Cozumel Adventure with Hurricane Striking

Wait a sec? How on earth can Kortney be posting about her honeymoon and it's only Thursday night. I mean, I know she is kinda anal about being on top of things, but she should be enjoying her honeymoon, not posting about it.

GUESS WHAT?

The honeymoon was cut short (sob, sob) because of stupid Hurricane Wilma! I know, what are the chances? I mean, yes, it's hurricane season, but really, what are the chances? So here's the run down.

Day One: Beautiful, and I mean beautiful, room with a balcony overlooking crystal blue green waters with a hammock to boot. The room had a king size bed, full jacuzzi tub in the main part of the room, couch, chairs, cute towel decorations (I mean swans, hearts, the whole deal) lying on the bed. It was the ideal romantic location. We walked around town a bit and started enjoying the ALL INCLUSIVE food at the Palace Resort in Cozumel.

Day Two: We spent some time walking further downtown and checking everything out. We were constantly being yelled at with the phrase, "I have special deal for da honeymooners." Very Mexico. Then we sat by the pool/beach for awhile and just relaxed as they brought us tropical drinks and nachos from the outside bar.

Day Three: We rented a moped and traveled up and down the island. Jon was an awesome driver and did a great job learning the ins and outs of Cozumel driving. We went to a beach called Mr. Sanchos and played in the Caribbean Sea for awhile. We also got to the eastern side of the island while on our adventures.

Day Four: Today we swam with dolphins! We got to "kiss" them (and have a picture of both of us doing it if you don't believe me!), "hug" them, perform the dorsal pull (two dolphins come on either side of you while you grab onto their dorsal fin). There is a scandalous story attached to this, so you will have to talk to me in person to get the details. The highlight was when two dolphins came up behind you pushing your feet, while you keep your knees locked, and you end up flying in the air for a ways. Very fun. We also tried snorkeling which ended up being very unsuccessful. That everning was the first we heard about Hurricane Wilma because Jon's stepmom, Joan, called us to let us know. The hotel hadn't said a word. At this point the hurricane is 300 miles away from us.

Day Five: We are scheduled to leave for Tulum, on the mainland, at 8:30. As we are in the vans pulling away from the hotel they tell us the tour was cancelled-without really giving a clear explanation. We decided to go back to the room, turned on the TV, and heard the hurricane had been upgraded to a category 5 and was heading straight for us, 150 miles away. We immediately began attemps to call our airline to leave Cozumel. After trying to make a call for thirty minutes to no avail, we went downstairs to see if the travel agency within the hotel could help. While working with a man at the hotel the phone rang and, in typical Mexican custom, they helped the phone customer instead of the person(s) right infront of them. The man on the phone looks at us after talking with the person about 30 seconds and says, "I think the call might be for you." Shocked, I said "hello," and sure enough it was my mom. THIS IS WHERE IT TURNS INTO A TOTAL GOD THING.
1. My mom thought we were gone for the day to go to Tulum, so why would she even be trying to reach us?
2. What are the chances she would call right when we were downstairs and able to be reached?
3. What are the chances the call would be taken by the guy we were working with and he had enough insight to assume the call was for us?

Anyway, my mom informed she spoke with American Airlines and they had two seats left on a flight out that day (Wed) and did we want them? I told her YES and that we would be up in our room throwing our stuff in the suitcases and heading to the airport.

She called us back about an excruciating 20 minutes later and told us, indeed, the seats were ours for no additional fee (WAY TO GO, AMERICAN AIRLINES). We ended up being the last flight out of Cozumel before they closed the airport. We were so blessed. Praise the Lord.

For those who couldn't get out they were told they'd be transferred to other resorts in Cancun, still in the direct path of the hurricane. Jon and I just hope and pray the nice people we met who worked at the hotel and live in Cozumel, and can't afford to leave, are doing okay. When we left our hotel at noon the hotel had failed to issue any official statement to any of the guests. I mean some people were still sitting outside by the pool drinking pina coladas and had no clue what was going on. Meanwhile, other hotels on the island had issued a mandatory evacuation. What were they thinking?

We got back home late last night and are spending the last two days of our honeymoon here. I am so thankful to be safe and sound, but disappointed that our honeymoon was cut short. We are trying to relax and do fun things in the meantime.

P.S. I'm sure Jon will post about this on his website, www.hohle.net, and it will probably have pictures as well. You might want to check there for more information.

Favorite guilty pleasures

For those of you who know me, you know I have three TV shows I absolutely must watch each week. They are, in no particular order, The Amazing Race, Alias, and Lost. For some reason, however, this season all these shows have been lacking in my opinion.

Amazing Race-this season they have "family teams" consisting of 4 rather than 2 members. This makes it much more difficult to keep track of everyone. Plus, instead of globe trotting all over the world they have stayed only in the USA thus far. Come on! One of my favorite things about the show was scoping out foreign destinations I can only hope of visiting one day. So far the US sites they have visited are all places I have also been to, with one exception: Alabama. Here's hoping this US-only thing will soon change.

Alias-After they killed off Jennifer Garner's onscreen parter in non-crime/love interest, the show suddenly seems to have lost some of it's spark. I am a hopeless romantic and loved the tension between these two, and now, poof, Michael Vartan seems to be gone. Us Alias fanatics know he probably will reappear somewhere down the line, but it doesn't solve the problem of him missing from every episode for right now. Come on, people. Where's the love!

Lost-After two exciting episodes to begin the season, suddenly we have some very unanswered questions which don't seem to correlate with what we have been told about the island in the past. Plus, the episodes seem to be moving sooooo slowly. I can only hope things will pick up soon!

Honeymoon Approaching

Finally..after roughly 2.5 months of wedded bliss, Jon and I are leaving for our honeymoon in sunny (hopefully) Cozumel, Mexico on Saturday morning. I can hardly wait. It feels like I have been counting down the days forever and I am looking forward to doing nothing but whatever we want to do (basically meaning we can be as active or couch potatoie as possible).

We have already planned to swim with dolphins one of the days (which is also on my list of 50 things to do before I die), get as much *free* roomservice as possible, visit some Mayan ruins, and snorkel in the water. The water is supposed to be nice and temperate and crystal clear. Oh, writing this I am getting more and more excited. Most of all I can't wait to just have time to be with Jon and not worry about everyday work, errands, and other life things that always come up.

I'll have a blog about all the exciting events upon return.

Adult Life Manual

So I have a college undergrad degree, and in a few short months I can add a master's degree on top of that. You'd think I'd know some good ol' basic things to help make adult decisions/obstacles easier. Why aren't you taught in college/high school some basic life skills which would make some things SOOOO much easier? Examples include

1. Choosing a mortgage (terminology, how it works, etc)
2. Buying a house (same as above)
3. How to avoid and talk you way out of slimy car salesmen techniques
4. How to use basic tools (drummel, saw, hammer, etc) and do it well
5. How to change a tire
6. The ins and outs of investments (IRAs, 401K, annuity, etc)

Okay, so these are just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are TONS more. Having to refinance our house has just been the biggest pain in the patute, and if we would have known some basic stuff upfront, we would be saving outselves a lot of time, agony, and MONEY right now.

Feel free to add to the basic life manual table of contents. I'm sure it could get pretty long pretty quickly.

So happy it's Friday!