Lee and Syd landed in "Cowtown" a.k.a. Fort Worth and spent two fun-filled weeks with us. We thoroughly enjoyed entertaining them and showing them our world here in Texas. Off the plane, first stop was Rangers Ballpark... of course Ben had to show them where he has lived (literally and through the television) for the past months. Second stop: our favorite, Yucatan Taco Stand for lunch. During the next week we spent our time site-seeing, restaurant dining, antique mall shopping, Wits and Wagers playing and Ranger game watching. We attended the BYU fireside the night before the BYU vs. TCU game, and our plans to attend the football game at Dallas Cowboy stadium were terminated due to the fact that the Rangers were playing that same night in game 7 of the World Series. Sadly both Rangers and BYU lost. But we had guests and there was definitely more fun to be had so we got over our sadness pretty quickly.
The famous and delicious Tillmans barbque.
Tableside s'mores.
Syd and I attended craft night at my neighbor Dawn's together. We screenprinted reusable grocery bags. Dawn is a graphic designer and designed and built all of the screen prints herself! She amazes me!
Our final products!
After a week of fun in Fort Worth we were off to the coast where we hopped on the Carnival Triumph and spent 5 days traveling to Merida and Cozumel, Mexico. The cruise was a much needed time to put our feet up, eat great food, site-see and get some zzzz's. I love and seriously miss the king size bed, the pitch black rooms and the boat softly rocking me to sleep. As much as I enjoyed catching up on sleep, that was the least of our trip, we had such a blast and have stories to tell...
Lee won the sports trivia!
Ben played "60 seconds or less" against 5 competitors...
He passed a total of 4 missions: balancing a soda can on it's edge, stacking and taking down cups, eating a cookie off of his face and keeping a feather in the air by blowing on it. Ben was the last man standing and won an ego boost. I was definitley a proud wife, cheering him on loudly in the audience. We are going to have to apply to the REAL Minute to Win it!
The first stop on the cruise was Merida, Mexico. We saw a few sites in the town and then split off from Lee and Syd. They stayed in Merida and saw the LDS Temple, we headed off to see ancient ruins and swim in a cenote (a natural pool of clear water formed underground and often times are found in caves).
View from the top of the ruins.
We took a 30 minute taxi ride to the ruins and cenote and when the taxi left us there, in the middle of nowhere, I asked Ben how we would get home? No answer. Oh well. We were quickly distracted by the beautiful ruins and the refreshing cenote. We spoke with some other tourists and they suggested that we catch a ride on their tour bus. Great idea, but we spent too long at the ruins and as we realized it was getting late we sprinted to the parking lot. All the buses were gone and I panicked. Ben started talking to a man that worked on site and before I knew it Ben and I were sitting in the back of his truck, driving down the country bumpy road with the wind blowing in our faces. He dropped us off at the nearest town where we caught a local bus. I swear this bus was taking every child home from school because it stopped every other minute but I was just happy to be headed back towards the cruise ship. Just as I was getting comfortable on the bus, Ben motioned me to get off, right in the middle of a highway. We stood with our thumbs up between two busy roads, one headed back to Merida and the other back to Progresso, our cruise ship port. I was thinking how crazy my husband is to have us hitchiking in such a place under such a time crunch. We started to realize that no one was headed in the direction we were headed so we started walking. Finally, a couple on a motorcycle pulled up next to us and asked us if we needed a ride. Four of us on a motorcycle? Ben hesitated and I said "heck yes, we need a ride!" I wasn't going to miss my boat. They were on the same cruise as us and rented the bike for the day (maybe we'll think of that idea next time). So here we are, all four of us on this bike, it was quite an uncomfortable ride, especially for Ben. What an adventurous day.
We spent halloween on the cruise ship and ate yummy festive desserts:
The cruise also stopped in Cozumel where we shopped and relaxed on the beach with Lee and Syd.
Adam and Eve? Maybe? (This was Syds idea, clever.)
We collected a farm of animals in our room. This cruise I took a disco class but next cruise, i'm seriously going to take the class to learn how to make these little guys. All my house guests will think i'm awesome.
We enjoyed every minute of our trip, especially since it was spent with Ben's parents. We seriously want to start planning our next trip with them ASAP.
Along our drive home we saw the Sam Houston statue and of course we stopped at Buc-cee's for some jerky, popcorn and sparkly clean bathrooms.
"The top two reasons to stop at Buc-cee's: #1 and #2"
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