Don't Forget to Iron Your Nighty!

It was bath night tonight.  As I finished getting Celeste dressed I realized Lilah was still not dressed!  I went to find out why and found her ironing her nightgown with her toy iron.  She is using my laptop as her ironing board.  What a little homemaker!

Books!

Today the kids had the day off from school.  So after running some errands we went to the library and checked out some new books!  The kids love books!

Feeling Yucky!

Not a fun day.  We didn't make it to church - nobody felt great, but Mike, Celeste and I felt yucky!  Here are a few things we used today - the rest was scattered around the house!

Good Eater

Lilah has always been a good eater.  She loves taco salad.  Well, she loves a lot of things, but especially taco salad.  I thought this was a big plate of food for a three year old, but she finished it!

 

Beautiful Weather

We've been having beautiful weather these last few days, up in the 60's.  The kids want to change into shorts and t-shirts and play outside in the afternoons.  Celeste went out with Mike to enjoy the late afternoon weather today.

 

Neck Kink?

I checked on the kids and found Madeline sleeping like this....

...should I move her?

Playing Ball

Celeste was rolling this tennis ball to her Dad.  Mike is sure it's on purpose, but I'm not sure...

You can see a video of it here

Picnic

The little girls had a picnic in the playroom with plastic food and play dishes today.
Madeline wore Calvin's new sombrero while she ate!

Sippy Cups

Celeste is growing up too fast!  While I was gone she decided she loved food.  So instead of coaxing every bite in, now I just shovel it in!  She will even eat peas and beans now!  We've also started her on a sippy cup - she doesn't seem to mind them.  She continues to eat crackers and cheerios (her second tooth came in while we were gone too).  We are adjusting her schedule so she eats when we do and I think she enjoys that too! 

 

I had to include this picture, it's too cute of a smile!

When the Parents are Away, the Children Will Play

Or "Ode to Anne".   While we were gone, my kids had a great time playing with Anne and Russell.  I've known Anne for 10 years now - we met at work. Anne is now working on her PhD and has a research stipend so she has a lot of control over her schedule.  Early last summer I was at work excitedly telling her about our possible trip to Cancun when she VOLUNTEERED to watch my 5 children for a week!  Anne is a special person.  She is loved by all who know her and she makes everyone feel like they are her best friend.  She has been preparing to watch my kids for months and asked more questions then I could come up with answers for.  It went so smoothly and the kids were so well taken care of and had so much fun that I don't think they even missed us!  Even Celeste liked her and Celeste doesn't like anybody (seriously, she cries when I leave her with anyone).
They made gumdrops, candy necklaces, cookies and books.  They went rock climbing, painted, had their pictures taken and played!  They and my house were in better shape when I came home then when I left!  Seriously amazing!   I can't thank her enough!  No - none of you can have her!

 These are books the kids made for me- one page for everyday we were gone.

Goodbye Cancun

We spent the morning on the beach and then headed for home.

I'm so glad we were forced into taking such a long and nice vacation.  I am too cheap to plan such a nice and relaxing vacation.  So thanks NHance for picking out such a nice resort, making it all inclusive and making us come out here (now if only they would pay for it, too).  I think I'll be ready to do this again in another 5 years!

I didn't take a picture today - so I stole this one off the internet - our beautiful resort!

One quick note, the difference between landing in Cancun and going through their customs and landing in Atlanta and going through our customs was night and day - the Mexicans are so friendly, helpful, and cheerful.  The Americans working in Atlanta were rude, bored, and yelled.  I was embarrassed by the difference and hopefully I can be a helpful and kind American.

Winding Down

It's our last full day in Cancun.  We started it off by walking to a nearby Mayan ruin.  It's very small.  According to Trip Advisor our hotel is at kilometer 16.5 and El Rey is at 17.  We figured a .5 kilometer walk would be good.  It turns out that our hotel is at kilometer 15.5 and El Rey is at 18 - so it was a 2.5 kilometer walk, a big difference, especially since it was a hot morning!  We finally made it and toured around for a while.  Not like the big ruins at Tulum, but much closer and much less expensive and still fun to see.  We then caught a bus and went downtown to do some souvenir shopping for our kids.  We came back for lunch, another skype session and more beach time.   A fun, but low key day.

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 A few of the iguanas at the El Rey ruins,  they were all over the place.

 Me on top of the temple ruins.

A small piece of the flea market in downtown Cancun

Adventure!

