Mexico

Thad has been talking about going to see the Mayan sites in Mexico for a few years now. In fact, a month before our 10th anniversary he suggested we go as an anniversary trip. Being that our anniversary is Dec 20th my response was something along the lines of  "Are you crazy? Plan a last minute trip during the holidays?" Anyway, two and a half years later we finally went! I'm always nervous leaving the kids for extended periods of time, but the week before we left Momma was done and I was counting down the hours. We left bright and early monday morning and got into Playa del Carmen (south of Cancun) in time to check out our beach for the week and head to dinner.

We stayed in a quiet little resort in these private bungalows, and it was just a cute relaxing little place.This was our view from the hammocks on our porch all week. Just a short little path to the beach. But in all honesty we didn't spend too much time there, we had other adventures planned.

Our first tour day we went to Chichen Itza. It was a bit of a drive, but it was such a cool place. And the temple itself was massive.

We learned so much from our tour guide. Apparently they go through a 2 year program before being able to be a tour guide, so basically they have an associates in anthropology at the end and he just had so much information. I couldn't believe how much detail you could still see in the carvings after all these years. I mean, obviously a lot of it has been lost as the jungle grew over buildings, but the fact that you can clearly see any of it is amazing.

These building were in what they called ancient Chichen. Apparently once the bigger better temple was built (just up the way) they abandoned the older part of the city.  This was one of the few buildings that gave you a bit of an inside view, and trust me, that's a short hallway. That round building in the back is the observatory. It's the only round building in every city, the rest are pyramid shaped or very angular, but the observatory was always round.

This was where the schooling would have taken place. Again, can you believe all those carvings are still in tact!?

After several hours at the site we went to lunch and then swimming in a Cenote. Apparently these cenotes are everywhere, and new ones pop on an a semi regular basis. They are all apart of a big underground river system and every so often a sink hole just opens up and people swim in it. Back in the day they were sacred ponds with meaning, but now they are just fun. This one kinda creeped me out because it was so far underground, so I didn't get in. But Thad jumped in a few times.

We didn't get back to our resort that night till almost 8, so we quickly cleaned up and ran to dinner at one of the restaurants and then crashed. It was definitely a long first day of exploring. It was in the 70-80 range all week, but so much more humid than I'd ever experienced. And when the sun was out in force, holy cow was it intense.  Proximity to the equator makes a huge difference. 

The next day was a wonderful lazy day. We slept in, ventured up to the 5th avenue shops, then hit the pool, got a massage(which was a bit of a different experience), sat on the beach, hung out in the hammocks, and watched a movie. 5th avenue is 3 miles of shops, both local and chain with tons of restaurants and little stands. It's a fun place. 

We met this guy on 5th and had to get a picture for the kids.

The second tour day we went to Tulum, and while the buildings were not as massive I really liked that you could kind of get a sense of what the city layout was. And it's interesting that every city has the same basic buildings and set up.

Tulum is right on the coast. Right behind that temple at the top is a cliff down to the water.  I think that's probably why a lot of the carvings and details weren't visible, they were just weather beaten away. But Tulum was also the first city discovered back in the 1800's, and it was an accident. The guys who found it were trying to sail around to California and got caught in a storm off the coast of the peninsula. 

This face is one of the few  carvings you could make out clearly. 

And these iguanas were all over the city. They were huge. 

After Tulum we went to a zip line park. I had no idea such places existed, but it was so much fun. I mean, a little terrifying at first when you are strapped in climbing these rickety metal stairs bolted in to trees. But once you go on the first line, you forget about all that and it was just fun. Phones and cameras are not allowed up on the course because it takes two hands to maneuver, so we don't have any photos of us up in the canopy. But I did get some over at the cenote we visited that day. And I did jump in that one. Swung into it actually on the little zip line. And I got a video of Thad pulling off a sweet dive from the line.

There were a couple restaurants at the resort, but this one was out favorite. I didn't know what exactly I was eating half the time, because either the descriptions were in spanish, or were very poorly translated into english, but everything was delicious.  I don't think I found anything I didn't like, and not cooking all week was just wonderful.

And this cute little fire pit was right in between our bungalow and the beach. It wasn't actually cold enough to need the fire, but it was fun.

Our last day and a half were lazy days too. We walked the entire stretch of 5th avenue and found some great tacos and guac, and even ice cream. We may have gone to the ice cream shop 3 times that week. We hung out at each of the three pools at the resort, ya know, just to see which one we liked best. It was so nice to just relax and not have anywhere we needed to be or anything we needed to do. We've decided for celebratory purposes we'll be making a march trip our new tradition for our anniversary. Obviously not a big trip like this every year, but at least a weekend away.  And now that I've written it down we have to stick to it.

February Fun

We've had a few fun events this month, including Andi's quarterly honor roll assembly. This quarter was extra special though since Congressman McCarthy came to present the kids with the congressional academic merit award. The kids had no idea who he is, but the adults were sufficiently impressed, he travels with security and everything.

Then there was the Daddy Daughter dance. This is the first year Andi has wanted to go, she's always been leery of taking Thad out in public. But the lure of the candy buffet was more than she could resist. So they went, and stayed for an hour, and then Thad bribed her with ice cream and they left.

 

Sammy's noteworthy event of the month was an injury, of course. Everyone thought it was a great idea to let him slide down the stairs in a box; not even Dad heeded moms words of warning. Right before the bottom Sammy popped his head out of the box and caught his eye on the latch for the baby gate. Luckily his eye was closed and the bleeding was just coming from his eye lid. But the next morning he could barely open his eye it was so swollen. This is later that day after some ice packs so it doesn't look too bad.

Peter has recently become interested in/obsessed with puzzles. He does all of them multiple times a day.

And he loves his buddy Brody. They are just so darn cute together.

