December 2015 | Ditching Normal

Library z-lib

Top 15 from 2015

December 30, 2015

Being that it’s New Years Eve, Eve…we thought it would be appropriate to look back on some of our more memorable experiences from 2015. We narrowed it down to 15 simply because “Top 15 from 2015” sounded kinda cool. In 2015, among other things, we watched some sausages race each other, hung out at a waterfall, walked 100 stories over a city, dropped it like it’s hot, and participated in a very important ceremony 😉

When we were putting this post together, we were a little intimidated with trying to figure out a way to make 2016 live up to the year we just had, but that’s a problem we look forward to dealing with. We have been so fortunate and blessed to have had the chance to experience so many amazing events in just 12 short months.

Here are our top 15 for 2015. Hopefully you won’t be surprised with what landed at #1…

15. Brewers vs Cardinals (Milwaukee)

Our seats at Miller Park were AMAZING! It also didn’t hurt that the home team (and underdog) won! Not much better than a sun-filled day at a stadium eating hot dogs and nachos. Mat was super excited to see the mascot go down the slide after a home run. We also got to see the famous racing sausages in the 7th inning stretch!

The Sausages ran right by us!

14. Halloween

For being last minute outfits, we loved how they turned out! Not to mention we got to hang with our closest friends and have an epic dance party. Don’t play Rhi Rhi unless you want Lacey to put on her own concert. Our friends had some epic costumes as well. There was a seductively creepy Bob Ross, Wayne & Garth, Ace Ventura, and some Minions.

13. Christmas Snowboarding

Santa (Mat) successfully hid a snowboard under the tree for Lacey to find Christmas morning. After a couple cups of coffee in our pajamas, we headed up to Bogus Basin for a half day of snowboarding. There was plenty of snow and plenty of room for us to hit jumps, eat shit, wipe the snow off our heads and do it again!

12. Collie Buddz (Phoenix)

On our way home from Cabo during Thanksgiving week, we had an overnight layover in Phoenix. It turns out this was a blessing in disguise because Collie Buddz was performing that same night! Collie Buddz is one of our favorite Reggae/Hip-hop artists and he sings the song (Gimme Love) that we used as our first dance song at our wedding reception.

11. Michael Franti (Boise)

Another of our favorite musicians came to town this summer to perform at the beautiful Botanical Gardens. This super high energy show was one that left us reminded of what’s truly important in life. …enjoying each other, loving each other, and having an awesome time while doing it! Michael Franti is the artist behind the song “Life is Better with You“, which became the theme of our wedding in Cabo. #LifeIsBetterWithYou!!!

10. Snoop Dogg (Boise)

I think we were both very surprised that this concert made our top 15. We both knew the concert would be fun, but had no idea just how much fun we would have. It was a blast! Mat rapped every line of every song, taking him back to the age of 13 when he used to listen to Snoop religiously AND Lace booty popped and c-walked to the sick rhymes Mat was bustin’. Toss in a couple of good friends and this results in the #10 best experience of the year!

9. Water Slide Birthday Party (Hagerman)

Lacey’s family were the creative minds behind this awesome idea. We pulled up to their house to find a GIGANTIC bouncy castle-like water slide set up in their back yard. The day resulted in tons of (sketchy at times) fun for us and everyone else that attended. You can check out the full details along with the video in a previous post here.

8. Jump Creek Falls (Marsing)

Jump Creek is a hidden gem about an hour away from where we live and we had no idea it was there until this summer! This waterfall destination ended up being quite spectacular, much to our surprise. Read more about this day trip here.

7. Luke Bryan (Boise)

It is going to be hard to top this concert. Everything just fell into place for us to see Luke Bryan. When the tickets first went on sale they sold out before we could grab any. Mat was able to purchase floor tickets just weeks before the concert was in town, which worked out way better than our original plan. We had margaritas at home before riding our bikes to Taco Bell Arena and rocking out just feet away from the stage.

