On Monday Abe signed us up for a marine safari. One of the reasons Abe loves Q club trips so much is that everything, from the resort to the food to the outings, is free. More is more, in his book, and so he loved the idea of adding another free item onto our agenda.
In the back of his mind, he and I both knew I got seasick, but he’s never witnessed this full-blown phenomenon in our marriage yet, and so I think he thought I’d be able to handle this. (The alternative outing was four-wheeling through the Mexican jungle, and he knew I would not be a fan of that, so marine safari it was.)
We started off the day with a lovely breakfast, which I fully enjoyed even though I knew I would probably be tasting it again shortly. We took a little boat out to a bigger boat. I forget what it was called, but it was some sort of smaller luxury vessel.
That ended up not mattering at all because the sea was so choppy, and I couldn’t enjoy anything after ten minutes. I started throwing up and didn’t stop for an hour. By that time, I couldn’t even open my eyes or talk at all. Abe, after taking sloshing bowls of puke to the bathroom time after time after time, was starting to go pale and feel a little queasy himself.
That’s when Valerie, one of the Qualtrics wives, came in and swooped to the rescue. She put ice on my neck and cleaned my vomit for the next half an hour while the boat turned around and headed back for the littler boat that took us to land. She inspired me to be a better person. It was her vacation, and she could have easily stayed on top of the boat enjoying the breeze with everyone else, but instead she came down and took care of me–a total stranger! She wiped up my vomit, held me, pressed ice on my neck, and spoke comforting words, and the whole time I couldn’t even open my mouth to say “thank you” because I literally couldn’t talk without puking. What an angel. I love her and will never forget what she did for me that day.
As soon as the boat turned me over to the smaller boat, we came back to land where I lay on a lounge chair for thirty minutes so I could get the strength to walk to the car that would take us back to the resort. At the resort I staggered to another lounge chair on the beach and lay there looking at the sky until I felt like I could eat again. (Meanwhile, everyone back in the boat was enjoying being right in the middle of a pod of whales and double rays. I felt bad that Abe missed the fun!)
Meanwhile, Abe went over to the volleyball court and was a total star. I remember playing volleyball in our singles ward with Abe. I hadn’t played since high school, and Abe was so nice and encouraged me even though he didn’t know me at all. The Spirit whispered to me that my future husband was in the room, but I shrugged it off as a crazy erratic thought. (I thought Abe was…fourteen. It never occurred to me that he was even a dating option.) Only after I got married did I realize that I was hearing the Spirit right then.
Anyway, after I started feeling better, we sat down to another lunch with Precious and Dan, two of my favorite people on the trip. We enjoyed visiting with them and then headed to a reception to pick up the trip gifts. The CEO gave everyone a pair of designer sunglasses and a pair of fancy sandals. I kind of prefer the gas station sunglasses because I lose them so often, and expensive sunglasses cause me heartburn when I think of keeping track of them. But, again, this would not be an appropriate “poor me” moment. It was really fun to pick them out and we were grateful to shop for free!
Then we had a dinner together and ordered a traditional Mexican stone soup, along with a forgettable chicken mole and some delicious churros. Then we wandered back to our room and on the way got sidetracked by this pool. 
Not a soul was in sight, so we jumped in the hot tub and alternated between pool, hot tub, and poolside hammocks (hard to see in the picture) for an hour. It was romantic and fun to have it all to ourselves. Also not pictured was an entire other pool perpendicular to this one that had a fountain and was all lit up. We couldn’t believe no one else was in the area. It was my favorite night in Mexico, by far.