Isaac and Caitlin's Blog: Cancun!

Our family trip this year was to Cancun. The kids were super-excited to go on an airplane, and each packed books, activity pads, itouches, and tons of snacks in their own backpacks for the 3.5 hour flight. They got through all of their stuff in about an hour and began the "are we there yet's", but we persevered, and arrived with everyone's sanity intact.

kids hanging out on the luggage waiting for our car

all of us enjoying our welcome drinks at the hotel - I'm pretty sure theirs were virgins

the kids checking out the view from "their" room (we had adjoining rooms)

because the trip fell between their birthdays, the hotel honored both of them with a card and cake

About 10 minutes after getting to the room, the kids found their bathing suits, convinced Bill to inflate their rafts, and began begging to head to the ocean. It was already after 5, so we agreed to go "for a little while". They had so much fun in the ocean, that we ended up swimming until almost 8! As it was getting dark, we got to check out the recently (1 hour ago) hatched turtles that were about to be released into the ocean. They were so tiny!!

After dinner, everyone slept VERY well the first night, but woke up ready to head back to the beach bright and early. We convinced them to sit still long enough for a room-service breakfast, but then we were off! Because we were worried about sunburn, the kids were slathered in 50, wore sunshirts and hats, and we insisted on umbrellas. All great ideas for protection if the kids would have gotten out of the water or sat down for more than 5 minutes! Needless to say, we all got a LOT of sun on this trip - Cate got so tan, she was almost mistook for a native ;) This picture was taken as we settled in first thing, I'm pretty sure we didn't sit back down until lunch (which we had at our chairs) and then again at dinner! We spent most days going back and forth between the beach and the pool, with some shell collecting, sand castle building, and kid-burying activities sprinkled throughout. Not exactly a relaxing vacation, but the kids had a blast, and, because they were fun to watch and the beach is our "happy place" so did we! Here are some pictures from our "beach" days - breakfast, jumping from bed to bed in their room, playing uno, snuggling, pool shenanigans, and getting sandy.

The hotel was in the middle of "hotel zone", so we were able to walk out to dinner almost every night and enjoy beautiful sunsets and check out the area. One restaurant brought out huge servings of cotton candy at the end of dinner for every table. The kids had never had cotton candy, and their eyes got HUGE as they saw it, looking at us imploringly. Although I think cotton candy could be the worst food invented, I couldnt say no - and they went to town! I'm pretty sure years from now if you ask them what they remember from Mexico, they will say that they got to eat cotton candy :)

On our "adventure" day, we chartered a small plane to fly us to Chichen Itza, the Mayan ruins. We were all excited for the day, the kids had gone to the library to get books on the ruins, and even knew how many steps there were. The plane was definitely smaller than I anticipated, but thankfully everyone did fine on the flight. Our pilot, Diego, was great with the kids, but they were relatively nonplussed at the experience, asking to play on their itouches after takeoff, just like with any other flight (deep sigh). Once we arrived, the ruins were really amazing. We had a tour guide who explained the history, and the kids were particularly interested in learning about all the sacrificing that took place, including for babies with certain birthday in August (thankfully for Isaac, the "cursed"dates did not include August 21st!), and for the WINNING team in the Mayan sports games. ("why didnt they all just try to lose?" asked Isaac, insightfully). It was extremely hot out, with no real shade in sight, so the kids' interest waned pretty quickly. We managed to make it through all of the ruins though, but the kids were disappointed that they weren't allowed to climb the 91 steps (I wasn't - it looked treacherous, and apparently was because it was closed to tourists!).

the ruins from our plane

After the ruins, we went to lunch, and then to a famous, sacred "cenote". This really was amazing - it is a natural swimming hole formed by the collapse of limestone bedrock. Lots of tourists, but it was fresh and clear enough to see all the way to the bottom. Lots of stairs to get down to it, and then you are welcome to swim in the (freezing) water, or climb back up a bunch of stairs and jump from a platform about 25 feet high. Bill took Isaac 5 times (!) and Caitlin once - I chickened out (it was really high, and really cold - I couldn't believe Caitlin did it!).