Cancun

Another truth learned: my children are my favorite subjects to photograph.

My children did go to Cancun.

These are the notes Kurt took while we were on our trip. My thoughts are added in italics.

01/16
Drop kids off at 8:30 pm (on the 15th)
Pack until 12:45
Wake @ 2
Flight @ 5:45 am
Arrive in Cancun 3:45 pm
Wait in customs for over and hour
Pick up rental car


Drive into downtown
Get Lost
Check into Radison Hotel


Eat at a hole in the wall (tortas, mole, enchilada verde)


Walk through the downtown market place
Buy 2 ice cream bars and a wallet
Pass out

Thoughts:

We sat by a little 5 year old named Austin on the flight down. He was great. Little kids love to share information. He likes to eat the fat on meat, when he was 3 he ate ants, and he has already heard all of my knock-knock jokes.

It is really cool to be back in Mexico again. I am glad that we stayed downtown out of the hotel zone. The little corner restaurant where we ate was so great. I forgot about real corn tortillas. It was like I was in heaven!! I stuffed myself. We got to dinners with soda and soup, and 2 tortas for $10.

We stopped at a little store and bought food for breakfast and some treats for the kids. It was called Super Karen. Rachel thought that was great. It was fun to remember all the little cool candies they have here.

Look how excited he is to be in Mexico again - so cute!

Our hotel looks awesome from the outside but the rooms are lacking a little. I think the bed is a piece of plywood with no mattress. Linoleum floors. I was too tired to care at that point, SLEEP!

01/17
Woke up and went to church. Very nice building, {the building was gorgeous! nicer than any I've been too!} fun to have it in Spanish {I liked singing in Spanish, I was a little lost beyond that.} 3 other Utah families were there.




After church we traveled to Chichen Itza which was a 2.5 Hr Drive. Bought gifts for the kids. Ate lunch a little store in the town of Chichen Itza.

Major insertion right here: all he is talking about is the food! Which was delicious and all but the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza were AMAZING! It was such a gorgeous, perfect day. The ruins were so extensive, I really had no idea. It was mind blowing how they could build such structures with limited means. Very impressive. I wish I had more knowledge of it before going (you could pay a guide $50 for a tour but we opted not due to the price.)









Dumped off car, went to the Moon Palace resort where the Valley conference was held. Didn’t want to go to welcome reception {that was me - I didn't want to go, sorry honey!}, ate at a restaurant and went to bed.

01/18

I really missed kids in the am waiting for my diving lessons to start. There were kids everywhere. I sat on the beach by myself, no fun without kids. I realized that I would need to stay very busy for this trip to be fun. My diving instruction was at 10:30 at our resort pool. The instruction was easy for me and fun.

Aldo, my diving instructor


They set out the oxygen tanks by the resort pool every day. It always made me smile.

Kurt met me for lunch and after wards we walked over to pier for my first dive.

I think I had fun, or I tried to tell myself it was fun. I wanted to do it again after wards so I guess that means something. We went to some coral reefs off the Hotel zone (it was an hour boat ride from our resort.) I didn't have a wet suit and was quite cold by the end of the dive. It took me quite a while to settle in to the whole feel of diving - I couldn't get my ears pressurized right when I first when down so that put me on edge a little. I was surprised but you almost feel claustrophobic. That sounds silly since you literally have the whole ocean in front of you. But it felt like your whole world was your mask and the internal battle of wanting to rip it and the regulator off but knowing it would be extremely bad if you did! I finally settled into it and amongst a lot of beautiful fish saw some cool things: a lobster, barracuda, and a string ray! They found the sting ray minutes before it was time to go up. Just before we went up I was looking around wondering where it had gone. I looked down and it was right under me, 6 inches from my foot. So cool! {I couldn't wait to tell Austin about that!}


I returned at 4 pm and Kurt met me. We changed, got a drink, and played mini golf (I won) and then got ready for Valley dinner.

01/19
Today was our day of fun spent apart from each other. We were to have the whole afternoon and evening off to go do fun things. Rachel left early in the morning for her scuba diving trip to the beautiful Cozumel. I had meetings in the morning and then went with Diversified Financial on a fishing trip. We went about 45 miles south of the resort. The first to hours we trolled for sailfish and marlins with no luck. The last to hours we fished of the bottom and ended up catching 2 measly little fish. I hooked one and lost him. The other boat got quite a few fish but that was just my fishing luck. Most everyone was pretty drunk by the time we got back to shore.