He's not so sure about Maggie though. They were friends for a few minutes today while the kids were practicing Piano with Alexis, so I had to get a picture.

We planted a garden this weekend. We haven't done vegetables in several years because they take effort. Our fruit trees and vines are just so easy. But the kids have been wanting a garden so we gave it a go. I can't guarantee that we'll get much produce from it, but it sure does look cute.

What a Week!

 This has been an eventful week.  It started off with with setting up for New Beginnings, which turned out great. We used all the hot air balloon decor from Ashlynn's shower to tie in with the "Oh, the places you'll go" theme. I'm so glad we got to use it again because it was all so cute.

We even had a cute little photo booth set up for afterwards with these sweet polaroids.

 

I have loved being in Young Womens this past year and getting to know all the girls, and these wonderful leaders. 

 Friday morning I had the opportunity along with My Mom, Aunt, Sister and SIL to dress my Grandma for her funeral. I was a bit nervous about the experience, but I'm glad I was able to be a part of it.  Then we went down to the church and set up the display tables with Grandmas paintings, sketchbook, quilt, brass rubbings, family photos and all sorts of things that she either made or loved.

 That night we switched focus for a while and went to the airport to welcome Bradon home from his mission to Jacksonville Florida. I didn't get many pictures, but these little were very excited to have Uncle Brado Home. And proud of their banner too.

The next morning we all gathered at the church for Grandmas funeral. Dad did a wonderful job with her eulogy, all the grands and great grands sang, and it was just nice to see family I hadn't seen in years. And for the first time in 2 years all of my siblings were together as well. Actually, the whole family was except for Cameron.
We did manage to get a few pictures during the luncheon. We dubbed these cute girls the twin towers 2.0. Obviously Kelsie and I are the originals, but these tall sisters are apart of the club now that they are all grown up.  And how weird is it that Kelsie and cousin Kamy look so much alike!

We forgot to get a family shot Before Bobby & his Kelsie left  but we got a sunday selfie with Brado!

It's been a wonderful family filled weekend and we'll be eating leftovers from all the festivities for a week.

Better late than never?

I blinked, and January ended, and with it went my plans of blogging more regularly. Oh Well, here's our monthly catch up. We rang in the new year by cleaning out our attic and storage room. I'm serious, I took this picture on new years eve.

And this collage is to commemorate Peters first day in Primary as a Sunbeam. The first few weeks went  really well, and I thought maybe I had been worrying about how he would do for nothing. But this week the honeymoon ended and Peter was there in sharing time in all his crazy, in your face glory. Apparently he started a tickle fight and had  his entire class rolling around on the floor before they could even finish the opening song. And it went downhill from there.  I apologized to the teacher and tried to break it to her that she finally go to see the real Peter, and the previous few weeks were just an act. I'm pretty glad I'm not in primary right now.

Andi turned 10! I don't know why, but every year it surprises me how old she's getting. The day of her birthday we celebrated with brownies and ice cream at home, it was a school night. And we added a ton of new nail polish to her caboodle full of nail supplies.

That weekend she got to take a couple friends to lunch at CPK, where she never gets pizza, and to watch Star Wars. She'd been asking to see it since it came out, so we obliged. Sammy was pretty excited to see it too. Don't worry, we made them watch the original 3 beforehand so they understood the story.

And then the next day we had family dinner and another celebration at my parents house. She will never be able to say that her birthday was overlooked.

Kelsie & Cameron came to town on the way to a conference and dropped off Porter & Brighton with us for a week. All the kids were excited about it at first, but then the reality that they still had to go to school set in and it was less fun than they had anticipated I think. Lucky for me, Brighton decided I would do as a mom substitute for the week, and except for 2 rough nights we got along quite well.  This girls likes to party late at night.

Not kidding. I took this picture at 1:30 in the morning and texted it to Kelsie so she could be awake with us.  

Unfortunately before the week was up both Peter and Sammy started running fevers and feeling really cruddy. Peter was already not crazy about sharing my attention with Brighton in the first place, and then he got sick and really demanded mommy time. So that got complicated. I had to take a picture of Peter asleep on my shoulder in the middle of the afternoon because he never naps. And he crawled up in my lap and was out in seconds. And then he started getting really hot. 

Ashlynn had her sweet baby Opal and after the boys were well I got to go over and meet her. So crazy to think that I held that baby's momma in my arms when she was that little too.

And even crazier to see that the babysitting cycle is just going to keep going. I babysat Bash, she babysat Andi, and while Andi still has a little while before she can take over with Opal, it's come full circle.

Thad found come "classic" nintendo controllers with USB, so we introduced the kids to super mario brothers, zelda, and tetris this month. It's been fun, but I was reminded again why we will never buy a game system.

These are just a few of Peters daily nonsense. He's been loving all the rain, or at least all the mud that the rain leaves in its wake.

And his version of playing battleship is to fill the board in completely.

 "Momma, I built a temple. Come picture it!"

Apparently there is an inside joke behind this between Thad and his Dad, but this is Thad and Sammy before church started a couple weeks ago.  Sunday Selfie.

Thad also went on a scout camp out this month, and a business trip to New Jersey. I taught an organization class for stake personal progress day, we sang in sacrament meeting, I've been working on New beginnings and two other musical numbers and it seems like one thing gets finished just in time to start the next.

But this past weekend my Grandma passed away, and even though we are now making funeral arrangements, her passing has made me take a minute to just stop, and evaluate my life, and make sure that my family is in alignment with our eternal goals. I am grateful for a testimony of the plan of salvation and that my grandmother became converted to the gospel as a young woman. I know that with her passing her mind is whole again and the ailments of mortality no longer plague her. I hold tightly to the knowledge that my family is sealed for time and all eternity. Families are Forever.