Thankful Thursday--Mexico!

So very thankful for our trip to Mexico!

(especially thankful for my in-laws for giving such a trip for our whole family!)

Here are my random Mexico tidbits:

(our back view off our hotel balcony)

We saw lots of different wildlife:

Coati Mundi's

Pelicans

Monkeys

Lizards, both little and big

A Crocodile, right in this swamp behind our room!

Great Blue Heron

Mandarin Ducks

Cappiburra

blackbirds that made the coolest sounds!

Lots of other birds!

-Travel time to Mexico, from our house 10 hours

Colette said on the airplane, when looking out the window,

"Look! There's another airplane!", seeing the wing.

She also said, "Hey! We're moving again!"

when we were descending and she could see below the clouds.

-Riviera Maya has the softest sand ever!!

This is where we stayed and the pictures are exactly as it is, except with lots of people!

-I could have stayed another week, seriously, I was sad the morning we left, I just wanted to soak it all up!

-We did not need the carseat afterall, we rode the bus from the airport to the hotel.

and

the day we left, we rode in a 8 passenger van,

filled with 11 people

-I did not overpack, except for that car-seat, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

-I guess I did overpack the backpacks with a little too much to do-

we were never bored and rarely used the things in the backpacks.

-Best thing I packed was

Playdough!!!

I bought a little pack of little containers of playdough and Colette and Sweetie Pie played

it constantly when we were in the room!

-There were several restaurants we could go to in the evenings, but with tired, crabby littles,

we ended up using the buffet almost the whole time!

-Thank goodness for the buffet!

-The Asian Spice was our favorite restaurant, the Chef cooked right in front of us!

Baby was even entertained and they kept us busy with drinks, soup, pea pods, dinner and dessert!

Our front view, outside our door, the ocean is in that bright light. -These plants I see all the time in the grocery stores--to buy for house plants!!

They just grow around the resort!

-We used almost 4 bottles of sunscreen!

-It took me 40 minutes to sunscreen everyone, including myself and my hubby!

(I timed it one day)

-Mary Hannah burned the worst, her face actually puffed up and she had a hard time opening her eyes by the 3rd day.

-We re-applied every hour the first couple days, finally realizing we needed to re-apply

every 1/2 hour instead to prevent burning.

-Colette and the baby didn't burn at all

- The kiddos loved the ocean, but didn't like the salt that got in their eyes so they actually preferred the pool to the ocean for swimming.

-I brought 3 books, hoping to get a chance to read one of them sometime.

I never even took them out of my bag!

-We ordered a lot of "Te Lado" (iced tea)

-I hope you can click on these pictures and see how soft that sand is up close!

-Baby was a total mama baby!!

- The Mexican people ALL loved the BABY!!!

"Muy bonitas ninos!"

"De nada!"

-My husband said on the 3rd day, "This is work"

It was a lot of work with the kiddos.

He'd try to read under his umbrella relaxing in his chair, and I'd be in the pool with the kiddos,

but whenever someone had to go potty, he'd be the one to take them....

-This vacation did make us realize how nice it would be without them sometime

-For our honeymoon (14 years ago) we got married in cold December and only took 4 days away at a hotel in MN.

SO

We decided for our 20th Anniversary (in 6 years)

we'd like to go somewhere without the kiddos, somewhere in America,

somewhere warm like this.

Look at those happy faces!

I'm so glad we had this wonderful vacation with them though!

-There was always a breeze off the ocean!

ALWAYS!

-It was wonderful!

-We had 6 carry on's

-We had 6 checked suitcases

a carseat

and

a stroller

-There was a lot of all kinds of people,

French

German

Russian

Lots of Canadians,

Lots of people from COLD places! (like us)

-There were a lot of families at this resort.

-Baby's curls tightened up so much and stayed so curly the whole time!

-There was a couple there with their 2 daughters, and they were from Christine's town!!!

They didn't know her or her kids though.

They went home the day after us.

-I guess I did over pack pajamas.

The kiddos never wore them, they usually fell asleep before they could get into them!

I turned away to throw something away and turned back and she was asleep!

-We all needed sunglasses, the sun was so bright!

These are one of the 6 or 7 pairs of sunglasses I found on my morning sunrise walk,

washed up on the beach!

-It was so humid there, that our sunglasses and cameras fogged up whenever we stepped outside the hotel!

-Mexican version of a "corndog"

I'm serious.

the kids couldn't eat it.

It looked like they deep fried it without any coating

and then cut it in half and stuck a toothpick in it.

-Our walk back to the hotel

-Those black birds with the coolest sound!

-Washing shells and newly found sunglasses!

(Pelicans diving for fish)

-We went through Daylight Savings twice this year.

Mexico had theirs the day we left.

-One of my favorite pictures!

-After my morning sunrise walk on the beach, I'd come visit with my father-in-law,

He'd sit and watch the ocean with his coffee.

-He'd also reserve all our chairs by the pool!

-This was our favorite pool, the one that looks as if it goes right into the ocean!

We had the pool to ourselves after the sunrose each morning!

-My husband says he hopes to never leave the United States again, except Canada for fishing.

-I would do it again though.

I think it would be better the 2nd time, I'd know more what to expect and plan more.

-My brother and his family were in Mexico, not too far from where we stayed, about 2 weeks before us.

Now we can "Mexico talk"!

-My husband went to town with Ballerina Rosie (and the rest of his family)

I stayed with the sunburned kiddos and the littles.

We journaled and played games in the room.

We layed low that day, and the next, staying out of the sun and swimming only early morning and late afternoon.

-He bought hats & t-shirts for the kiddos

-We bought necklaces for each of us, for $9 each, best price I could get,

but then, when we were at the airport, I saw the same ones for only $3

and at Wal-mart, the same ones, only with better clasps for only $4

-Tom got me this, it's on my fireplace mantel now.

-We bought this holy water font.

It's the only thing that broke....it was my favorite!!

We are hoping to glue it, but it will still look broken, as it pretty much just dissintergrated

at the breaking points!

-We also bought M&M's and Pretzels in the store for the kiddos,

on like the day before we left

Just for a special treat,

but the total came to like $47

with the 1 coffee mug (Tom went back and got another one later)

We looked at the receipt and had figured our pesos wrong.

the M&M's (1 peanut and 1 plain)

were $8 each bag

and

the very small bag of pretzels were

$7

I guess those were hot commodities.

-Every day we would get Ice Vanilla coffees, they were the best ever!!

I thought I'd try McDonald's yesterday,

It was nothing like the ones in Mexico.

I couldn't even drink this one.

(the kiddos all took a sip though)

-See?

after a week of doing nothing, except walking on the beach, laying in the sun,

putting on sunscreen, swimming and getting iced vanilla coffees,

no dishes or jobs

and being in bed asleep by 9-9:30pm every night

no wonder I'm having a hard time adjusting to normal life again!