hello, hello. tressa and i are back from holiday in the mayan riviera. we stayed at barcelo beach resort which was very nice. the weather was sunny and about 30 degrees celsius the entire trip which was great.

we went on day tours of xcaret, a catamaran, xplor, party hopper pub crawl, and shopping in playa del carmen. the wedding of tressa's friends angie and brad was very nice along the beach and had a mariachi band play during the surf n'turf supper.

xcaret is a huge ecopark. we snorkelled, saw exotic plants and animals, bought a giant corona bottle (like 2L) and saw a spectacular two hour show about the history and culture of mexico. xplor is an adventure park where we went on 8 of 15 ziplines (tressa had never ziplined before and overcame some jitters - so yay for her!). we also got to drive an amphibious vehicle through a jungle trail which went over suspension bridges and down into dark, water filled caves. it was cool!

for the most part we did not buy souvenirs this time around. tressa did find two nice dresses and a dress shirt for me. on one of the first nights we went with half of the wedding group on the 'party hopper' tour. this went to three bars including 'senor frogs' and 'coco bongo' and was a lot of fun.

unfortunately, sometime between 1:15am an 1:30am when our group exited early back to the resort i lost my camera. we had some great, goofy shots at xcaret and the party hopper that are lost forever. for the duration of the trip, we bought a couple disposable cameras and some souvenir photos. we will also get pictures from other people's cameras (there were about thirty people altogether for the wedding) in the upcoming days, so not all was lost.

the wedding was very nice. i am sure tressa will discuss it in great detail on her blog http://www.tressakirstein.blogspot.com/

food was great. we went to four a la cartes - mexican, spanish, french and japanese. ocean was warm (salty of course), pool was refreshing. it was a good trip, but not completely relaxing - we packed in so many activities, because tressa had never been to mexico and wanted to see as much as she could. this was fine by me for the most part as anyone who knows me can contest that i need some help getting up most mornings, even in a tropical place. one of the days we did go to the resort spa and get massages, so that was nice. oh..we also got sea sick on a catamaran ride later that day...

after a not so fun twelve hour travel day yesterday (for whatever reason we had to fly cancun-toronto and then toronto-saskatoon), i was back to work today.

tressa has found out that her education internship is in saskatoon with a friend of hers, so that is good news! her first final is tomorrow morning. we are getting the counters in the condo replaced tomorrow, so that is good as well. and then we are off to tusq restaurant and then the symphony in the evening with nick, kendra and vince.

Low key St. Patty's 2010

Brady, the son of eeyore Tressa bought me for being together for one year, and I at the house warming.

Above right - some of the food at the house warming. We also got some very nice gifts - like a sexy spice set, cactus with yellow flowers and sticky needles, and spirits. Thank-you!

on saturday we had a "house warming" for our condo - though she has lived there for two years now. we ate, drank and played games with friends - it was good.

We have worked hard preparing for our vacation to mexico (16 hours to go!) and are packed and ready.

now we get a week of much needed tropical relaxation, fun and adventure.

i recently came back from mexico. it was a good break from reality