COZUMEL!!!

O.K. now I see why it is a bad idea to blog a trip RIGHT when you get back!!!! GET READY FOR THE PICTURE OVERLOAD!!!! Every picture just brought back such a great memory I had to post it!:) But this is just a very small portion of all the pictures I actually took! I think I had like 265+.... ya I get a little picture crazy! But anyways! This trip was so amazing! I loved every last minute of it and we were busy doing things each and every minute! We went with Monroe's family, all couples no kids, it was a blast!!! The best part was that everyone got scuba certified, so we got to go on 5 dives! Including a night dive!!! We saw sooo many amazing things! So here are just a few pictures!:)

Beginning with day one...travel day.:)


Here are all of the girls with the Judge & Lucy.


Monroe and I right before we got on the boat to Cozumel.


Nate (M's bro) & Julie


Lisa (M's sis) & John


Bruce (M's bro) & Callie


Jeff & Michele (M's sis)


Melanie (M's sis)
James (M's bro) met us on Cozumel...he had flown directly there..


We were greeted with drinks and this awesome sign!:)


Moooonnnnnroe!:)


OK. So this is us on our very first dive in Cozumel. The first site we dove was the "Palancar Caves". I got down to 88 feet! Who'd a thought?!?! We saw 3 Hawksbill turtles, a Nurse Shark, tons of gorgeous coral, fish, black eel, etc... and it had three great swim throughs!


This was right before our second dive. The site was "Yucab". We went down approx. 60 feet for a little over an hour. We saw a sea horse!!!! How cool is that?! The other BIG think we saw was a HUGE Moray eel! It had to be at least 8 feet long! Its head was huge and it was bright green!!!

Here are all the girls right before the "fool's errand!" :) You had to be there to really have a little more insight to how great this night was!:) We were on a 'mission' to find La Mission... The Judge had had enough!:)

This was how every night was with our party of 14 for dinner!:)

And then we went DANCING!!!!!:) There was a little like city square with a live band playing. We just walked over to see what was going on...and lets just say Julie got swept off her feet!:)

This guy grabbed Julie and just started dancing with her literally the second we got there! It was sooo hilarious! The guys were all....well not very tall!:)

Here is Melanie with "Double Jack"... He was so named because he is two of Mel's son Jack!:) He did not want to stop dancing with her... so security had to step in! This night was soooo funny!

On Sunday we went to church it was fast and testimony meeting so that was way cool!

Oh oooops too bad we had cookies right before!? Well this is LuAnna. She befriended us right away. She shared her cookies and then could not stop talking for the next hour! No joke! We were an hour early and so we waited while she played a game show with us and tried to teach us Spanish. Later we found out she isn't even a member yet, her parents just let her go to church and she attends BOTH 3hr blocks of church every Sunday! She was even telling us her parents & brothers tell her to sit down and shut her mouth! After an hour of the nonstop talking we all began to see why they send her to 6 hours of church!!!! JK!!!:) She was cute.

I love Monroe's family!!! We would all go get A LOT :) of ice cream every night and just sit up and talk and talk. It was so great!

Here we are on our third dive!!! This was my favorite dive!!! This is how I always imagined scuba diving would be! The site was the "Santarosa Wall". It was like the "Great Drop Off" in Finding Nemo!:) We were down about 80 feet for about an hour. Where we were swimming if you looked left it went so deep! The water was like a dark purplish blue! I was so tempted to just swim down and take a peek!:) Then under me and all to the right was the most amazingly beautiful coral and tons of fish! There was such a variety of fish! I loved this dive!:)

This was the other groups dive master Sharif. I would say he was the better dive master out of the two...

This was our dive master Edgar. He was nice, just more easy going I guess. He just didn't point out as much as Sharif, unless we asked...I guess...

Here we are eating lunch between dives. We would go to this really nice beach eat and hang out.:) Our fourth dive was "Tunich" (Mayan for 'Stone'). It has some great swim throughs. I swam upside down through one, that was cool.:) We saw a few of the toadfish that I think are only around them there parts.:) A huge Hawksbill Turtle, barracuda, spotted eel, lobsters, drumfish, etc... It was cool!:) I just loved how there were 12 of us on the boat all diving down together! It was pretty amazing!

ALL THE BROTHERS! SO HOT!!!!:)

OH WAIT!!!! Oh no.... THIS IS WHAT I CALL HOT!!!!!

All the ladies! Just laying out...and that is my one regret to this trip... wearing 30SPF the whole time and not even getting a tan!!!:( Just another sign to myself that I am getting old!:(

This is a picture right after our NIGHT DIVE!!! Ok! This is something I swore I would NEVER do!!!! Being in the ocean at night! Are you kidding me?!?!?! But then I just thought, when else am I ever going to do this again? So I went! There were things I liked and things I didn't about this dive! The site was "Paraiso" (Paradise Reef). Not the best site because it is way over scubad... But lets focus on the positive... We saw the coolest things ever!!!! My dream has always been to see a puffer fish all blown up and I did!!!! I could have watched it all night! It was the coolest thing ever!!! I loved it! We also saw 3 octopus! They were sooo cool! They would move so dreamlike and change colors from like purple to turquois to blue! So cool! I saw the biggest crab I have ever seen!!! I didn't even know they could be that big! I can not believe I saw all that I did! Way cool!

This was our adventure day. We road these scooters all around the island! We stopped at the ruins and went to the other side of the island and snorkled. It was so much fun!

Julie and I doing our sign language at the ruins.

Pretty sweet biker gang hu!?:)

Lucy - Monroe's mom! LOVE!

Our muy athentico lunch!!!:-/ :)

Lil' Monroe just said "scary fish!" Yes....it was...but it was good!!!!

The scariest part of this meal for me was when I realized that straws can be re-used!!!! One thought that never even crossed my mind before...and it was very disturbing to me to realize! At least I didn't get Michele's straw!!!!! Lets just say it had a little surprise for her in the end!:P

This is where we snorkeled at Chen Rio. We saw some amazing things in our short snorkel! The top 3 - barracuda, scorpion fish we thought...but are now wondering if it was a lion fish...it was sooo cool looking! Then Monroe & I watched these 5 squid and when we swam after them they all swam and turned in sync and INKED us!!!!! How cool is that!?!? I can not believe I saw that!:)

This is our morp picture!:)

This is all of us after the LONG crazy, rainy, buggy, FUN ride home!:)

Ahhhhh the Monroes & Nate!:) Outside of Aldora Dive shop! Smiling! That is good!;)

Heaven?!

Angels!!!! I love these two amazing people! These are the best people anyone could ever meet!

Monroe's treasure from snorkeling right off our hotel.

Another local favorito...

If you have made it this far I applaud you!:) This was a wonderful trip! We did more on this trip than I think I ever have on previous vacations. I am so glad I got scuba certified! I love it! It really isn't scary! I am so glad that I married into such a great family that really knows how to have fun!!!!!:)