Well,
It has been a long while since I have posted anything. It is finally starting to look like spring here. The girls just finished up their spring sports through the YMCA. Graycie played volleyball and is learning how to overhand serve, by the end of the season she was really starting to get it....HOORAY! Kenzie played soccer...one word....BRRRRR!! Dustin and I both decided spring sports outside, in Colorado Springs, are the worst. Luckily Kenzie is tougher than both of us and it didn't seem to bother her much. They both had a great time and most of the time we had a great time watching them (when we weren't freezing). They have both decided that they want to play softball this summer. I tried to play it cool and pretend like I wasn't that excited it about it....but softball is definitely my sport and I am so stoked that they finally both want to try it.
In March Dustin earned a trip to Mexico, for being so awesome at his job. We decided to get passports and take the whole family with us. Our girls are getting old enough to travel without the extra "stuff" involved with really little kids. They are also both getting more flexible about their eating and sleeping schedules, which of course when you travel internationally you need to be able to be "off schedule" a little bit. They were both champs, for sure.
We stayed with Dustin's company at the J.W. Marriott in Cancun for the first few days. His company paid for our lodging for 3 nights. While were there we did some pretty amazing things. Academy Mortgage paid for us to all go to this amazing adventure park. We spent the day in underground river's, on ATV's, and ziplining. The girls loved ziplining and neither of them seemed scared at all. Neither of them were heavy enough to go on their own so one went with me and one went with Dustin, and then we would switch. It was amazing and on the last line we zipped under a water fall, which was a blessing because at that point we were all getting pretty toasty. They also had an all you can eat buffet, which was tasty. I am pretty sure both of the girls ate spaghetti, because you know, that's what you eat at a buffet while you are in Mexico. They actually did really amazing with the strange food choices, but when they did have a choice I noticed they went back to the "comforting, familiar, foods."
The hotel had an amazing pool, which we took advantage of one afternoon. We were also right on the beach, so the girls had fun going from the swimming pool to the ocean. While they appreciated the ocean, they both said that they preferred the pool. I think Kenzie and Graycie both had a ton of sand in "bad places" by the end of their excursion to the ocean and were grateful to get rinsed off and back in the familiar chlorinated water.
Academy Mortgage also paid for us to go on a dinner boat ride. We road on these Mexican gondolas, through a jungle river. They served very traditional Mexican food and we got to listen to all kinds of music. Each barge would drive up to the "music barge" and we would hook on for a bit and listen. The kids enjoyed dancing with the barge driver, and the adults even joined in a few times. When I asked the girls after our vacation what their favorite thing was, both of them said the boat ride.
After this, we decided to stay on a few extra days. Academy only paid for the first 3 days so we left our ultra fancy hotel and went out on our own. We checked out of our hotel and got on a bus, and went on a tour of both Tuluum and Chichen Itza. I had seen both of these ruins before, and so had Dustin. Of course neither of our girls had. I was a little nervous to see how they would do on such an "information rich" tour. Both of them did pretty amazing. It was one of the hotter days and so there was little complaining about being overheated, but all in all...they were champs. I think that the tour made a bit of an impression because both of them have talked about it since. Of course they remember the goriest parts of the tour (pretty much all of the talk about human sacrifice and torture...so you know, all the best parts).
That evening we were supposed to have reservations at a hotel more in the central part of Cancun. Just a tip, in Mexico, reservations mean nothing. We arrived at our hotel later than expected, because our tour went long. Upon arriving, the front desk attendant politely informed us that they had given away our room.... awesome. By this time it was 11:00 p.m. We had not eaten dinner and we were all exhausted and starving. With a little help from the front desk guy ( and Dustin's amazing Spanish speaking skills) we found another hotel with an opening. One problem...it was a death trap. The door to get in was broken and we couldn't get our key to work. In frustration I slammed my elbow into it, and it popped right open...awesome again. Then we went inside....gulp.....it had one blinking light bulb in the middle of the room. The beds were made for 8 year olds, and they looked very, very, VERY, much like a lice and bed bug brothel. There was some sort of tannish/brown stuff smeared all over the walls, and the closet had mold in it. You know those movies you watch where the main characters are running from some horrible villain and they can't use their credit cards because they will be tracked if they do? So, they trade their watches and jewelry for one nights sleep in a shizzy hotel room, run by a drug trafficking pimp? The hotel that we were at is where they shot that scene. Seriously, I freaked. Kenzie started crying immediately and kept saying "I DON'T WANT TO GET KRILL!!" (she swapped the word head lice for the tiny shrimp like creatures that whales eat...krill. She had been learning all about krill in her science class at school and was certain she was going to come down with a bad case of "krill" from the bed). Graycie stayed pretty calm and stoic. I was pacing around trying to not totally freak....I failed, hard. Luckily, Dustin came to the rescue. He took his Spanish speaking rear end and searched until he found a Ramada Inn. Luckily it was within walking distance. He also found a gas station and scrounged everyone up some delicious gas station fodder. Finally, around 1 a.m. we went to sleep on clean sheets in a lice free hotel room...whew.
The next day we went on a trip to Villadolid. It was a Mexican village a few hours away from Cancun. Our guide picked us up at the bus stop (we just took the Mexican version of a Greyhound to bus to the village). This was my favorite part of the tour. We went to an open air market, the kind that the Mexican people really shop at. We also got to visit a few different Mayan families and see how they live. Our guide (Vivianna) explained that her company would find different families that were in distress and bring they would bring their tours there. We would take them food donations, and buy whatever little trinkets they were selling. In return, they let us look around their homes, and one family even taught my girls and I how to make tortillas. Vivianna explained that her tour company wanted to encourage them to continue to work however they were able and discouraged us from just giving them money. She told us if we wanted to help that they best way to do it was to buy their products, allowing them to feel like they had earned the money that we gave them. It was so amazing. We ate lunch with one family, and Dustin and I paid for it dearly later, luckily both of the girls did fine with it.
It was an absolutely amazing trip, full of lots and lots of memories. I hope the girls learned a lot about what a wonderful country they live in and how much opportunity they have available to them. They were both able to pick out a few things to take to donate to the children in Mexico, and Kenzie had a hard time picking items that she was willing to part with. However, once we got there, and they saw the living conditions of the Mayan people, I think they both wished that we could have done more. Viva La Mexico!!!
Enjoy the pics!
