kitchen and dining area at night


There's a sailboat that docked off in the distance for a couple days during our stay

One of the 2 daybeds

The tower was connected to someone's room, so we didn't get the chance to go up :(

The hotel's sign and one of the dogs from the hotel


How peaceful is this?!
You can read more about our Holbox Vacation here:





Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Back to the real world

And we're back!! It's always sad to see a vacation come to an end, especially when you feel like it goes by like a blink.  Gone are the days of lazing around on the beach, reading a novel, watching the locals, listening to the steady sound of the ocean and the breeze floating through the palm trees....ahh - I miss it already and I've been home less than 24 hours.  Such is life I guess.

But luckily, this is where my handy little blog comes in.  I get to relive my vacation and let you all in on how amazing Isla de Holbox is :)

We stayed on an island off the north coast of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico - Holbox Island.  J is credited for this little finding.  It's a place that is fairly new to the tourism scene, especially compared to other places in Mexico like Cancun and Cozumel.  This little island is a gem in the Gulf, let me tell you.  One of the things that we had expected from the time we booked it was that it was small.  Sure enough, the population of the island is about 1,100.  The main mode of transportation on the island is via golf cart.  Yes, even the taxi golf carts were yellow and had the little taxi light on top.

Now to the good parts - the pictures!!!  I might have taken over 400 pictures from this trip, but I'll only pick out the best for you to see.  There were so many picturesque sights while on our trip that this could prove to be a difficult task for me :)

Day 1 - Travel to Holbox

We left super early from Tulsa and connected through Atlanta.  This was our first experience with Delta and we were pleasantly surprised.  There were some kids behind us that basically screamed the entire flight, so when we finally landed in Cancun, we were even more excited than usual!!


We caught a transfer shuttle to the little town where the ferry would take us to the island and drove for a little less than 2 hours.  We got to the little ferry town and were starving since it was about 3:00 and we hadn't had lunch (and breakfast was about 4:30 am).

We found this cute little place for lunch.  There was definitely a communication barrier as we didn't speak much Spanish and they barely spoke any English.  Either way, Coca-Cola works in any language :)


So this language barrier got me an interesting lunch.....J knew "pollo" meant chicken, so that was a safe bet and what he ordered.  I remembered that "pescado" meant fish, and we were by the ocean, and I just figured the fish would be nice and fresh.  I was NOT expecting an ENTIRE fish (head and tail included) to show up fried on my plate.  I was shocked to say the least.  However, I was starving and thought I'd be adventurous and tried it.  Surprisingly, it was pretty good :) (If you have a sensitive stomach, you might not want to look at the picture.  Believe me, it was hard to eat it.  I made J eat the half closest to the head haha!!)


Once lunch was finished, we caught the ferry to the island.  It was about a 25 minute ride and we met the taxi on the island.  It had been raining, so all the roads were huge puddles that could have passed for ponds here.  I assume that because of the amount of rain and potential rough terrain, all of the golf cart taxis were outfitted with ATV tires - not something we're necessarily used to here in the states haha!



And now what you've all been waiting for - the pictures from our bed and breakfast!!  We absolutely loved Palapas del Sol (which is rated the number one bed and breakfast on the island by people at Trip Advisor).  And rated number 1 for a good reason.  The service during our stay was wonderful, the food spectacular, and the views were incredible.  If you stayed here for any length of time and were not relaxed by the time you left, you did something wrong!!

Our balcony :)




I'll leave today's post here....you'll have to come back again for more pictures ;)

You can read more about our Holbox Vacation here:






Thursday, June 6, 2013

This is the life

I realize I haven't posted much in June. It's been a little busy :)

I found out that I passed the last part of my CPA exam 2 weeks ago today! I think that I got all of the paperwork done for that, part of which included an Ethics exam. Good news - I passed that too! (In case you were worried that I don't have ethics, that's proof right there ha!!)

