I had a vacation buddy for several years. I think I took her for granted and now she is gone (married). My vacation buddy and I had several adventures. We went on a tour of Spain and a tour of Italy. We went twice to Mexico - once to Cancun and once to Playa del Carmen. We went to Chicago, we went to Charleston...*sigh*...I miss my vacation buddy.
Ever since our last jaunt to Mexico, I've been wanting to go back. We stayed at the Riu Palace Riviera Maya and had a wonderful time! It was a beautiful resort.
The next year, I did my research and found another resort I wanted to vacation at the next time I went to Playa del Carmen. It's called Valentin Imperial Maya. All I needed was a new travel buddy to make it happen.
Flash forward to Amy. Do y'all know how I met her? It's kinda funny. I posted a Craig's List ad looking for a workout buddy in July '08. I didn't get a single response for the longest time until one day, over a week after I posted it, Amy answered the ad. The first time we were actually supposed to meet at the gym, she stood me up. If memory serves me correctly, I got there and just headed to the elliptical and started working out expecting her to show up at any moment. She apparently got there and sat in her car waiting for me, only I was already inside. I think she tried texting me, but I didn't bring my phone in with me, so I didn't get it until after I finished my workout, long after Amy gave up and went home. Throughout the months, we did workout some, but we became much more famous for our Tuesday night get-togethers. Amy would come over to watch The Biggest Loser and I would make us some kind of healthy meal. She moved to the other side of town several months ago, so we haven't been able to do our Tuesdays due to horrid, wretched Houston traffic, but we still do meet up for meals at least twice a month!
Amy and I have been talking about doing the whole all inclusive thing down in Mexico for many many months. She loved the resort I picked out and we decided to do a 5 day / 4 night stay. We just had to pick out the dates - a bit tricky of a task considering I have to work around my dad's schedule since we can't really be gone at the same time. I finally got clearance from him for some specific dates and so Amy had to go to her boss to get the okay and then we were set.
Two weeks ago this was all going down...until out of the blue I got an email from Amy's boss asking me to call her cell phone and that it was very important and that I needed to keep it a secret. This made me very nervous and very uncomfortable. I knew that they had done some lay-offs recently at Amy's work, so I irrationally feared that they were not done and her boss was going to tell me not to book the trip because Amy shouldn't be spending the money because she was being lopped off next. Um...yeah...I have a crazy imagination sometimes. It turns out that Amy was to be named the Admin of the Year for her company! This would be impressive under any circumstances for anyone to receive such honors, but it's especially impressive considering Amy has only been working at her company for one year! Turns out the award recipient gets an all expense paid trip for two to the Iberostar Paraiso del Mar all-inclusive resort in
So, here we are two weeks later and Amy has accepted her award and has informed me she is taking me as her vacation buddy (I was hoping, but I didn't want to assume)! We have decided to add an extra day, so our only expense will be the extra day.
It looks like my Valentin Imperial Maya will be shelved for another year or two, but that's okay because vacation planning is ONLY one of my favorite things to do!
**Update: The extra day is costing us a grand total of $191.50 per person AND a shuttle to and fro the airport is included, so we have decided we owe ourselves a pampering at the spa while we are there! My Amy is awesome! =)
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