We were up early and off on an adventure today!  There are so many things to do here in Cancun and a lot of things to do an hour or two away. With so much to do it's hard to choose - but we decided on XPlor.  It's an adventure park.  They will come get you and take you home for $70.  To save some money, get more of the local flavor, and to have more control of our day we decided to take care of our own transportation.  We caught a bus into downtown Cancun to the colectivo stand.  A colectivo is basically a minivan that runs between Cancun and some of the other towns on the Yucatan Peninsula.  It's used by the locals a lot, but there were a few other tourists.  We caught our first Colectivo to Playa del Carmen, then we had to get out and get into a different one that headed to Tulum, just a bit outside of Playa we jumped off at XPlor.  We had a blast!  The main attraction were their zip lines.  They were 2 courses of them, each had 7 lines.  The first one had a lot of water, in fact for one of the segments it was a long winding water slide.  Several of the other lines went over water, through waterfalls and landed in water.  So much fun!  The other set were much higher and longer and Mike and I were able to go tethered together.  Great views from up there!  I think we traveled almost 3 miles by zipline.  After that we swam in a river that went through a cave, they call them cenotes - there are stalagmites and stalactites everywhere - thousands of them.  We ended in a huge circular pool of water, the sides were about 100 feet tall and had water rushing down them - like being surrounded by a water fall.  So amazing.  I'm not sure how much of it was man-made, but I think most of it was natural.  We also went on a 'jungle adventure' we drove lawn mower type tractor vehicles through the jungle and into caves.  That part was a bit cheesy - but we had a good time.  We then went back out to the highway and when we saw a colectivo heading toward Playa del Carman we waved our arms - if they have room, they flash their lights and stop (although their definition of 'room' is different then mine).  We made it back to Playa and then took our final colectivo back to Cancun.  We did some window shopping downtown before hopping on our bus back to our resort.  It was an exhausting but exciting adventure!  We ended with a yummy Mexican dinner that Mike photographed.

On our way into XPlor, we wore these attractive orange helmets and our bathing suits all day

Part of the caves

One of the water falls, you can see the ziplines running through it.

We didn't get many pictures, everything involved water so our camera stayed in our locker most of the day.

Mike's dinner at Kuh-Nah

a roll with butter that was seasoned with corn fungus and wrapped in a banana leaf

compliments of the chef, a cheese empanada made from blue corn

tortilla soup

skirt steak with beans and guacamole served with rice

cocoa bean flan

NHance

NHance is the name of the franchise that Mike owns.  We've been talking about Brand recognition - people don't really know what NHance is or what we do - so this is my efforts on behalf of Nhance!  We are a wood renewal process - an alternative to sanding your wood floors or refacing your wood cabinets - we do sandless refinishing.  We have franchises all over the country - you can see if you have an Nhance in your area by going to www.Nhance.com.  We talked about this just this morning at one of the classes I attended.  We were done at 3pm so we hit the beach!  It was so nice to actually go play in the ocean!  It was warm, I wasn't tethered to the beach by a new baby or toddler nor did I resemble a beached whale - it was so much fun!  Later this evening we had an awards banquet. 

Now we are done working!

 Mike always wants to be buried in the sand and drink a virgin Pina Colada!

My view

NHance banquet

Relaxation

Today we only had meetings until noon! I skipped one of them to sit on my balcony and read my book.  After lunch we skyped with the kids (so fun!) and then headed to the Yhi Spa here at the Gran Melia Resort.  So nice.  We were able to use the hydro therapy before our appointments - so we swam in a pool with all kinds of seats, jets, and spouts to massage.  We also had access to a steam room, sauna, experience shower, and rain shower (that just means cold).  Then we had our ichthyotherapy - we stuck our feet into a tank of small toothless fish that ate the dead skin off of our feet.  Mike was so relaxed he dozed off, not so much for me.  It was interesting - my feet were very soft and smooth when we got done!  The short massages we got afterwards were very soothing.  We ended the evening with a fiesta, complete with a Mexican dance show.
Not high quality pictures today - sorry.

A shot of our Skype session

A tank of the flesh eating fish!

Meetings, Meetings, and More Meetings

We had meetings all day today.  Lots of the wives are out on the beach, but I went to all the meetings with Mike,  and I'm glad I did.  It's been great for me to get to know people, get all this great information and get new ideas for our business.  When I get bored, I just flip open the laptop and blog =).
The resort is so nice.  We don't usually stay in nice hotels, so the little things impress us.  Like the maids coming in and cleaning up our room and the HUGE shower head in the ceiling of our shower (it's bigger then my head and almost drowned me).
We ate in a really nice restaurant here at the resort - probably the nicest one I've been in and probably one of the best meals I've eaten.  They had a dress code and no kids allowed.  In heaven!
After dinner we walked on the beach.  