6. Bachelorette Party (Portland)

Lacey got to experience Portland for the first time while attending a friend’s bachelorette party and had an absolute blast! They stayed right downtown at Hotel Modera, shopped at Nordstrom (obviously), ate to their hearts’ content at the many food trucks and danced the night away at Holocene. Finding a dance club in Portland was difficult, but they knew it was “their spot” when they walked in and Rhianna’s “B**** Betta Have My Money” was playing. On a classier note, the girls even had a fancy dinner at Departure which sits on top of The Nines Hotel.

5. Willis Tower (Chicago)

Chicago quickly became a favorite city of Mat’s following his visit this summer. While Gino’s East had delicious pizza and the baseball game at Wrigley Field was amazing…nothing will top the experience from the top of the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower). Standing in the glass box looking down 100+ stories will make for a life long memory. The full details of this trip can be found in a previous post here.

view from the Skydeck Ledge in the Willis Tower, Chicago | DitchingNormal

The Skydeck “Ledge” was an experience I’ll never forget. 103 stories down.

4. San Francisco Weekend Getaway (September)

We fit in so many experiences in the long weekend that we were in San Francisco. This city holds a special place for us because it is where we met nine years ago (exactly nine in a few weeks!). We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge and hiked in Muir Woods. We had breakfast at The Mill then hung out in Alamo Square Park like the Tanners. One of the most amazing experiences of the weekend was drinking cocktails while looking at the views of the city from the 39th floor of The View Lounge. Our last morning we sipped coffee at the hidden rooftop garden of the One Kearny building. You can read all about our San Francisco trip in this post and this post.

3. Thanksgiving (Cabo San Lucas)

Our highly-anticipated vacation to an all-inclusive resort in Cabo fully lived up to our expectations. This week was packed full of food and delicious pina colladas. The gorgeous weather and surroundings definitely accounted for one of the most memorable weeks of our year. Read a recap of it here.

2. Make the (wedding) Cake Party (Cabo San Lucas)

On the eve of our wedding, our friends and family gathered in the kitchen of our villa to help us make our second most memorable event of the year….and our wedding cake. That’s right, our closest friends and family helped us make our wedding cake the night before our ceremony. Talk about special! This also ended up being a little rowdy because some tequila and flash tattoos were involved. It was such an amazing feeling to have everyone that we loved and loved us be involved in this intimate activity. Mat was the mastermind behind this idea and it was a huge success. Read all about it here.

1.Wedding Ceremony (Cabo San Lucas)

A very special group of family and friends gathered in a white domed gazebo in the Pedregal Hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean. One of our best friends officiated the ceremony and many of our family and friends shared stories, advice, and loving words with us. Lacey’s father wrote and recited a blessing over our marriage while our guests stood around us. We couldn’t have asked for a more intimate, heart felt, personal, and beautiful wedding ceremony. This is undoubtedly our #1 experience of 2015…and likely of our lives.

Needless to say, it’s going to be hard to top the year that we have had, because it’s not every year you get to marry your best friend. 2015, you rocked our socks!

We are so excited for what experiences lay ahead for us and look forward to continue simplifying our life to make room for what is important: making memories with family and friends. And of course traveling as much as possible.

Happy New Year to all of you!

Bring it, 2016!

6 Peeps liked this so far.

2 Comments

Reviews

JUMP Center Boise. Still Confusing.

December 27, 2015

Last weekend, we attended one of the open houses that the JUMP Center was holding for the public. We have been excited about this project in downtown Boise for many reasons. We are always excited to see new additions to our little city, but this was especially exciting because the JUMP Center is our new neighbor!

We have been keeping up with this new development since it’s early stages and admittedly were a little confused on the concept of the building from what we had read. Well, since attending the open house, we’re now even more confused. Perhaps it is my total lack of right brained-ness (I worked at a private art school for years-I’m used to not understanding my creative counterparts), but even Mat who is creative had a hard time figuring out what our community would do with this building.

Let’s start with the first floor.

