Louisiana and Texas - April 2024

After our East Coast roadtrip, we spent 8 days in Louisiana visiting with Shawna's mom.  It took us two days driving from NC to LA, spending a night in Birmingham, AL to break up the trip.  We arrived early evening and after unloading the car, we had gumbo (leftovers from our time there in January) for dinner!

Keith had a doctor's appointments he needed to get done, so the next day, he drove to Dallas and stayed there two nights while Shawna stayed in LA.  While he was in TX, he worked out a couple of times at the Bedford Y (first time!) and had dinner at Zafiros with his parents and Margaret.

While in LA, we did the following activities:

• Shawna and her mom met Betty (friend of Shawna's mom) for lunch in Opelousas at Yamato Steakhouse of Japan.  We each got the chicken stir fry and chatted with Betty for 1.5 hours.

• We met with Kim (former LSMSA classmate) in Alexandria for dinner at Spirit Food & Friends. We each got a burger which was very tasty.  There was a band playing so we sat outside so we could hear one another and hung out for a couple of hours while catching up.

Dinner with Kim at Spirit Food and Friends

• We had a crawfish boil at Shawna's mom's house. Hunter did the boil for us and Nicole, Harmony, Hayden, Pat and Chet came over as well.  We had chips and dips for snacks and then ate our heart out on crawfish - they were so good and all quite big!  Shawna had made a peach cobbler for dessert but it turned out to be way too soupy so we threw it away and just had ice cream for dessert.  We all hung out outside - it was a nice breezy day.

Crawfish boil at mom's house

Our next stop was Austin, TX.

North Carolina - April 2024

After we returned from our two week trip to Mexico, we spent another week in NC at John and JoAnna's so that we could attend our 25th Fuqua reunion which was held at the end of the week as well as Ruby's bat mitzvah.  Leading up to the weekend festivities, we worked out a lot (both in John's gym as well as doing walks at Umstead and Wa Duke) and did some admin stuff but then also caught up with the following people:

• Keith met up with Anastasia (former colleague at LivCor) for breakfast at Hotel Casio Raleigh.

Breakfast with Anastasia

• We joined Kim, Jonathan, John, JoAnna, Will, Keith, Kate, Ruby and Johnny Mac at Namu Korean for trivia.  We played two rounds, winning first place in the first round and second place in the second round.  The food was pretty good as well.  

• Had lunch with Debbie Chang at Fosters.

Lunch with Debbie

We also drove by our old house and saw that they had painted it all white and fenced in the yard. It appears that it's the same owners that bought the house from us.  We thought they did a nice job!

Our old house

For reunion, we attended the following events:

For those who were in town early, we met up Thursday evening first at Julie's wine bar - Uncorked RTP and then second at Beer Study Durham. There was quite a showing so was good to get an early start and catch up with folks.  We stayed up late and got to bed past midnight!

Gang at Beer Study 

On Friday, we picked up Kim and Tom at the airport and drove to Durham.  They saw Andy at the curb so we gave him a ride as well.  We then picked up Rak at WaDuke and all went to lunch at Foster's - meeting up with Danelle, Emily, and Kara.  After lunch, we did a walk around WaDuke and then we got ready in Rak's room at WaDuke.  Everyone met up at the bar at JB Duke hotel for cocktails and then we all went over to Fuqua Friday for beer and heavy appetizers.  Still wanting more social time, we then all went back to the hotel bar for more drinks and chatting.  JoAnna and Shawna stayed a bit longer than Keith and John and ended up getting home past midnight!

Reunion photos

For Ruby's bat mitzvah, we attended the service on Saturday which lasted three hours.  While we didn't understand most of what was going on, it was so cool to watch the traditions of the service and of course to see Ruby and the rest of the Artin family participate in the ceremony.  Ruby did an amazing job!  After the service, we stayed for lunch (which was bagels and cream cheese and all the fixings) and then went back to John's for a nap.  

That evening, we attended her party which was held in Chapel Hill at an event space (used to be the wine bar when we were in school).  The party was a lot of fun - we danced and had a nice dinner of Mediterranean food!  We ended up staying until the party was over - 10pm.  We had originally intended on going back to Fuqua to join in on the after party but we were too tired so went back to John's and crashed.

Ruby's Bat Mitzvah

These events were a great way to end our East Coast roadtrip as we got to spend time with many of the people we love! Our next stop was to drive to Louisiana (over two days) to spend time with Shawna's mom.

Mexico - April 2024

We traded in our time share to go to Playa del Carmen in Mexico with John and JoAnna.  We had a certificate to stay an extra week for free so we made a two week trip of it.  We drove into NC from New York (taking 12 hours much to our dismay) and arrived at John's house around 7pm on Friday.  We had pizza together at his place and then did laundry and packed as the next morning, we all flew out together from RDU to Cancun at 6am!

Hotel

We stayed at the all inclusive El Cid resort with our first week at the Hotel Marina El Cid Spa and Beach Resort where we had a two bedroom unit that faced the main pool of this phase of the resort.  The decor was older than the rest of the resort but the rooms were large and clean.  

View from room at Ventus

The second week we stayed at Ventus at El Cid Marina where we had another two bedroom - this time on the top floor overlooking the main pool of this phase of the resort as well as overlooking the ocean.  The rooms were more modern with one bedroom (where John and JoAnna stayed) and common room being very large.  The second bedroom (where we stayed) had two double beds and was small.  But overall still a very nice place.