 This was a jumbled mess when I left - they hung my bag up on a hook and did this!

Breath-takingly Beautiful!

You know those pictures of white sand and aqua water?  They don't truly capture the beauty of a tropical beach!   The sound of the waves, the lush green plants, the soft white sand, the amazing water...
We spent today traveling to CANCUN, wandering around our gorgeous resort, and taking care of reservations for dinner and fun while we are here.  That evening we had a reception for Mike's convention.

view from our room

lobby

Mike in his 'tourist' shirt

beautiful ocean

Packing

Mike and I are leaving early tomorrow morning - we'll be gone for a week.  I think I'll be excited and relaxed once I get there - but right now I'm too stressed about getting everything done, and packed, and cleaned and explained and ready.   I've never been gone from my kids for this long before.  The few times I've been gone longer then 1 night, they've been with their dad.  I know they'll be ok - I have an amazing babysitter for them =).

Mike has to go to a 3 day convention for his work and so I'm going with him.  We are going to stay a few extra days to celebrate our 10th Aniversary.  It was 10 years in August and we put our annual over-night trip on hold until now, so we could do a 'big' trip.  I don't know if I'll be posting next week - but I will be taking lots of pictures!  

Beyblades

If you don't know what Beyblades are, you're not alone - I don't really know what they are either.  I know that little boys like them and they spin like tops.  Today Calvin came home from school very excited - during 'Fun Friday' centers at school one of his friends had shown him how to make Beyblades out of Legos.  Soon he had about a dozen Lego Beyblades laying around the living room.  He loves them!  They actually spin - I'm impressed!

Lefty Lilah Writes Her Name

Lilah has learned to write her name!  I'm pretty slow teaching her things - I just sat her down today, wrote her name and told her to try and copy it - she did great!  She does have the easiest name to write of any of my kids - lucky girl!   We have also confirmed something that we've suspected for a long time - she is a lefty! She has always eaten with her left hand, but today I noticed she writes with her left hand and Mike told me she kicks with her left foot!

Kiddie Kollege

Madeline started Kiddie Kollege today.  It's a preschool program run by the county Parks and Rec.  It's 6 weeks long and she goes 2 days a week for 2.5 hours.  Madeline was so excited to go!  She was ready and waiting an hour before we needed to leave.  She practically ran into the room and didn't look back.  Lilah saw the fun classroom and wanted to stay, she cried all the way out to the car and half way home.  After about an hour of playing uninhibited with Madeline's new birthday toys Lilah was done, she wanted Madeline back!  There is a larger gap between Lilah and Celeste then between any of my other kids and Celeste is still pretty little, so Lilah is going to have to learn to play by herself!   We went to pick Madeline up and she told me "I love my school!"  She can't wait to go back and do it all again!

Here she is riding her new unicorn - that was her unusually-shaped gift.

Happy Happy Birthday Madeline Dear

Madeline turned 5 today!  We started the day with a dozen donuts from the local doughnut shop for her birthday breakfast!  She spent the morning checking on mommies progress on her barbie cake!  For dinner we had her choice of hot dogs and cheese puffs and finished with Barbie cake and ice cream.   After dinner she was able to open her presents.  We had some special guests, our friends Anne and Russell came for dinner and presents.  Madeline had a good day and is excited to play with her toys tomorrow (Lilah is excited to play with Madeline's toys tomorrow as well!)

 Eating her breakfast

 Her purple Barbie cake

One of her presents from Mom and Dad (Mike wrapped it).  Any guesses as to what it could be?  Tune in tomorrow to find out!

 

Celeste getting in on the fun

Great Deal

Today's picture is of my CVS trip.  I've been couponing for about 2 years now and I'm hooked.  I wouldn't say I'm 'hard core' or 'extreme', but I do love a good deal!  I bought these 10 items for under $10!  The best part of this deal is that I needed everything I bought - I've gone beyond buying things just because they are cheap or even free and love to score a good deal on things I need! 

New Skirt

As promised, a better picture of my skirt.  Today at church I got a calling!  I'm so excited - I get to be a Relief Society teacher~it's my dream job.  I've had it in several wards and I've always enjoyed it!  I've really enjoyed the break that the bishopric gave me - but it feels good to have somehting to do again!  I'm just glad that I get to keep going to Relief Society, I love it!

The necklace I'm wearing was a birthday gift from my mom - she crocheted it (yes it's made out of wire).

Tooth!

Celeste has her first tooth.  It showed up about a week ago, but is just now big enough to see.  Well, I can see it, it's on her right hand side, it can be hard to distinquish from all the drool!