Level 1-Kitchen Studio

The kitchen was very pretty and open to the rest of the floor. I’m assuming cooking classes will be held here, which I can get on board with. There was a giant, odd shaped booth near the kitchen. Does this mean it will also act as a restaurant where patrons can order food? If not, the booth makes zero sense. Maybe you could host an event in the main floor and have your caterer utilize the kitchen? I’m not sure what the constrains are on renting out the JUMP Center. Moving onto Level 3 (yep, no Level 2, because that makes sense).

Level 3-The Garden Terrace

I’m wondering if the designers of this building had Idaho’s climate confused with that of Southern California’s. I would guess about 60-70% of the building is uncovered. Realistically, how many months out of the year can we use outdoor seating/space in this area? I think saying four months a year is generous. The entire third level is an outside terrace, which, don’t get me wrong, will have beautiful views of the urban garden and downtown sights once it’s complete, but how often will it actually get used?

Level 4-Multimedia Studio & Inspiration Studio

The fourth floor consisted of two tiny boxed in rooms. The rest of it was, you guessed it, outside and uncovered. Each room was probably 600 square feet. The Multimedia Studio at least had some sound equipment that could be rented out, but the Inspiration Studio was just a room of windows. Again, the views are great, but what will the room be used for by people of our community?

Level 5-Movement Studio, Maker’s Studio & JUMP Room

I enjoyed walking through the Movement Studio (aka a dance studio with huge windows) because I was able to watch a student and a teacher that I had worked with at the previously mentioned arts school. I have always loved watching any type of dancing and I enjoyed getting to watch the open workshop they were putting on for the open house. The dance studio looked gorgeous with all of the windows, and I’m hoping I can talk Mat into taking some classes in the future!

The Maker’s Studio was quite small, but included my favorite volunteer that we ran into that day, so that helped my take on this part of the center. He seemed so enthusiastic about what this room offered, that it was hard to not feel his excitement. The Maker’s Studio included a 3D printer, which still blows my mind how those things work. I was confused on how the public could use the 3D printer however, since I know how expensive and complicated they can be to run. It must be something you have to schedule and pay for, but that is still unclear.

The JUMP Room was essentially a large open room that could be used for a variety of events I assume. The informational sheet they gave us stated that it was “designed with flexibility in mind…a space of endless possibilities; from indoor winter markets to community art installations.” I was expecting the rest of the JUMP Center to consist of more spaces like the JUMP Room.

Level 6-Pioneer Room and Vintage Tractors & Steam Engines

The Pioneer Room was my absolute favorite. Perhaps that is because they had several performers set up in this room for the open house, including another old co-worker performing aerial silks, which was phenomenal. This was another very large open room with gorgeous views. The info sheet stated it is an “ideal space for inspirational speakers, performances, fundraiser, and other special events.”

To be honest, I didn’t spend much time looking at the vintage tractors or steam engines. It’s December in Idaho, so I spent as little time outside as possible. I was also a little bummed that the five story slide isn’t open yet. Yes, I realize I’m not 12, but I’m probably more excited to try out the slide than most 12 year-olds.

To sum up, we are excited for this addition in downtown Boise, but we are still pretty confused how we will use 90% of it. We do know that once the urban garden is complete we will at least walk through it as a short cut to BoDo, but other than that, we will have to wait and see.

Let us know what you think about the Boise JUMP Center!

5 Peeps liked this so far.

2 Comments

Rewards Points Travel

Big Trip Booked with Points!

December 23, 2015

You might remember from a previous post that Lacey and I have been stacking credit card rewards points for about 8 months with the original end goal being a free trip to Moorea, Tahiti. Well…we changed our minds. I know, I know, changing your mind this late in the points planning process isn’t usually a good idea, but when you hear about the trip we just booked, you may understand.

Before I get into the details of the trip, I want to tell you what caused us to switch the game plan and put Tahiti on hold. After 8 months of strategic reward points earning, we had a total of 160,000 American Airlines points and 250k Hilton Honors points along with 4 weekend night certificates. Pretty solid pile we accumulated right? We would’ve needed to double that amount before we’d be able to get the trip we wanted to Tahiti. Kind of a defeating thought at first.

