Bye Bye Vacation, Hello Real World!

Cancun was great!

Here’s a breakdown of some of our activities, along with star ratings out of five.

AeroMexico (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Loved this airline! Even though our flights were only two and a half hours each, we were provided with food each way. On the flight to Cancun we were given a sandwich and chips, and on the flight back home we were given a sandwich and container of arroz con leche. The flight attendants were very friendly and helpful, making the flight rather enjoyable. Our favorite thing about this airline was the inflight entertainment system. Each seat has a screen in front of it, with full, FREE access to newly released movies, tv series, and music. Time definitely flew by for us aboard our flights!

Krystal Grand Punta Cancun (⭐️⭐️)
This is a great hotel to stay in if you’re on a budget, but be weary of a few things.. The elevators will take at least 5 minutes to open for you, and are often “broken.” We once stood around for 20 minutes for the elevator. Stairs are not easily accessible to the guests.. And honestly, we couldn’t find them when we tried! The construction in the lobby and around the grounds starts at about 7 every morning and stops late at night. The lobby is in the center of the hotel, with everything spiraling upward from it in circles, so you can hear everything that’s going on outside your hotel room door. The walks are incredibly thin, and you can clearly hear your obnoxious neighbors stumbling in drunk at 3 in the morning and continuing the party in the room for an hour until they pass out. There is an OXXO located right across the hotel for any snack or toiletry needs that is much more reasonably priced than the store in the hotel lobby. Our walk down to the beach was short, and the water was beautiful!

Beach (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Beautiful, crystal clear, blue water and white sand! Marvelous! The only reason I didn’t give the beach 5 stars is because parts of the beach had very sharp, jagged sand with shells in it that hurt to walk through.

Food (⭐️⭐️)
As Texas residents, we are spoiled with amazing food of all kinds! As first time visitors to Cancun, we were tying excited to eat some “authentic Mexican food.” Unfortunately, we didn’t really have any! The best food we had all week came from a place in La Isla Shopping Village called Jugo de Limón and a buffet we visited with a tour to Chichen Itza located in the magical town of Valladolid. Overall, the food was not as great as we expected it to be.

Xplor (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
This tour provides a full day of thrill and excitement. Right? Eh.. Kind of. The adventure park advertises 2 zip line circuits, amphibious vehicles, underground river rafting, and an underground river/cenote to swim in. The first activity we participated in was the zip like. We were so excited! As we had our harnesses put on, we were told that each circuit would take 45 minutes – 1.5 hours to complete both. On the contrary, it took us closer to 1 hour to complete the first course, and it was already lunch time. We decided we had had enough fun and adventure on the first circuit and that we’d like to experience the other activities. On our way to the buffet for lunch, we ended up jumping into the river for a swim. A life best is required to swim at the park. The swim around the river was beautiful! Clear blue water, tiny fish swimming around you, bats flying overhead, trickling water, waterfalls, and stalactites/stalagmites all around. The buffet was good. Not great… I are a hamburger and a couple potato wedges. For dessert, we tried a bit if everything together – caramel flan, bananas in cream, arroz com leche, froyo (too slushy), and dragon fruit! If you can’t tell… Dessert was my favorite part of the meal! After lunch, we headed to the amphibious vehicles. We waited in line for about 30-40 minutes. This activity was the least fun for us.. There was hardly any water. We drive through a couple puddles maybe a foot deep. This was super disappointing because they’re advertised to be so thrilling! They were, instead, quite a bore. After all this, we only had time for one more short activity.. So we jumped in the river again for a long swim, after which we had to get dressed and start heading to drop off our helmets (had to wear them all day) and locker keys. For the money that we paid ($170 each), we were really disappointed to big be able to complete all the activities. One thing we really did appreciate was that there are cameras scattered around the park that take photos of you which can be purchased at the end of your day. We paid $80 for all of out photos, and it was totally worth not having to lug a camera around everywhere!

Xichen Deluxe Chichen Itza Tour (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Our tour guide, Raquel, and bus driver, Hector, were FANTASTIC! We had a blast on this tour and can’t say enough great things about it! The bus ride to and from Chichen Itza took about two hours each way. On the way to the ruins, we watched a video about Mayan prophecy and learned about the culture. On the way back, we watched Non-Stop, starting Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore (good movie)! The ruins were breath taking, Valladolid was beautiful, and the Zací cenote looked refreshing (we didn’t have time to hop in on the deluxe tour). This tour was incredible! We definitely recommend it for anyone visiting the area. The only thing that was really disappointing to us was that people are no longer allowed to touch or go inside the ruins. It stinks that the actions of one individual can ruin the fun for everyone else. Regardless, the experience of seeing one of the Wonders of the World was amazing!

