We just returned from a week in Mexico. A trip that my mother-in-law plans for her children and grandchildren every year. This is our fourth year going as a family. I’m so fortunate to have a mother-in-law that splurges on her family and is fun to hang out with.

This year we stayed at the NH Riviera Cancun which is a newer all inclusive resort near Puerto Morales, just south of Cancun. I’m not a fan of Cancun (more like south Houston), but Puerto Morales is a quiet fishing town with no crowds and lots of sandy beach. It also has some decent diving right off shore. I went on four dives while I was there, two of which were just me and a local dive master who was very laid back and fun to hang out (and dive with). I saw the usual stuff: lots of fish, moray eels, turtles, groupers, lobster and for one dive I was shadowed by a 4-5 ft Barracuda for 45 minutes (which even made the dive master nervous after a point).

I found a 24-30″ long conch shell in a sandy bed at about 50 ft. It was pristine and smooth with brilliant pink. Not a crack or chip to be found. I was very tempted to take it home, and I expect that some other diver will; but divers do so much looting and damage to the reefs (you can see the damage on every dive) that I decided to leave it there for others to check out and hopefully leave as well.

All inclusive resorts aren’t my ideal vacation: they put a very large footprint on the local ecosystem and way of life. So Dawn and I tried our best to offset our own footprints by picking up trash on nearby beaches several times (the beach in front of the resort is cleaned every morning by the staff, but if you walk off the resort beach you will see how much trash washes up all over the Mexican coastline - mostly plastic cups, straws and water bottles from resorts, along with lots of garbage from fishing boats).

I will say this about the NH Riveria Cancun: the food was spectacular. I ate and ate and ate. The food at most resorts is just OK, but the food we had every day was excellent. I ate several types of fish every day for lunch and dinner that was never over cooked, and always fresh, moist and flavorful. I was eating three helpings every meal plus two helpings of desert. Thank god for my metabolism: I don’t think I gained even a quarter pound :D

The room we stayed in was brand new. I could not believe my eyes when I saw the bathroom: it was my dream bathroom. The exact tile, layout and size. I wish I would have seen this before we remodeled our bathroom two years ago. The shower was so roomy and open that Dawn, P and I all showered at once under this big rainfall shower head. At some point I’m sure my daughter will find that information embarrassing.

On the first day while sitting on the beach and looking at Dawn smile; I realized that it was just over a year ago that we were on the beach together in Mexico, and she looked just as happy, but with longer hair. It was hard for me to believe that she’d crawled down into that dark hole that was her fight with cancer, and all the way back out in the time between those two moments on the beach. Hard to believe but thankful of the reality.