We were able to use all of the pools across the resorts as well as dine in any of the restaurants. Overall, the food and the service were pretty good.  The only downside to this resort was the beach - the view was not the best and there was quite a bit of seaweed washing up ashore.  

One of the many pools - this one was the adults only pool

Restaurants

We tried every restaurant across the three phases of the resort.  Our favorite restaurants were:

• Mercado for lunch as you can try different cuisines buffet style.  There was also a small cafe attached to this that had lots of desserts at lunch time but also a few grab and go items for breakfast.
• Italian for dinner - went here twice.  We really liked one of the fish dishes.  The second time was not as good as the first but still pretty good.
• French for dinner (surprisingly as we usually don't care for French restaurants) - had a yummy pork dish here.  We went back two more times - the second time we got the pork again and the third time we had a fish dish which we did not like as much.
• Aakat for dinner which is an Iberio American - mainly lots of grilled dishes.  We really liked this one the most.  They have really good bread and the entrees were very tasty.  Our first time there we split the hangar steak, duck enchiladas and a pasta dish.  The second time there we had the steak again but then tried two new dishes - shrimp curry and a fish dish - all very tasty.

The buffet restaurant was pretty decent - what you would expect.  We also had dinner at Kobo which is a hibachi place - food was tasty.  Our least favorite restaurants were the Mediterranean (did not really offer much Mediterranean) and the Seafood places (located next to the marina - was not the nicest of the restaurants and food was just OK). 

Dinner at Aakat

Activities

Each day, for the most part, consisted of working out for two hours followed by a relaxing afternoon at the pool.  Our favorite pools were the pools at the Ventus Ha resort across the street as well as the main pool and the adult only pool at the Ventus Marina.  While the main pool at the Marina El Cid had the only swim up bar, we did not like this pool as it was filled with kids!  

Enjoying the resort life!

While there, we celebrated John's 55th birthday! They brought out a cake at dinner and we all sang while he had to wear this goofy napkin hat.  And then our butler decorated the room as a surprise when we returned from dinner.

Birthday decorations in the room

We also enjoyed some of the resort activities such as the bike tour into town (Porto Morales) which is a small, but cute (up and coming) town.  We biked around the town stopping twice to walk around a bit.  We went to a few of the evening activities including the magic show, the broadway show and the retro show, the latter two being pretty good.  We also watched one duet band at the Waves bar.  And when we had some downtime, we played cards either in the room or at one of the bars.

Bike ride into town

We did manage to go a few excursions off property:

Tulum Tour - This tour included going to Tulum, swimming with turtles and swimming in a cenote.  The tour company was great - picked us up on time, great communications beforehand and the guide was fun and super nice.  Tulum was interesting with a beautiful setting on the ocean and swimming with the turtles was fun but the best part (albeit short) was swimming in the underground cenote.  The water was cold but you got used to it - it was very cool to see the stalactites and stalagmites!  We also got tacos for lunch which were pretty tasty.  The only downside is that both Tulum and swimming with turtles were quite crowded - way too many people!!

Tulum

Swimming in the cenote - album cover

Snorkeling with sea turtles

Boat Tour to Isla Mujeres - We were picked up at hour hotel at 7am and rode to Cancun (stopping at one other resort to pick up more people).  We then boarded a catamaran and sailed to Isla Mujeres stopping twice to snorkel and swim.  We did not snorkel at the first stop as the water was pretty choppy but we did swim and the second spot which was just off one of the beaches at Isla Mujeres.  They served us lunch on the boat very early (it was around 9am) and lunch consisted of several cold items on a bento box - nothing spectacular.  We also had drinks included while on the boat but since it was early we only had a couple of drinks before we docked and one on the way back to Cancun.  The boat docked at Isla Mujeres and we got off the boat, having three hours to do what we wanted on the island.  We chose to walk to the beach and hang out in the water as the water was beautiful.  We had a few beers from the nearby beach club - Mayan Beach Club.  We then walked back to the meeting point and had some fish tacos before boarding the boat to sail back to Cancun.  We arrived back at our hotel around 4pm.  Overall, it was fun but would have preferred a trip where we spent more time on the boat.

Isla Mujeres

Xcaret - Really cool park with lots of activities. Everyone told us there is so much to do that it would take a whole day but we did everything we wanted in a little over four hours.  We did not buy the transportation option as we wanted freedom to arrive and leave when we wanted which worked out in our favor as the taxi cost was the same and it allowed us to leave when we were done.  When we first arrived, we put our stuff in lockers and then swam one of the underground rivers - the green one as we were told it was the prettiest.  We had read to do the rivers early as they get crowded later in the day - great advice as when we went later on to do the second river, it was super crowded!! We walked most of the park, stopping to see the aquarium, sharks, manatees, sea turtles (which were really cute), butterfly garden and the aviary (which was the best part of all -- so many birds).  There was an area to see pumas and jaguars but we never spotted any.  While walking around, we did see a spider monkey, a tapir, and a coati.  Towards the end, we also walked around the 'Discover Mexico' which has small replicas of many of the famous sites across Mexico.  

Xcaret

We all flew back together on Southwest and stayed at John and JoAnna's for another week to continue our road trip.