Lacey and I started thinking more about whether or not the Tahiti trip was actually worth all of the points and additional fees it would take to stay at an over-the-water bungalo at the Hilton Moorea. Yes, this would likely be one of the most beautiful beach vacations you could take, but that’s ALL the trip would be…a beach vacation. You would check in to your hotel and spend a week lounging/swimming/relaxing. Don’t get me wrong, we LOVE vacations like that, but we just had a vacation like that in Cabo over Thanksgiving. We’re kinda jonesing for a more action packed vacation now.

I often break vacations down into 2 categories:

Do nothing vacation – lay on your ass all day, eat tons of food, sleep way too much…usually involves a beach.
Do stuff vacation – action packed days full of museums, landmarks, concerts, sporting events, and general site seeing.

Last week we definitely booked a “do stuff vacation” …at a HUGE discount with our points.
We’re doing 5 cities in 2 weeks. New York, Florence, Rome, Malta, and Chicago. There’s definitely enough to keep us busy each and every day of this trip.

So here are the details:
We are flying to New York City for 2 days. We’re staying at the luxurious Waldorf Astoria on Park Ave for free with our Hilton weekend night certificates. The plan is to try and catch either a Broadway show or a Yankee’s game (the Red Sox will be in town!), or hopefully both. In addition, we have some general walking around/site seeing to do…not to mention some excellent pizza to eat!

From New York, we’ll head to Florence, Italy for 3 days. We’re planning on visiting the Duomo, seeing the David, and likely doing a wine tour in Tuscany. We’re still working on booking a small apartment in downtown Florence (out of pocket) for this trip. Florence is a beautiful, romantic, and mellow city when compared to some of the other major Italian cities. We can’t wait! …not to mention, they’ll be some excellent pizza to eat.

After Florence, we’ll hop on a train to Rome where we’re going to spend 2 days. Most of our time will likely be spent around Vatican City since we didn’t get to see St. Peter’s on our last trip. The Italian Open will be going on and we’re going to do our best to catch a session. Maybe we’ll see the Williams sisters throw down. We tried to book a free stay at the glamorous Rome Cavellari with 2 more of our weekend certificates, but unfortunately the hotel is fully booked. We’re going to pay out of pocket for a cool little B&B we’ve stayed at previously. Rome is by far the most historic place we’ve been lucky enough to visit. We’re really excited to head back…not to mention, there should be some good pizza to eat.

Then we’re off to Malta for 5 days. Malta is a beautiful, small, island below Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea. If you’re a Game of Thrones fan, you have likely seen some imagery of Malta as numerous scenes were shot there. One of the more recognizable landmarks is the Azure Window. We booked (with points) 5 nights at the Hilton in Malta. We’re super excited to explore this island…not to mention, find out what kind of pizza they have there.

the famous Azure Window (arch) shown in the background

Finally, we’ll make our way back to Chicago for a couple of days where we’ll be using 2 more weekend night certificates to stay at the historic Palmer House on Monroe St. Chicago is one of my most favorite cities of all time. I am really excited for Lacey to finally experience this city. This is going to be a great place to wrap up our vacation with museums and site seeing…not to mention, there will be some great pizza to eat. We’re coming for you Gino’s East!

So now, the main event.

How much would this trip have cost if we paid for everything on our own? $10,284

How much are we paying for this trip? $1390 total ($695 each)

Since we used points to book the majority of the trip, all that was left to pay for was:
1 one-way flight home from Chicago.
2 round trip flights Rome to Malta
5 nights of hotels (Rome/Florence)
Taxes on our free flights

We are getting an 86% discount on this trip by using our rewards points. We saved about $8,900. You might be in disbelief, and so was I, but I looked up the exact cost of the same flights and same hotels for the dates we were traveling…and that was the exact cost of the trip. Yikes!

Our 8 months of the points planning and strategizing seems to be paying off!

All this being said, we still had 100k Hilton points left over after booking this trip. We could have used these points to stay for free in Florence, but the Hilton properties there don’t look all that cool. We opted to pay out of pocket for what should be a better experience at local B&B’s.

*side note, we ended up using those remaining 100k points to book 3 nights at a suite in Houston for our upcoming trip to see the Final Four. This saved us about $950.

