"I only burn once a year..."

First and foremost - God is good.  I landed the job and have been working at Concordia University in their Graduate Advising Office for 2 weeks now.  There are so many things that are different here and I love it!!  Carpooling with Ethan to work is an added bonus.  :-)

Did you know that they actually have other departments on campus that are designed to make your job easier?  Take Print Services, for instance. You can send a print job to them and they will print on whatever color paper you want AND fold it however you want.  Amazeballs.  It's just a dream here and I know that God had this in his plan all along...just took some patience on my end.

Ethan and I celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary this past weekend.  We went to a Brew and View and then stayed out in a "green" hotel in Naperville.  It was perfect.  Low key and just what we wanted.  We saw Bridesmaids that night - hysterical!!!  The next night we went to go and see The Hangover Part 2 - jackpot #2 for the weekend!!  Can't believe that we have been married for a year.  The time has flown by and I'm sure it will continue to fly by!! 

It was fun to reminisce about our honeymoon and the funny things that happened.  We definitely need to take another honeymoon!! 
We got to Riviera Maya on Monday afternoon and ended up falling asleep by 7pm in the room.  We were exhausted!!  Tuesday we didn't have anything planned so we got ready and went down to the pool.  Filled up our glasses once, then twice, then...whoops!  Luckily, I remembered and was willing to put more sunscreen on but Ethan had another agenda.  His "I only burn once a year" mentality was put to the test with the hot Mexican Sun....by 5pm...it was Mexican Sun 1pt - Ethan's skin 0pt.  He was crispy and in a ton of pain.  I ran to the convenient store located in our resort and coughed up 12 dollars for a bottle of Tylenol (note to self - bring Tylenol on next trip).  When I got back to the room I found Ethan cold and shivering on the bed...what a mess.  We still had 5 days of sun and fun left....

Wednesday morning I had to literally peel the bed sheets off of Ethan's skin.  We got dressed and we had to head to the Mayan ruins that day.  It was another hot one but we managed to make it through.  We even had the opportunity to jump off a cliff into a Cenote (sunken well).  It was SO amazing and the water was refreshing.  A 2 hour ride back to the resort and it was time for dinner.  Ethan was still very sore and sick so we ate fast and headed back to the room.  

That night I swore I got bit by a spider on my back.  I brought some anti-itch cream with just in case something like this happened and had Ethan put some on my back.  Can you imagine - Me slathering Ethan with Aloe about every 3 hours and him putting anti-itch stuff on my back twice a day.  I could barely put my pajama's on without irritating my back and not being able to sleep on my back.  Anything that touched it felt like needles!!

Thursday I think we went snorkeling.  I reminded Ethan that he should put sunscreen on his calves since they would be exposed...he didn't listen and Thursday night was fighting off yet another horrible sunburn.  But remember "he only burns once a year"..............

I was still fighting with the spider bite on my back but was trying to make the best of it.  Friday I let Ethan lay in the room while I tried to catch the most sun I could on our last full day in Mexico.

Saturday we hopped on a plane home - sick, tired, achy, sore, and very very irritable.  I couldn't sit still on the plane ride because my bra strap was rubbing against my so called spider bite - Ethan was hot as all get out because of the sun burn and was starting the first round of peeling.

We got to Atlanta and had a 2 hour layover that turned into a 6 hour layover.  We did not reach the Moline Airport until 1am-ish where Ev picked us up. 

Sunday morning I decided that I needed to get to a doctor.  Neither my parents or Ethan's parents were in town so I couldn't get a second opinion on my back before going....but by this time - it was starting to spread and I could barely take it.

First thing the doctor says "well, that's interesting...."

Not exactly the thing you want to hear after you have been in Mexico for a week AND you don't have your parents there to calm you down.....

Doctor confirmed that it was shingles.  SHINGLES!  I was 25 with shingles.  OyVey! Apparently it was a combination of stress of wedding planning and the heat of the Mexican sun....lovely.

Don't get me wrong - we had a blast in Mexico - but the next time we go it's sunscreen and no shingles for this girl!