J and I left for vacation this week, so there was a lot of laundry, cleaning and packing to do for that. I plan to have a couple different posts detailing our travels, but for now ill leave you just a glimpse of my life for this week:



I hope that you can forgive me for not posting when I have the beach and the ocean around me and that you'll come back and visit for more pictures soon!!!


Friday, May 31, 2013

Day 31 - A Vivid Memory

Wow!!  Can someone please explain to me how it's already May 31st?!?!?

The last prompt of the May challenge is a vivid memory.  I had thought long and hard about what kind of  memory I would pick to write about....and then yesterday happened.  You see, it's still Tornado Season here in Oklahoma, and it came all too close yesterday.

The first set of storms rolled through right before 5 (i.e. rush hour to get out of downtown Tulsa).  I decided to wait it out because 1) it was coming towards me faster than I could get to my car; 2) I didn't want to be stuck on the highway if it hailed; and lastly and possibly most important, 3) I had a pedicure scheduled at a nice spa in Utica Square and had a gift card that expired today.  So, I hung around the office for a while, went to grab a quick dinner at Panera and headed to the spa.

As I'm leaving, there's another set of storms rolling in.  It was hard to tell how bad they were from my phone, but it was a light rain and pretty windy.  So I just went on my merry way.  I got my usual greeting from the dogs and went to change out of my work clothes into something more comfortable. I happened to glance outside while I'm talking to J and noticed that the sky was considerably more green than when I'd gotten home just a few minutes before.

I didn't think much of it until I got a text from my friend about 15 minutes later that there was a wall cloud about a mile west of my house.  Now, growing up in Oklahoma, you know all about wall clouds and that somethings wrong with the sky turns green.  I turned on the tv and did what any normal Okie would do and went outside to look at the sky.

As I looked up, it took a minute to register what I was seeing.  There was a huge gray cloud above us, and it was rotating in a circle.  ROTATING IN A CIRCLE. The whole cloud.  In all my twenty something years, I have never seen the underside of a rotating cloud.  The combination of that ominous rotation, the green sky, the winds is something that has given me chills every time I've thought about it since last night.

 I grabbed socks and shoes, my iPad, and the dogs and headed for the pantry that's under the stairs.  J has two helmets for his racing hobby, and he grabbed those and joined us.  I had the local news channel streaming on my iPad so I could know what was going on outside, and they started mentioning a tornado just to the east of our house.  We were all huddled in the pantry, helmets and all, safe and sound.



I'm thankful that my friends and family have been safe through this spring's tornado season - the last couple weeks have been especially active.  Hopefully, we're nearing the end and I don't have to wear the helmet anymore :)

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Day 29 - Musical memories

Day 29 - Five songs or pieces of music that speak to you or bring back memories

Rascal Flatts - Everyday Love



Rascal Flatts started getting really popular towards the end of my high school years, so they were around for some good memories for me :)  This song was one that my friends and I would sing on the bus during band trips, either to marching competitions or to honor bands.

Andrew Lloyd Webber - The Phantom of the Opera



I love musicals, and so do two of my closest friends from home (who just so happened to come from a musically blessed and talented family).  I'd go visit them at OSU and after a few drinks, they'd be singing songs from Disney movies or musicals like this.  We had a lot of fun singing - well, they sang and I attempted to sing :)

Howard and Emerson - Hello My Baby



 This song goes way back for me.  I took piano lessons from the time I was in 1st grade until sometime in middle school I think.  I played this song at one of my first recitals, and the last time I tried to play a piano, I could still play this one by memory.  My dad loves when I play the piano, and this was always the first one I'd play for him.

Michael Buble - Haven't Met You Yet



This song can always lift me out of a bad mood.  I just love it!!


Darius Rucker - Wagon Wheel



Currently my favorite song on the radio :)

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Day 28 - Just some pictures

Here are some pictures from my trip to Chicago a couple weeks ago.  Enjoy!!