To wrap it up, we’re stoked for our upcoming trip! We still hope to make it to Tahiti one day, but are more than fine with putting it on pause for now…especially for a trip like this!

Below are the cards that gave us the bonus rewards to help make this trip happen:
American Airlines – AAdvantage card
Citi – ThankYou Premier Card
Hilton – Reserve Card
Hilton – Signature Card

Let me know if you have any questions!

6 Peeps liked this so far.

8 Comments

Lifestyle Reviews

Hair Recovery Step 1

December 19, 2015

I wanted to write a follow up to my Graeber review to update you all on the hair situation. As a reminder, I was a redhead for 28 years, I had a terrible experience at a salon in downtown Boise and walked out a very, very dark brunette. Check out this post for the specifics of that nightmare.

The co-owner of Graeber Salon, Shelby, reached out to me after reading about my last experience and wanted to try and make it right. I very much appreciated her reaching out, but was very hesitant to go back in, for a variety of reasons. Shelby was extremely kind and refunded me in full for my last appointment, sent a gift certificate to replace my ruined jeans and offered me a complimentary hair fix as well as an additional $100 on my account to spend at Graeber on future hair appointments. I was very grateful for the length that she went to in order to rectify my previous experience. She even sent a handwritten card on Graeber stationary! I’m a sucker for hand-written cards, so I decided to give the salon another chance. Shelby set up my appointment with one of their veteran stylists, Amy, for a Saturday afternoon.

I was equal parts dreading the appointment and ecstatic for it. Dreading it because I didn’t want a similar experience as last time, or worse, awkward because of my last experience. Ecstatic because I was absolutely desperate to fix my hair. I hated it.

The Saturday of my appointment I arrived to another bustling day at Graeber; the front room was just as crowded as the last time I was there. The front desk girls were just as kind and bubbly, even apologizing that there was no room on the waiting bench. The first pleasant surprise of the day was when a super happy girl, Hailey, came out to introduce herself as Amy’s assistant. That’s right-an assistant! I felt relieved as soon as I met her, because I assumed this meant I wouldn’t be sitting on a wall somewhere with color in my hair for over an hour as my stylist did another guest’s hair. Plus, she was so bubbly and happy to be there that it was hard not to be happy around her.

The second pleasant surprise was when Hailey took me over to Amy’s station. Her chair is in the very front corner of the salon and is MUCH more private and a little larger than the other stations. It has the feel of a one-on-one appointment, rather than sitting in the middle of a giant warehouse. I’m sure everyone has their preferences, and mine is NOT to be in the middle of a giant, busy room so everyone can see you. I absolutely loved that Amy’s station was private-it almost felt like she had her own mini-salon. After my first appointment at Graeber I thought I had decided I wasn’t a “hair salon” type girl, but sitting in Amy’s station didn’t feel near as much like I was in a salon, even with how busy it was that day.

Once sitting down in Amy’s chair and talking about what our options/next steps were for my hair, I felt much more at ease. I was immediately drawn to Amy and Hailey and felt our personalities meshed well. The pleasant surprises continued when, before starting on my hair, Amy had Hailey take me into a room to change out of the sweater that I was wearing. I changed into a cape-shirt. That’s not actually the name of what I changed into I’m sure, but that’s what I call it because it was a cross between a stylist’s cape and a shirt. I didn’t even know this was an option, but I’m sure glad they let me wear it! I was much more comfortable wearing the cape-shirt and I knew my sweater was safe from getting dye on it hanging up in the closest.