Street Vendors (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Some street vendors have very unique items to sell, however, most sell the exact same things. I fell in love with one little boy, and visited him and his mother to buy handmade bracelets from them everyday. I’d love to give the street vendors a higher rating, but you see the same stuff everywhere you go. The things we saw for sale in
Chichen Itza and Valladolid were much more unique than the things being sold in Cancun, though. I will give them credit for that :).

Excursion Salesmen (⭐️)
Seriously? These people made leaving our hotel everyday such a dreadful experience. Every day, every time you walk by, you’re asked to stop and look at the tours they offer. These stands are located every block or so, down both sides of the street..So literally, every few minutes you have to say “No thank you, we’ve already purchased some.” “No, gracias!” or “We’ve already gone. Thank you.” It’s super exhausting saying no to that many people. This is the largest contributing factor to us not wanting to visit Cancun again.

Atmosphere (⭐️⭐️)
Another contributing factor to why we don’t feel that we’ll ever visit Cancun again was the atmosphere. If you’re a partier, I am certain you would give the atmosphere 5 stars, but if you’re someone like me who is looking more for a place to relax… Cancun is not the place for you. Bright lights, loud music, lots of drinks sum up Cancun night life. The streets are loud and littered with drunks anytime after 10. We were hoping for a place like Maui, but closer to home and less expensive… Boy were we ever wrong!

Don’t get me wrong, our vacation was an amazing getaway! We enjoyed a lot of quality time together to see new places and experience new things. We loved the experience, but will we go back to visit Cancun again? Probably not. We’ve heard that places nearby, such as Cozumel are much nicer and calmer. Maybe we’ll give those places a chance 😀.

Have you ever been to Cancun? What was your experience like?

Live. Love. Learn.
Roxana

Tonsillectomy and Septoplasty: Post-Op Day 7

I bled last night from the left side of my throat. It was pretty scary. I carefully ate Mac and cheese for dinner (soft food – not hard or crunchy).. But I guess I wasn’t ready. It wasn’t much blood. Just very scary! It stopped on its own after a gentle salt gargle. It started again an hour or so later, right before bed. Again, it stopped on its own.

I got my splints taken out of my nose today! I was worried that the cutting of the stitches would hurt.. But I didn’t even feel it. The removal of my splints was quick and easy. I felt a LOT of pressure as he grasped them and then a huge relief as he slid each of them out. They came out, with a trail of mucus and blood, so he had to suction a lot of crud up. It was AMAZING to take that first breath through my nose!

Helped honey set up the living room a little bit. We put down our rug and brought our couch and chairs back down. It’s really coming together well. Honey put up beautiful white blinds, an started working on the bar area, too. He’s really amazing at everything he does! My husband is so talented :).

Read on someone’s blog that it’s okay to eat baked beans while recovering from a tonsillectomy, because they’re soft, so I ate some beanie weenies very carefully for dinner. I had never had them before, and they were DELICIOUS! I was able to eat half of the tiny can very easily (I mushed the beans around. Little but to make them even smoother). Half way through, I got a terribly pain in my throat and went to the bathroom to spit my food out. Along with it came deep red blood! I was terrified that this was happening again.

I bled more tonight than I did last night. And it seemed thicker.. Like mucus-y, almost. Jerry said it looked like the blood that was trying to adhere to and scan over my wounds. My scabs have already started to fall off.. So I’m not sure what’s going on. All I know, is that I was terrified! Honey stood behind me and rubbed my back.. Which made me feel a little more calm :).

The bleeding stopped after a gentle salt gargle and some water.

As I was getting ready for bed, Jerry gold me I look like a ghost. I couldn’t have possibly lost that much blood.. I’m assuming I looked that way because I was just tired and scared :-/.

Love. Laugh. Learn
Roxana

False Hope

I’m beginning to think that my recovery will not be as smooth as I had anticipated it would be. I have waves of excruciating pain that decide when they want to come and go. I wake up with horrible pain, it dies down throughout the day, and then strikes again at the end of the day. Today, my throat got the best of me.. I was hot, cold, aching, throbbing, and swollen all at once. I couldn’t swallow, and couldn’t talk… Moving, in general, hurt. My lips, tongue, gums, throat, neck, and cheeks all swollen and tender to the touch. That was a couple hours ago.. I feel much better now, besides the headache I have. I really wish I could pull my splints out of my nose, right about NOW!!

