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Abby Calvin

forever chasing light

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Our Honeymoon in Isla Mujeres

August 31, 2017      Leave a Comment

I’m a big fan of the road less traveled, and flying by the seat of my pants. But I also like to know that “it’s all taken care of,” too. That kind of describes my relationship with my husband, actually – I’m the dreamer and the free spirit and he’s the steady frame that keeps me centered. I like not knowing exactly what we’ll do or where we’ll end up, but DJ’s always there to make sure we have a hotel room to stay the night and a rental car to take us places. You know, responsible stuff like that. 😉

But I digress. I had asked DJ to surprise me with our honeymoon destination, and though he couldn’t resist letting me in on the final few options he’d narrowed it down to, I left the ultimate decision up to him. I couldn’t have been more thrilled when he chose Villa Rolandi on the tiny, tiny (only 4 miles long!) island of Isla Mujeres in Mexico!

a little flight-time reading material.
My FIRST EVER glimpse of Mexico!
this is the face he makes. when I ask him to take a picture of me but the selfie camera is still on….dorkface.

We LOVED it. I’ve never been to an all-inclusive resort before, so I had no basis of comparison, but I was completely swept away by the gorgeous resort and the attentive service! We flew into the main airport at Cancun, and a shuttle took us to the marina where a private yacht awaited us! We were provided with chilled damp towels to wipe away the sweat and travel (ew, gross) from our face, and glasses of champagne and then settled back to enjoy the relaxing twenty-minute ride to Isla Mujeres.

We went during the hottest month of the year, with temps and humidity levels both hovering around 90. At some point around the second day, I gave up on wearing heavy makeup and styling my hair! From then on it was concealer and mascara with a sweep of shimmery bronzer across my cheekbones, and my hair was in a consistent topknot, except for this day when I embraced the natural texture my hair has NEVER before had! This felt like a date-night look, with the flowy black maxi, heeled sandals and the chunky silver jewelry, particularly as we went to the fancier of the two restaurants that evening.

The food was incredible. DJ says it’s hands-down the best out of any resort he has ever been to. There were only two restaurants, but as Villa Rolandi is a smaller, more boutique-type resort with only 30 rooms, it made sense. The main restaurant was very Italian-style, and every single thing we tried was incredible. The second restaurant was a French-Mexican fusion restaurant that was only open for dinner – which was seven courses!

Note: Not from either of the resort restaurants.

We only left the resort twice. The first time we rented a golf cart for the day, and as the island was so tiny, we were able to explore it from one end to the other in a day! Highlights of this were seeing the brightly colored street vendors and storefronts through the main street in town, simply exploring the island to see what we could see, and a small crumbling Aztec ruin on the eastern point of the island.

The ruins didn’t have much to them anymore, but there was a path halfway down the rocky cliff around the point, right by the ocean, and DJ (who has been dive certified for many years) was enthralled by the reefs and wanted nothing more than to be able to dive right into the gorgeous azure water and explore the reef.

There was also a “Turtle Sanctuary” that had been highly recommended to us, where hatchling sea turtles are kept until they are released into the sea. They had sea turtles in all stages of life, which was really neat to see, but with the way the turtles were crammed into small, dirty tanks made it feel a heck of a lot more like a turtle farm. We were both really disappointed with this place – it felt way more like a tourist trap than a turtle sanctuary.

Our second trip off the reservation, as it were, was a Jungle Boat tour off of the mainland! Cancun was a 20-minute ferry ride away, and from there on we took a taxi to the Isla shopping center, which was busy and vibrant and loud and fun to walk through! We, of course, had to stop at a coffee shop and pick up a bag of locally-roasted coffee beans to bring back home with us.

The “Jungle Boat River Tour” was mostly across open ocean, and it was so fun to speed over the water with the wind whipping our hair! We ended up at a reef where we stopped the boats to do some snorkeling. After an unfortunate first experience with snorkeling in Hawaii, I was somewhat nervous about this, but I had a life jacket and DJ held my hand the whole time (and pretty much pulled me along!) and I am pleased to announce that not only did I survive, I am eager to explore bigger and more diverse coral reefs on future vacations!