I went back and sat down at Amy’s station where she then put on an actual cape-double protection from the scary dye! Hailey was very attentive throughout the entire appointment readjusting the cape to ensure it was always covering my pants. Probably one of my most favorite things about the appointment (other than getting to spend several hours getting to know two amazing ladies) was Hailey offering to give me a hand massage while Amy was putting the lifter in my hair! It was SUCH a nice addition to the appointment. Plus-it’s a great way for them to advertise different Aveda lotions. 🙂

Since my hair was so dark from my last appointment (even though it had lightened quite a bit from our Cabo trip) we didn’t have a lot of options. Plus my hair was already damaged from the last dye job, so Amy had to be careful and limit breakage around my face, since that’s where the hair was darkest. In four hours they applied a color lifter, washed the lifter out, dried my hair, applied some lighter red/caramel blonde color, washed that out, applied a gloss, and each time using nourishing shampoo and conditioner. Amy also had to cut about three inches of length off, which I was sad about, but my hair feels healthier now. The color is still a little more brown in places than I would like, but it’s SO much better and in most lights I look like a redhead again! I’m impressed with what she did in just one appointment, but I’m also anxious for my next appointment and to continue to get rid of all traces of the brown color. The darkest spots are right around my face and underneath, so you can mostly only see this when I wear my hair back.

In summary, Amy and Hailey were both so wonderful, I can’t say enough good things about them. And I especially loved Amy’s station. Perhaps I could be a “salon type” girl. 😉

I apologize for the poor quality and lighting, but here is a little reminder of the drastic change my poor hair went through the last time at Graeber.

Current hair!

5 Peeps liked this so far.

2 Comments

Lifestyle

Christmas Reminders

December 17, 2015

When you think about Christmas, and the weeks leading up to Christmas, what do you think about? Is your first thought “shit, I still gotta get my Christmas shopping done”? Are you stressing about your budget? Are you worried you can’t afford to get your kid that new PlayStation they’ve been whining about? Are the majority of your thoughts related to money and how much you’re going to have to spend?

My first thought when somebody mentions this holiday is “What happened to Christmas?” I thought this was supposed to be about spending time with family and friends…not about resenting the fact that you have to break the bank to buy them sweaters and other meaningless shit.

How ridiculous has holiday shopping become? Black Friday now starts in the middle of the day on Thanksgiving Thursday (which now means 2 holidays are being ruined). It’s to the point now where people literally fight each other in stores to spend money. I’ll repeat that one. People are FIGHTING each other to spend money in stores for this holiday. I picture a room full of department store execs laughing their asses off at this fact while they warm themselves by a fire kindled with stacks of $100 bills. “Cheers to the morons,” they must be saying.

Think about what you really want this holiday to be about. Think about what it SHOULD be about.

I’m going to throw out a couple, rather obvious, ideas at you. Maybe “reminders” would be a better way to put it, since these are all things that you have likely done before, but like most of us, you have probably forgotten about in the midst of your most recent Black Friday fist fight.

Take trip
- pool some money together with friends/family and rent a cabin.
- jump on a flight to some place warm

Have a family dinner/movie/game night
- invite people over to help cook. Get some wine going!
- after dessert start up one of your favorite x-mas movies
- throw down some board games or Catch Phrase, charades, Apples to Apples etc.

Host a themed party
- ugly sweater party (kinda over done, but still fun)
- National Lampoons Christmas Vacation themed party (invented by me)
  - get those Cousin Eddy costumes ready!

Get tickets to a live event.
- there are typically plenty of live events/plays/musicals during this time of year
- local planetariums usually offer a “Christmas Star” show. These are actually really cool.

Spend the day being active (outside if possible)
- skiing/snowboarding/snowshoeing/ice skating
- get outside build a snowman, chuck a snowball at your least favorite relative

Take a family sleigh ride
Get professional family photos done with your family (maybe purposefully wear funny outfits?)
Drive around looking at Christmas lights

What ever it is you chose to do, please make sure it’s meaningful to you. Don’t let another Christmas slip by with the result being you pissed off and broke. Reevaluate what it is that you want to experience over the holidays and make it happen!

List any additional ideas if you have some!

Merry Christmas!

4 Peeps liked this so far.

2 Comments

Lifestyle Travel

Adios Thanksgiving!

December 9, 2015

This year, Lacey and I decided to go a different route for Thanksgiving. Instead of sticking around our home town of Boise, and freezing our asses off, we decided to leave the country and hit the beach for some R & R. Being that we’re always ballin’ on a budget, we decided to go the very affordable, all-inclusive, Solmar Resort in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. This place is insanely cheap. From Boise (and I imagine most other cities) you can book a full week of all you can eat and drink (including booze) for about $1100 per person. That price includes flight. Yeah…insane. Anyhow, Lacey did a full review on the resort here if anyone is thinking about checking it out.