On a side note –

I ordered two necklaces from an online boutique called Simple Addiction on June 29th, that were supposed to be mailed to me first-class and arrive within a week tops. I STILL haven’t received my goods, and on top of their delay, I got an email on Wednesday to notify me that one of the necklaces is out of stock. Isn’t it odd that it took two weeks to realize that they don’t have one of them..? Their customer service is also horrible.. I keep getting the runaround. My package tracking information says I should’ve received the necklace yesterday, but is not up to date with scanning from facility to facility.. so not only have I not received it.. but I don’t even know where it is! Hopefully it shows up tomorrow…

As I mentioned earlier today, Jerry came home early from work today to care for me :). After a couple episodes of Dexter, he left me to relax, and started working on the living room floors again. He has scraped off all of the cement board, grout, and debris from where the tiles were and has smoothed the subfloors. He’s also ripped apart the bar area, because we’re redoing that as well. We are thinking of applying a mirror as the backing with two glass shelves and a beautiful marble/granite top, so that the area my be used as a small storage/display area. The previous owners of our home overused natural wood… So it’s everywhere! To make our home more modern, we’re removing and painting over as much natural wood as we can… Starting in the living room :). I’ll take some pictures tomorrow when it’s bright and post them here for you to see how our home is coming along. (Measurements Jerry asked me to remember.. not sure what for – 38.75 x 24)

This little one has become quite the cuddle monster!

Live. Laugh. Learn.
Roxana

Tonsillectomy and Septoplasty: Day 1 Post-Op

Everyone, including my physician, told me the tonsillectomy would be what will cause me the most pain.. Boy, was everyone wrong! I’ve had a septoplasty before… So I thought nothing of it, and worried more about my tonsils being removed. Other than seeing my daddy, the best part of today was laying in bed with my babies. Tucker has always been a cuddle bug, and as Charlie is getting older, he’s becoming a cuddle bug, too :). All I need to be comfy is a cool, dark room, a humidifier, and my boys cuddled up in bed with me. Although I didn’t get much sleep today, it was nice to just lay still with them for a short while.

Tonsillectomy
I am in very little pain; it hurts only when I swallow. Overall, I feel like I have a sore throat. I took a peek into my throat, and can see that I’m already healing. White-ish patches have formed over my open wounds and it feels very fleshy. When I swallow, it feels almost like bits of flesh are loose in my throat… TMI, I know! I think it’s gross, too! Taking my pain medication stings a little bit, but other than that, they’re not hurting at all. I can speak softly, and am able to eat a little, although I don’t have much of an appetite. I had I one scrambled egg, an orange jello cup, and a cup of Gatorade for breakfast. For lunch I had a lime jello cup and 1/3 of the chicken broth in my chicken noodle soup, along with 5 small pieces of steamed carrot that was also in the soup. As snacks, ive had two delicious organic popsicles. I’ve been keeping my throat well hydrated by drinking a lot of water, Gatorade, and grape juice. I don’t think I’ll eat anything for dinner.. I’m not very hungry. Perhaps I’ll have a pudding cup or another popsicle. (Pain 2/10)

Septoplasty
Someone save me!! I’m going absolutely coocoo! My nose is rather narrow, and having two sets of splints jammed inside is really beginning to hurt! I know one set is in place to keep my septum straight (the ones that HURT) and am assuming the other set is to keep my turbinates recessed and in place because I also had turbinate reduction surgery (not sure about these.. but I know I have two in the center and two along the outside walls of my nose). Because my nose is so narrow, I think the septum splints are pushing into the point of my nose. The very tip of my nose on the left side is where all of my pain is centralized. It hurts so much, it feels like it’s pulsating! I wasn’t in any pain yesterday.. Just uncomfortable, but today is different. I’ve kept up with my pain medication, and have taken a few Tylenols throughout the day, but nothing has helped much. I was able to get a short nap in today, but haven’t been able to relax long enough to fall asleep for long :(. I hope this means, a long, deep sleep tonight. I’m also hoping that my nose stops aching! (Pain 9/10 – I’d consider it a 10 if bleeding came along with this horrible pain!)

In the photos below, you can see that my nose is swollen, and the left side of my face in general, is more swollen than the right. The photo of the septum shows how straight everything is healing. Let’s hope it stays this way!

Please excuse the face… I haven’t spent much time in front of the mirror applying makeup ;)!

My daddy and Alborz (brother) came over today and prepped the living room for new flooring. My dad brought me a chai latte and worked all day on removing the tiles, and Alborz joined him later to help remove the carpeting. It’s such a relief to have it all gone! I’m getting so excited to have new floors! The house is going to look dramatically different :)!

We’re lucky the subfloor is concrete, and in pretty good condition. Jerry and my dad will be starting to install the floors this weekend! I’ll definitely upload a photo once it’s all finished and beautiful :).

Live. Laugh. Learn.
Roxana