Watching the sunset with my new husband was pretty much one of my favorite things. <3

Processed with VSCO with 7 preset

It was such an amazing experience! My first visit to Mexico was definitely a success. I know that anywhere we went would have had a bit of a rose-tinted glow because – well, honeymoon, duh! This was certainly not the biggest or most glamorous resort, but Villa Rolandi is a gem, and we had such a wonderful vacation there.

I don’t want to try and overload this post with too many pictures, but I can’t resist: here’s just a few more.

 

Processed with VSCO with f2 preset

I also have to give a shout out to our patient, longsuffering, AMAZING travel agent who put up with more emotion and changed minds than any travel agent should have to put up with! Kirsten at Vacations in Paradise was with us every step of the planning (DOING most of it) putting our minds at ease, and finding us the perfect destination (and great deals!)

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And I’m not paying $1.99 to remove that watermark.
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Bundle up, they said. It will be cold, they said. Bundle up, they said. It will be cold, they said.

My Colorado brain took this VERY seriously. So I bundled. Not pictured: the hat, scarf, and gloves I added on my way out. 

It was 62°. 😆

Still. I’d rather be too warm than too cold. Christmas Under the Stars was lovely, and we sang all my favorite Christmas hymns. 🌟
I would probably post a lot more often if I didn’t have to write captions. 😅 happy lazy Saturday, ya’ll.
Rainy days in AZ must be documented. It was a hig Rainy days in AZ must be documented.

It was a high of 55° today and i saw an insane amount of people bundled up to the nines in down coats, hats, and gloves. Is that going to be me next year? 😅
even through all the messy, hard, and crazy of thi even through all the messy, hard, and crazy of this year I don’t know how I got so dang lucky as to get to do it all with this one. I’m stupid blessed. #thankful
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photo by the incomparable @sarahporterphotos 💖
Happy girl found some autumn. 🍁 🌾🍂 I’v Happy girl found some autumn. 🍁 🌾🍂

I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to hide. (And correspondingly how easy it is, too, to judge people based on what little we see of their lives.) My last post was meant to be a sort of “but that was a month ago! I’m way over all that now!” but I don’t think it’s all that easy. We all carry so much of what seem like opposing things, but are really not. Happiness and sadness. Grief and joy. Old dreams and new hopes. Ancient roots and green new baby leaves.

I meant to hide, and I did. I hid from my husband and from all my friends just how much I was struggling, and you know what happened? It didn’t just go away. It didn’t make me look any better. All hiding did was deprive me of opportunities for connection, love, and friendship, and then of course I felt lonely and isolated!

There’s no great point to this post. No “but now I’m all better!” lesson in which I am able to impart my great wisdom. Just a hey, I’m human, and so are we all. In the words of the late great Oscar Wilde, we are all in the gutter. 

But some of us are looking at the stars. 

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Here’s a post I wrote a month ago but was too em Here’s a post I wrote a month ago but was too embarrassed to share. 🙃
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TRUTH: I am loooooving Arizona. I know we made the right choice in moving here, and I am SO excited to start building a life here!

ALSO TRUTH: I am struggling. Really struggling. Moving is hard. Moving is really, reeeeaaallly hard. It’s stressful even when you’re moving within the same state. It’s especially stressful when you’re moving to a brand-new state without a house lined up and you know like one person in the new state.

My anxiety is spiking like crazy. Last time we were here, we had a situation where some dude on the highway slammed on his brakes right in front of us, repeatedly, deliberately trying to cause an accident, we assume in an attempt to collect on insurance. Ever since then, I’ve had CRUSHING anxiety every time I drive. I haven’t been able to get on the highway at all since we’ve been here, and I’ve only driven my car  a grand total of one time in the last month. My little brain is stuck on survival, on warning me over and over and over again, “that person’s gonna try to make you crash.”

I know what you’re thinking. That’s so LAME. And pathetic. And I’ve tried the beating-myself-over-the-head route, and it just hasn’t worked. Maybe it’s time to stop trying to pull myself up my my bootstraps, and show myself the same sort of compassion I’d show to a friend in the same situation.

Maybe it’s time to try softer?

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