So this trip couldn’t have come at a better time for Lacey and I. The weather had been getting colder in Boise, work had been going through a stressful patch, and we hadn’t been on a “do nothing” vacation in a LONG time. We very much needed it.

My goals for this vacation were as such:

Sleep 8-10hrs a night
CRUSH food throughout the day
Drink 6-8 Pina Coladas per day (sometimes substituted with a different fruity beach drink)
Nap by the pool for 1-2 hrs a day
Take a lazy 15 min. stroll on the beach at some point in the day (you know…gotta stay in shape and all)
Hammer an enormous dinner and a variety of desserts
Watch the sunset
Repeat steps 1-7

We absolutely nailed these goals each and every day we were in Cabo. Not gonna lie, it actually got pretty hard to keep up with this pace by the time we got to day 6. I was feeling like an about to explode balloon. ….but yet, I still powered through the last couple of meals even though I was nowhere near hungry.

Throughout the week, we saw some amazing sunrises and sunsets. We caught a private boat to the famous Lover’s Arch. We ate some amazing food…and some that wasn’t so amazing. We set and broke our own records for blended drink consumption on a daily basis. The main highlight, however, might have been the super awkward Thanksgiving buffet hosted by the Solmar Resort.

I still want to say thank you to the Solmar for going out of their way to cater towards us chubby Americans on our (eat-your-face-off) holiday. They put together a solid spread of typical Thanksgiving foods. There were performers playing what was seemingly a selection of Selena’s greatest hits throughout the evening…which Lacey loved. I think the main thing that made this dinner awkward was the fact that there were only about 6 people there to enjoy it. The restaurant is giant, so it seemed even emptier than it probably was. When the performers finished a song, there was definitely a shortage of claps trying to fill the silence between songs. Lacey and I were actually kind of dressed up, while the other 6 people in the restaurant were dressed as if headed to a Cousin Eddy look-a-like contest. There was one 85ish year old lady rockin’ a Tony Romo Dallas Cowboys jersey, so I’ll give her some credit for at least wearing sleeves to the restaurant. If you watch the vid at the bottom of the post, you’ll get the overall vibe. AWK-WARD

Lacey and I had fun in Cabo, no surprise there, but would likely subtract a day or 2 from the trip next time.

We left Cabo on a Saturday afternoon and headed for Phoenix to catch a Collie Buddz (reggae) concert. I’m guessing most of you aren’t familiar with him, but he’s really special to Lacey and I. We first discovered him years ago on our very first vacation together in Hawaii. Fast forward to last spring when we used one of his songs as our first dance song at our wedding. All that being said, we were both really excited to see him in concert. …we ended up being in the very front row. It was awesome! Check the vid on our instagram if you wanna see me killin’ it.

All and all…this was the best Thanksgiving of my life thus far. I couldn’t be more thankful that I have a smokin’ hot and hilarious wife to spend it with. We hope you all had a great holiday week as well!

…I’m not sure how X-mas is going to compete with this. Ha.

Additional good news, we put this entire vacation on our Citi ThankYou card and reached the 50k bonus point offer with these expenses. These 50k points are going to transfer to the Hilton rewards program at a 1:2 ratio. So thanks to Cabo…we’re getting 100k more points to use for some free nights at a Hilton during our next vacation!

5 Peeps liked this so far.

Reviews Travel

Solmar Resort Review – Cabo

December 1, 2015

For Thanksgiving week we decided to ditch the normal cold weather and turkey tradition for getting a tan on the beach in Mexico! Yep, we are totally that couple from the movie Four Christmases. Except we were honest with our families what we were doing.

We decided to stay at the Solmar Resort for a number of reasons. 1. Affordability 2. Familiarity (several of the guests at our wedding stayed there) and 3. They offered an all-inclusive package.

