Tulum

Our last day of adventure included a drive down to Tulum to see some ruins. 

Lauren's travel tip #1: When you're touristing with kids, always pick the package that includes the train ride to the exhibit. The kids will be cranky enough on the tour alone. I will promise you that. Don't need to add a mile walk on the front and back end of that.

 We saw plenty more of our large lizard friends.

 Our tour guide, Limhi, was bomb-diggity. He was Mormon and liked to point out all of the possible Lamanite/ Nephite establishments. He talked to the kids about a "Tree of Life" engraving and the importance of reading the Book of Mormon every day. Big win with this guy.

And what's a visit to Mexico without holding a lemur?

After leaving the ruins, hot as sweaty like a Lamanite, we drove to one of the most beautiful and remote little beaches my eyes have ever been laid upon before.

There was even a little hut/restaurant with fresh fish tacos for our enjoyment. Also, swings and hammocks. I'm still not sure if it was real or imagination. But pictures don't usually lie, so I'm going to guess that it did happen.

We then got it one of those little boats and went to see the ruins from the water.

Quite spectacular, if I do say so myself.

We did a little snorkeling after this, and the twins were rock stars. Drew hated every second, making me hate every second, but it wasn't long before we were back in the boat and back on dry ground.

This concludes my Cancun recap. It was a fantastic vacation, one which I'm sure we will repeat. There's so much to do in Cancun, we could probably go every year for spring break and never run out of new things to do.

I got a comment asking where we stayed, but it was anonymous, so I can't respond directly. We stayed at the Westin Lagunamar Villas. I would absolutely recommend it for kids, especially if you're going on a week when college kids are likely to be there. They tend to stay away from places with kitchens. The kitchens are great, because kids are usually up and ready to eat and you can have breakfast (and lunch and dinner if you so desire) in the rooms. I'm sure there's places that are better, but this was good enough for us. 

Isla Mujeres

The second night we were there, the Stuckis joined us. 

You never know how things are going to work out when you mix lack-of-sleep-vacation kids with more kids, but it could

  n o t  have gone better. Thank. Goodness.

One of the days, we took a ferry across the beautiful sea to Isla Mujeres. Probably the highlight of the trip for me.

Our first stop was the dolphins. Kissing, dancing, jumping. They did it all.

The kids, especially this curly haired girl, were in heaven.

It cost a lot of pennies to do this, but it was worth every one of them.

 After lunch, we had about 2 1/2 hours before our ferry, so we hired a taxi to drive us around the island showing us the highlights of the joint. It turned out to be a great decision. 

He first took us to a turtle farm. 

 This guy might have been the highlight of the whole shebang. No shoes, no teeth, excitement for days. Wanted to show the kids each and every sea creature he could find. And even though there were signs all over saying not to touch, he was shoving them in the kids' hands like nobody's business. They were loving it.

After the turtles, he pulled off to a random little dock, where a man was chillin' in the water with a baby shark. For 2 whole dollars, the kids got to pet it. They said it felt like rocks and I had to see for myself.

Next thing I know, I'm all the way in the water, and he's diving into another area and pulling out the big daddy of them all. 

Sharks are not my cup of tea, but here I was, lifting the death creature out of the water.

Check that baby off the list, cause I'm never doing that again.

Sleepy, sleepy.

Next up was a beautiful beach with views of some ruins, that I did not take a picture of. 

The last stop was this beautiful little beach. 

At this point, I stopped to count that this was the 4th (of 5 for the day) different water submersions they had that day.

Alas, it was time to catch the ferry back to our hotel, where the kids swam in the pool, while we ordered burgers and fries, poolside.

It's a really hard life, but someone's gotta do it.

Cancun, part 1

There's not much you can beat about Cancun.

For a 2.5 hour flight, stay in our time zone, gorgeous beaches, relatively cheap as far as beach destinations are concerned, kind of vacation, I'd say this wins every time.

It also helps A LOT that Greg speaks Spanish. One, because I can never get enough listening to him Spanish his way through a town, but two, I honestly don't know how people do it without. Yes, it got us out of a speeding ticket, and to some pretty remote beaches and parts of towns, but it also got us through the day. I think you'd really miss a lot if you couldn't communicate. 

Anywho, on to our vacation. 

Morning one, we were up bright and early, ready to face the day. When we got to the beach and saw this awaiting, we knew we were in for a great week.

You know iguanas? Those gigantic lizard things? They're everywhere here, like squirrels. 

Only bigger and much much scarier. 

But they accept melons as peace offerings, so we were good.

The twins were fearless in the water. Thankfully, the lifeguard carries a pretty loud whistle, because he sure used that thing a lot with them. 

"The sprayer." One day if I ever decide to run for office, I will use this as my platform. "A sprayer for every household." I will win, unanimously. It's a sure bet. These things are magical.

If we're being honest, we'll admit that everything about the beach is magical. Especially when you're a kid.