Day 5-Cancun Trip 2010

Last day...our flight was early afternoon...so we got up and packed everything, ate breakfast and then headed to the airport.

Our flight was a little delayed, like 30 min or so...but our pilot got us to Boise 20 min. earlier than our original landing time...go figure!

I sat by a really cool guy on the first plane ride.

He was in Cancun doing some missionary volunteer work.

He talked to me a little while...but when he found out that we, okay...Brent, went diving...he just wanted to talk to Brent.

After awhile...Brent started to read his book...our neighbor, Steve, kept looking over.

Finally he said to me..."Would you tell him to put his book down, I want to talk to him more."

It was pretty funny.

So that made the flight go by pretty fast.

We made a quick stop in Denver where I called to check up on the kiddos and they were very excited to stay up and wait for us to get home.

On the way to Boise I got to sit by Heather and Drew, with Brent across the isle.

That wasn't too long of a flight...Heather got me to play Sudoku for the first time...pretty fun.

It was a beautiful view as we flew over Cancun
Goodbye PEACE AND QUIET!!!!
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I wish I took some pictures of when we got back home...
But maybe I wasn't thinking about it cause I was too bummed out
BECAUSE MY BABY BOY WANTED NOTHING TO DO WITH ME!!!
He was so mad at me, he wouldn't even look at me.
He was fine with Brent...he is used to him leaving...but me...he was MAD!!!
He would walk back and forth from Brent and Emily...and completely avoid me.
It broke my heart.
The next day he allowed me to hold and feed him...but still, he wouldn't smile at me and there wasn't any eye contact.
He is over it now...he is back to being Mama little boy...crazy kid!!!

Thanks again to Emily for being so AWESOME and taking my kids for 5 days!
You rock Em!
We love you!

Day of surprises!

I wanted to give Brent a great birthday!

But I couldn't really spend too much money...'cause that doesn't make him happy.

So with Madi's help...we came up with a very fun day.

It first started with breakfast in bed...which is a normal birthday day thing for Dad...

This year I attempted Omelette's...not bad...but still not as good as Dad can make them!

With his breakfast there was a little clue to where his first present was hiding....
Which was on his chair...

Madi made him the classic coupon book...

With many coupons for "changing my attitude"...

Hopefully these coupons with make a great impact in our home in the future!

Next clue led us to the bathroom where Elsie had her present hiding...the movie "Supersonic saints"

Next clue took us to the pantry where Cassi his her special magnet bookmark she made for Dad and his many many books!

Next clue was for my gift, a blanket along with a rented movie.

I cheated...I finally finished the quilt I made him for Fathers Day last year...yikes!!! But I wanted to get it finished for him so he could take it to the station...I think he was happy for it to finally be done! And he was genuinely surprised that it WAS DONE!

Then there was a clue saying that we should watch the movie while Porter naps...

So we cuddled up at watched "Night at the Museum:2"
I picked that movie for a reason.

After the movie I made him some yummy lunch...have you ever eaten at Gandolfo's and had their 'burning bridge'? Well, I made that and it turned out really yummy!

The next clue led us to the "Idaho Historical Museum"

I was going to do Discovery center...but we have done that so many times and we wanted to try something new...we had a blast!

Porter and Elsie ran around 'ya ya ya-ing' like little Indians...

When we got back into the car we gave him another clue...

He could choose to go home or go to another spot...

He chose another spot...so we headed to the Morrison Knudsen Nature center.

It wasn't too bad of weather and the kids had a really good time.

Porter was a little rotten cause he was missing his second nap...but he wasn't too bad!

Notice Elsie's reflection...yes, she may look terrified...but she is actually very overly excited! She loved looking at those fish so much!

We asked another person to shoot a family shot...gotta get one of those!

Madi took this one of my birthday boy and me...pretty cute couple, right?

Porter...having fun at this point...Brent, trying to decipher which species of fish we are looking at.

Madi asked if she could borrow my camera to shot this cool rock.

I love how her shot turned out...maybe I have a future business partner...

Last clue sent us to TGI Fridays for dinner...thanks to my niece Megs we had a gift certificate to the place...so that made him happy to eat out for half the price!

Back home for his yearly birthday cheesecake.

Dad doesn't like cake!

Hope your day was special!

Happy Birthday big boy!!!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Happy Birthday to the BIG boy of the house!!!

We have a really fun SURPRISE day planned for him!

I will tell you more about it later!

But for now...just enjoy his adorable-ness!

Day 4- Cancun Trip 2010

This day was January 14...our 10 Year anniversary date.

We decided to just take things easy...

We woke up and went down to the dock on the lagoon side of the island and got some paddle boats and took a little ride around the lagoon.

Can't you just tell how completely in love with me he is???
Happy 10 year!

Heather and Drew

After the paddle boats we decided to get on the bus...we gave them the right amount this time...(even though it SHOULD have been free, right?)

And we headed downtown to the markets.

Oh my goodness!

It was so much fun!

I wish I took more shots of the markets and the people.

These guys weren't just salesman...

They were comedians...I mean we got a show at every booth!

They were so funny!

This guy was quite the salesman...

We had fun going back and forth with prices...

Drew and Heather got one of these fun sitting hammocks...their girls are loving it!

Again, I wish I had more from the shops...

But I wanted to remember one of the guys.

