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.