Nick's 32nd Birthday Bash!

I've been away from the blog for a while!

I had very good reason though, of course!

Nick and I just got back from a few days in Cancun to celebrate his 32nd birthday!

For my 30th birthday, Nick took the kids and me out to California for a vacation, and it was one of the best birthdays ever!

I wanted to do something special for his 30th, but I was super prego with Mattis so there was no "whoopin' it up" for his dirty thirty.

Of course, last year, he had just completed OCS for his 31st, so we didn't get to do anything too crazy.

I decided that this was the year to do something nice for him.

He is literally the hardest working man I know (just a hair behind my daddy, of course).

He never asks for anything for his birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, etc....which is why he is the hardest person in the world to get a gift for.

I knew that one thing that he would love would be a vacation without the kids.

We love love love our two kids, but by the end of the summer, we were both pretty worn out between school, early morning wake ups with Mattis, and life in general.

Nick never vacationed out of the country growing up, and I wanted him to be able to experience all the stories I have of my childhood with him.

Cancun is one place that stands out in my mind of one of the most beautiful places I've visited as a child.

I've been to the beaches of Hawaii, Okinawa, Jamaica, Cozumel, Cheju-do Island in S. Korea, the Dominican Republic, Southern California, Miami, the Gulf Coast of Texas, and Cancun.

Out of ALL of these beautiful beaches, Cancun had some of the prettiest water I have ever seen in my life.

The water is so turquoise and clear and blue and crystalline (I don't even know if that's an adjective, but I don't care) and turquoise and clear......and blue....

The water is absolutely breathtaking, and you can not find sand any whiter than the beaches of Cancun.

People told me not to go to Cancun, because it's "touristy" and more for young "spring breakers", but I knew that I HAD to take Nick to this gem of a place that is highly underrated (because of touristy-ness and spring breakers).

We started with a 7 hour layover in Mexico City...yep....7 hours...

We made the best of it though with cervezas!

We finally arrived in Cancun and upgraded our room with the spending money my parents gave us.

Our room, and a view of the sunset I took on our first morning there!

Do you see the cross in the sunset?

Just proof that God shows himself in the most beautiful ways.

Our first day there, we rented a little speedboat with a tour guide.

He took us through the mangrove trees and across the crystal blue waters to one of the biggest coral reefs in Mexico to do some snorkeling!

Too bad Nick forgot to bring his gopro, so we didn't get any cool photos of the awesome fish we saw :( 

boo.

We stayed at the Grand Park Royal.

It's an all inclusive resort.

We definitely prefer the Riu Palace resorts over Grand Park, but it was still really nice, and we really enjoyed our room, the view, and our stay there.

And because no vacation photos are complete without a photo of you sipping fancy martinis, a photo of a fancy tiramisu, a towel animal in your room left by the maid service, and of course a photo by the beach reading trashy tabloid magazines!

Nick's Birthday Dinner at El Mirador (an Italian restaurant).

We had some amazing food, and staff all came out to sing Happy Birthday to him (unbeknownst to him or me).

We ended his birthday night with a show at the hotel, that Nick was voluntold to be up on stage for (since it was his birthday).

They embarrassed him, poked some fun at him, and he even won a game they all had to play!

After the show, we decided to head to downtown Cancun to do some dancing at Fat Tuesday's.

First of all, it was expensive.

Second of all, these shot girls kept coming up to us and trying to sell us shots.

And third of all, we got there at 11, and left at midnight....and every one knows the party doesn't start until midnight.

But we're old, and we wanted to go to sleep in our nice comfy hotel room.

We still had a blast though, and got to dance!
Call us lame...

Selfies by the infinity pool that looked out to the ocean!

Enjoying the view from our room before heading out to Nick's birthday dinner!

Seriously...I've never seen water like this in my life!

And a photo of my dragon fruit.

It was so delicious, and now I'm sad I won't get to have it every morning.

Flying back into Houston...

We had such an amazing time.

We were only there for 3 days total (2 full days), and people told us it was too short of a vacation.

But for us, it was perfect.

Any longer would have been too long, and we were missing our babies so much!

We are so thankful for my amazing parents for watching our kids so that we could have a much needed mini vacation.