When we were leaving we only had 2o pesos left, but we had some American dollars too...and I was looking for one more thing specifically for my sister...

Just joking I would go to shops and offer my 20 pesos for something grand...20 pesos would just over a dollar...some thought it was funny...others wanted me out right away.

Finally the last shop as we were leaving I walked up and started looking at some bags they were selling.

I offered my 20 pesos he laughed and offered me some of his grocery bags for that...so we walked away...but I didn't want to go...I liked the bags...

So I started looking through them and tried to find out a price...

But he started asking where we were from...we said Idaho...

He then said "ME TOO!"

We laughed then again tired to find out prices...talking pesos and he said "Oh I don't speak Spanish!"

So we started making offers in dollars...starting low, of course...

Well, he didn't like those offers cause right away he looked at us crazy and said " No hablo English!"

Again we laughed...he was a crack up!

We ended up coming up with a deal on the bag...and we got a pretty good show for it too!

Like I said...they were all so funny!!!

I got dresses for my girls...and a cool shirt for Porter...and the girls each got bracelets...and I got a matching one too.

And the ONLY thing that Madi and Cassi asked for was a conk shell...so we got two of those in the markets too.

Riding back to the Hotel in the bus...

Another funny story.

Half way home we stopped at Aquaworld to pick up our free scuba diving picture and maybe get more...

The lady who helped us told us we needed a ticket...she wasn't there the day we went there and apparently didn't believe we should get a free one.

Our photographer was on another dive...but luckily his friend who he told out $30 bus ride story too was there.

He remembered us ALL TOO WELL!

See, so it turned out good...he gave us our free picture...too bad he made us pay for the CD...

Back at the Hotel we wanted to hang out on the beach.

Even though the weather wasn't great...it was good enough to hang out.

Heather and I

The boys got one of the guys on the beach to rent them some boogie boards pretty cheap and the boys had fun playing in the waves for a while.

And we had fun watching them...until we fell asleep.

Later they said that they kept looking over at us, thinking we were so impressed by their boogie boarding abilities...when really we were just catching some zzzzz's!

So they came over to dry off, and realized we were sleeping and using all the towels...

They said they went to go dry off...

All I know is that we woke up and didn't see our hubby's in the ocean...but we did find them on the volleyball court...

PLAYING WITH BIKINI GIRLS!!!

Seriously!!!

Okay, there were only a couple girls...

But Heather and I jumped in and we played until it was too dark to see anymore.

It was lots of fun!

Heather rocked it...and if we didn't have a bunch of ball hog guys on our team...not our boys, of course...then we would have racked up the points with her!

We ended the night with another show...but I think we skipped the hot tubbing this night...we were TIRED!

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In the past years I have figured out that I have the WORST memory! This is why I want to really document all the stuff we did! We enjoyed ourselves so much on this trip...and I don't want to forget all the funny little things that happened...so I hope you don;t mind all the blogging about it...one last day and the trip is over...then back to my everyday boring blogging!

Day 3- Cancun Trip 2010 (part 3)

EK BALAM

Ek Balam was Carlos' idea.

We thought of going to Tulum or another one of the bigger Mayan sites...but Carlos suggested this one that has only been open to the public for the last 8 years.

13 years ago a man bought all this land hoping to find some Cenote's so he could open them up to make some money.

Well, instead he found these ruins on his land...which was a bad thing...cause then he had the land taken away.

Buy Carlos suggested we go there and we are so glad he did.

It was amazing!

It wasn't all roped off like the ruins at Chitzen Itza were.

These we could touch, feel, climb!

It really was incredible!

And again, I can't believe the amazing connections to the Book of Mormon and the LDS culture.

Amazing!

Heather and I
If you look closely, you can see the rock in the 'mountain'.
This is a 'yet to be uncovered' ruin.
There were two of these that still hadn't been unearthed!
Can you even imagine looking at that side of a mountain and then uncovering an amazing ruin!
How incredible!
(yes, I realize that I wrote uncovered on the picture...woops! Pretend it says still covered.)

Some cool shots from Ek Balam.
The second picture at the top is a shot of the ball field here.
It was much much smaller.
Only two players per team instead of seven.
But the winner was still sacrificed.
The bottom left picture was amazing for us to see...
a light skin man teaching dark skinned men.
There were no white men in this area at that time.
We think he is a missionary from another part of the world.
Half way up the big temple.
This part we are standing on was found by accident.
This building was built in the way of the Chitzen Itza temple.
Four sides of stairs.
When a man was cleaning up and working on the stairs, it collapsed.
And he found this hidden entrance to a hidden part of the temple.
We saw some amazing things there.

The boys

This is Carlos...BYU hat and all!

He really is such an awesome guy!

On the steep steep steps!

Man...they were really steep and really skinny steps...I was pretty nervous!

Carlos said that this Temple is actually a few feet taller than the Temple at Chitzen Itza.

This is the one we were at the very top of.

Brent shot this...he is on top of the observatory looking through the door at the Temple.

Cool shot if you ask me.

I am in it too...I am on the ground trying to find him...he wandered...ALOT!

He loved this!

Carlos brought us home at about 7:00.

That was a full day!

We loved every minute of it!!!

We got back and changed then went to dinner and made it to another show in the theatre.

Then we headed to the hot tub again! So much fun!

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It was an amazing and exhausting day!!! Thanks Carlos!