Mat was especially excited about the all-inclusive, because that is the one part about travel that he struggles with-always being hungry. Well, I can assure you, that definitely didn’t happen this trip.

We got in pretty late at night, so all of the restaurants on the resort were closed, which meant we had to order room service for our first dinner. We found out that room service wasn’t included in the all-inclusive package. Bummer. But we found out that because we had the all-inclusive, we did get a 25% discount on room service. Not as bummed now.

I was so exhausted from traveling that I honestly don’t remember the first meal that night from room service. Is there such a thing as sleep eating? If so, that’s what I did.

We woke up refreshed on our first morning and were psyched to finally be on vacation! We of course went straight to breakfast. For my first meal, I had basically an ice cream cone with two mimosas. Not a bad start. The meal I ordered was actually waffles with a side of ice cream, but since they didn’t bring us syrup, I put the ice cream on top of the waffles. Basically a waffle cone.

It took us a couple of days to figure out which meals we liked and which we didn’t. By the end of the week, we were getting the same thing for breakfast and dinner each day. Lunch and mid-day snacks (hey, you can’t expect us to eat only three times a day at an all-inclusive) were a little trickier. We never did quite find anything that we liked well enough to order it again.

We aren’t going to lie, the food isn’t fantastic, but it’s not terrible either. And it’s available anytime between 6 a.m.-10 p.m.

We didn’t try too many different drinks either. Similar to the meals, once we found something we liked, we stuck with it. We had so many pina colladas and mimosas that I think I lost count.

I was impressed that they had fresh juice-but only two kinds: green and orange. And that was seriously the name of the juice. Green Juice. I’m still not sure what was in it (we think kiwis and cucumbers) but I really liked it. It was fresh and sweet at the same time.

The staff of the Solmar were all very friendly. We of course had a favorite waiter, Emmanuel. I’m not sure if we loved him because he was polite and attentive or because we saw him accidentally whack an annoying lady in the head with an umbrella. Either way, he was our favorite. We also loved one lady in particular out by the pool. I especially loved her because she told me that having children was like having a nightmare that lasts forever and you never get to wake up. We laughed so hard! I appreciate the honesty, Irene.

They of course had one “Activities Leader” that, well, led the activities. The resort offered daily Spanish lessons, water aerobics, bracelet making, board games, casino, etc. At the beginning of the week I was very excited and motivated to participate in all of the activities. But as the week drug on, I just wanted to lay in the sun and have Irene bring another round of pina colladas.

The day that there was a “tropical storm” (it was just rainy and windy-not deserving a tropical storm category) I did make a bracelet. The Activities Leader was very kind and attentive to all the guests. He helped me make a bracelet and gave Mat a “special drink” for winning some silly guessing game (guessing how many pages were in a book the activity leader was holding). I call it silly because I didn’t win. Mat now thinks he is a local legend, “El Mateo-Counter of Pages”.

The day it rained I also decided to try out one of the resort’s spa services. Since we had the all-inclusive package, that meant we got an extra free 30 min if we booked a massage. I of course booked a massage. The prices were ok, I guess, depending on what you are used to and what your expectations are. I got a 90 minute massage for $100. That seems pricey because you can get massages in town for $20 (or so I have heard). However I wasn’t in the mood to go traipsing around downtown Cabo looking for a place across the street from a bar called The Laughing Donkey. I also didn’t feel like being uncomfortable/unsafe during my massage, so I chose the lazy/more safe/more expensive option.

The massages are given in these adorable little huts made of what look like twigs at the end of the property line for the resort, looking out over the ocean. Sounds amazing and relaxing right? Well, yes and no. It is amazing if there is nobody on the beach and nobody in the resort hot tub, which is located right beside the huts. Lucky for me, it was raining so there weren’t many people on the beach or in the hot tub, so it was actually nice. The massage itself was fairly standard to other massages I have had in the states. Other than the whole armpit massage thing. And the ringing of some chimes. But other than that, pretty standard.

Overall, we enjoyed our vacation, but decided that maybe five days, not seven, of all-inclusive would have been sufficient.

See our ratings below, based on our four lemon scale:

Room/Grounds –