Playa del Carmen

Louie and I just returned from a fabulous vacation. The best part was that we found the sun, which we thought had disappeared for good, hiding in Mexico.

Louie managed to get sun burned and I stayed a lovely pasty Minnesota white, but the frozen drinks were good, the food was delicious, the scenery was beautiful, and the time with each other was priceless (just like the credit card commercials!). Looking back at the hotel from the beach side of the pools.
Picture taken from the arch in the previous picture.

The open-air lobby... and some random man.
A picture from our cabana for room #905.

Our room- they ended up upgrading us to a suite because of a mistake on their part... well worth the hassle. The view from our balcony at night.
The shops on 5th avenue in Playa del Carmen - a couple of blocks from our hotel.
Where we ate breakfast every morning.
Where we managed to spend about 10 hours one day, literally! The beach waitresses brought us our drinks all day while we read and listened to music... heaven. :)

Christmas 2007

We celebrated Christmas with Louie's parents, Garvin and Carol. It was great to visit with them and Louie was able to enjoy some of his mom's home cooking as an added bonus. Carol made our stockings... and yes, Striper and Trout have stockings too.

Striper was a little overwhelmed by the opening of her stocking. Trout's favorite Christmas gift.

Striper's paws have been cracking because of the cold, dry weather. We got her some booties to try to alleviate the problem. This did not go over well.

I left Rochester on the 27th and headed to Texas... ahhhhhh, Texas. It was a balmy 65 degrees when I arrived. My mom picked me up from the airport and we went straight to her house for Christmas with the family before my sister had to rush out to leave for a church ski trip that evening. Everyone was there for the celebration , except my hubby :)

Even John and Sarah were with us via webcam from Germany...

Luke found it pretty amusing to make Homer Simpson sneak attack John and Sarah on the webcam... it was pretty funny. :)

Even Heidi got into the Christmas spirit.

That Saturday my girlfriends and I threw a shower for the first "soon to be mom" of the crew. We are so excited for Allison and Chad and can't wait for Baby Lewis to arrive.

Sunday, I celebrated Christmas at my dad's house. Andrew was so excited because he got a Wii. We played it a lot and believe it or not, I was actually sore from all of the movement playing those video games... tennis, bowling, wrestling. Here is a clip of Andrew showing me his best boxing moves.

I got back to Rochester (but just barely) on New Year's Eve. Louie had his Christmas from my family when I got back. It was pretty exciting as you can tell from the pictures.

Happy New Years! Love, Catherine and Louie