Carolina Beach

Normally when I head to the (east) coast, I go to Wrightsville Beach. This past weekend I decided to branch out to Carolina Beach, NC. I also hit some of my favorites spots in Downtown Wilmington, NC too. 

There was a little overcast and tad bit of showers, but still beautiful. 

Carolina Beach actually let's you drive 4-wheel drive vehicles and camp onthe beach.

Then when the rain started, I headed to DT Wilmington for some seafood! 

Bloodies at Elijah's

Leg & Tail platter at Dock a Street Oyster Bar. This place is one of my favorites. 

I'm glad I was able to make the quick day trip in between moving. I am still unpacking, but was able to get in a dip the other day.

Can we start the weekend over?

Turquoise Blue

Its nice living so close to the beach and ocean, but it has nothing on the shores of the Yucatan Peninsula. The turquoise blues and greens that I saw last week were amazing, along the white sandy beaches of Riviera Maya. Valentin Imperial Maya, the resort we stayed at, had such beautiful landscapes. 

I love all these pictures from the beach.

I had such a great time, but its nice to get home. I have to admit that I am already planning my next trip abroad for next year. I'm itching to get out of the country again and explore!

Aventuras Mayas

While in Riviera Maya, I did a snorkel tour. I've snorkeled in Hawaii and loved it. I've taken a greater liking to snorkeling compared to scuba diving. This tour gave us a little bit of everything, visiting three different ecosystems. The Aventuras Mayas consists of a cave, a cenote, and an inlet. 

The Cenote.

 I'm not a huge fan of zip lining because its really not a huge rush for me, but zipping into water was pretty fun.

Cliff-jumping. 

The Inlet.

If you are in Riviera Maya, I would highly recommend this snorkel tour. You get to experience a little bit of everything. 

Happy Wednesday! We are almost to the weekend...

Photo Credit: Aventuras Mayas Photographer and me.

If you like Pina Coladas...

My go-to drink of the trip was the piña colada, by the pool. Valentin Imperial Maya did things right by having two swim-up bars for easy access to cool drinks all day. 

They had a bar by the beach with swings too. The Moon Palace (Cancun, Mexico) actually had a swing-up bar, with swings around the whole thing. I suggest that every resort have these!!

VIM was absolutely gorgeous.

We had fun with a couple activities VIM offered. I made an appearance at the rifle shooting once. lol.

I didn't win, but it was fun. 

More from my trip on the blog tomorrow!

Riviera Maya

I headed down to Rivera Maya, Mexico last week and stayed at the Valentin Imperial Maya, which is an all-inclusive adults only resort. All-inclusive is the only way to go down there. I've been to the Moon Palace before in Cancun, Mexico and both were great experiences

The first morning I ran the beach. It was gorgeous, but very tiring. Running on sand is not the same as pavement or a track, thats for sure! One side of the resort's beach was rock and the other was for swimming from beach straight into water. These pictures were take around 6:30 am, so the sun was just starting to come up.

 This resort had six different restaurants to choose from each night, with buffets for breakfast and lunch. Don't get grossed out by the word "buffet." These are unlike any buffet you've ever been to. Beautiful presentation and amazing food. They had restaurants for all of the following cuisine: Mexican (of course!), French, Indian, Italian, Hibachi/Sushi, and a steak house. Each one was fabulous and presented in the most elegant way possible. 

Below is my favorite dessert from the French restaurant... Cannolis! I love them and these were a new twist on the cannolis I'm used to. 

 Part of the Hibachi dinner was an appetizer of sushi. They were the perfect size and delicious.

Knowing my sweet tooth, you can imagine that I got pastries, cake, and ice cream at each restaurant. My favorite pastry is the one below. It reminded me of a doughnut hole with powdered sugar on top. There was a light butter on the inside, but after sitting for a bit it turned into a boston cream filled doughnut taste or cream puff. Super light. I loved them so much, we asked for the name and recipe. However, it does not translate to english. 

You can't go wrong with mimosas at breakfast each day either...with this view.

Out of all the restaurants,  I would have to say that its a toss up between the Italian and French restaurants. I had filet mignon at the French and ravioli with beef medallions at the Italian. And as we know, I run on ravioli, so I was in heaven. They were delicious too. 

That is all for today, but I will share the rest of the resort and our snorkel adventure later this week! 

Best Kept Secrets

Once again I got my mind deep into a total page turner. I read the first book from my summer reading list in three days. It's not a small book at over 500 pages either! This book has a little bit of everything... Mystery, murder, romance, etc. Sandra Brown's Best Kept Secrets kept me reading to find out who killed Celina Gaither...

Twenty-five years ago, Celina Gaither was viciously murdered. Her daughter and successful attorney, Alexandra Gaither, stops at nothing to figure out who actually killed her mother when she was just a baby.  She now has the power to re-open the investigation that mysteriously came an abrupt halt many years ago. Although someone was already pointed to for the crime, he was never convicted or even brought to trial. Instead he was sent to a mental institution, ordered by the town judge.

Alex was raised by her grandmother who constantly drilled into her head that her mother was a saint. She raised and pushed her to be an attorney. Upon her grandmother's last breathe, she told Alex to find justice for her mother, Celina. And Grandma Graham pointed the finger at three, powerful men of Celina's past. Alex slowly unfolds the small, Texas town's Best Kept Secrets...

The Defining Decade

A great college friend of mine from UNI sent me this book entitled, The Defining Decade by Meg Jay, PhD. "Why your twenties matter and how to make the most of them now." I'm not one for books like this because I find them boring. Who likes reading about the generalizations of your age group? Or being told what to do, instead of being entertained? Not me. However, I turned a new leaf and tried to be more open minded to try things I normally wouldn't. 

What I learned from The Defining Decade is that your 20's are about developing a plan for the future and taking steps to reach those goals. Many twenty-somethings feel that after college they have all the time in the world to do what they want with their lives and don't think about the consequences of not making decisions for the future. By not having some sort of plan in place and working towards it, the consequences are far greater than you may think. So, if you are planning on going back to school or being "successful" in whatever profession you desire, lay out the steps needed to achieve it. Its much easier to accomplish goals when it can be broken down, rather than being intimidated by the vastness of it.

Jay uses her sessions with people of all ages to illustrate situations in real life that people struggle with. Finding a job, dealing with a challenging work environment, choosing a career, figuring out if they are in the right relationship, deciding on when to have children, etc. 

Did you know that more than three-quarters of new jobs come from leads through contacts who are only seen occasionally? Jay describes the power of weak ties throughout our lives and careers. Very interesting to read about. 

One main concept that Jay continues to circle back to is time. It's probably one of the most precious things that we have and it's our job to make things happen. Before you know it ten years has gone by and you may ask yourself, "where did it go?" 

I know this is all easier said than done, but I think that this book could really help a struggling twenty-something figure things out and ask themselves these key questions. I think it's even a good read for any twenty-something because it's reassurance that you are on the right track and to keep making decisions that push you towards the life you want to live. 

If you get the chance to read The Defining Decade, let me know what you think because I enjoy hearing different perspectives on it. Happy reading!