I was gone from 7am - 7pm. Most of it was spent traveling to get to the diving spot. It was just me from our resort and we picked up 3 others on the way, one Canadian gentleman who is a certified, obsessed diver (he has been to so many cool diving spots - probably shouldn't have met him - so many places I want to go now!!) and 2 British girls. They were "roomates" but after spending the entire day with them I'm pretty sure it was more than that...but they pretty much let me tag along with them and I was grateful for that so I didn't have to be more alone than I already was. After picking everyone up, we drove to Rivera Maya and then boarded a ferry boat to the Island of Cozumel. Cozumel is just for tourists. I'm not sure there is such a thing as a native who lives on that island. It was intense. We then got on the boat to go to our dock where we changed boats and got our wetsuits. Like I said, most of the day was spent traveling and naturally it all takes 3 x as long as necessary. We did 2 different dives. I was much more at ease and it was so fun! The coral reefs were so amazing with caves and intricate nooks and crannies. We saw an impressive school of fish, more barracuda (who look very mean btw!) and another string ray. I really wanted to see a turtle. Many next time. We dove 25-30 feet for the first and 40 feet for the second. It is a whole new world. It makes me want to study Murine biology! Austin would love it, some day I hope to share it with him. New passion found. THANK YOU KURT for letting me go!


Both Rachel and I got back within 5 minutes of each other. We got dressed up and went to a nice Italian restaurant at the golf course. I really hate fancy resorts and restaurants; it is just not my thing.

01/20
This morning we woke up and went to the valley meetings. The speaker was really boring. I was excited about it because his resume was very impressive. I got my picture taken for the Performance Plus awards and bought a few things from the Valley store and then we were done.




If you look closely you can see Kurt's name on the screen. He was being recognized for getting certified plus he earned the Performance Plus dealership on Monday. Way to go Kurt!

We were supposed to go on a jungle tour with jet skis and snorkeling that afternoon but because of the weather the snorkeling wasn’t going to happen. They never came and picked us up either so we called and canceled it and went with some friends to wet n’ wild. It is a water park owned by the resort. It was small but we had a good time. We got back to the resort in time to go to the last dinner. WE sat by some folks from Montana and Indiana/Wisconsin. IT was good to talk to them about their businesses. I also enjoyed talking to the people we went to wet n’ wild with. It is always interesting to me the differences in how things are done around the US. We went home after the dinner, skipped out on the dancing, and went to bet. We are such party poopers.

01/21
This morning we slept in a little as it was the last day. We went to the lobby to have breakfast. I was the best breakfast we have had on the trip. They had an omelet bar, lots of pastries and smoothie bar, pretty much anything you want. I had an omelet with bacon, chorizo, jalapeños, cheese, and onions topped with guacamole, Pico de Gallo, and refried beans. It was great. {Again with all the food talk! But seriously with 13 different resurants and everything was all inclusive we spent the ENTIRE time eating. If we were slightly hungry or not even at all we would go eat. Because we could and it was included. OH. MY. HECK. I have never eaten so much so consistently in all my life. And it was all so good.}

Then we went and played miniature golf to kill some time. While there we saw that there were lots of iguanas out for the say. We didn’t bring a camera so we went back and got it and grabbed some bikes and went on a ride to take pictures of iguanas and things. It was very humid so we sweated like pigs.






We went back to the room and grabbed a cold shower to cool off and check out. While waiting for the bus to the airport we grabbed some lunch at a buffet and away we went to the airport.


Just wanted to share the jewelry that I got on this trip. They made you put on a bracelet for every single activity you did. This is definitely the type of jewelry I prefer. :D

Adios Cancun! Thank you for the experiences and memories.


Comments need to be added about the trip home. Mainly because it didn't go like clockwork. Our connecting flight was to Phoenix. Kurt booked our flights through Phoenix knowing we wouldn't have to deal with any winter weather problems. California was getting amazing amount of rain causing mud slides, flooding, etc...The same storm was moving through Arizona. The plane couldn't land in Phoenix due to 60 mph cross winds over the airport. So we landed in Tucson. Since we were an international flight we need to clear customs. Tucson was not big enough to handle our flight (plus the 4 others who were in the same situation.) The weather in Phoenix finally calmed down but all the custom employees voted to go home instead of help us. So we had to get off the plane after waiting on the runway for 5 HOURS, clear customs and then reboard the same plane. We landed in Tucson at 7:30pm, finally got off at 12:30am got back on and arrived in Phoenix at 2:30am. Obviously there were no flights at the point and the airlines didn't refund or put up in hotels b/c they can't control the weather, not their fault. Our flight to Boise was now at 11:30am. We had 8 hours. There were 6-7 flights we similar issues. People just passed out everywhere. It was so comical or maybe it was the hour of the morning. But you walked off the escalator and there was someone right there, sleeping all over their bags, snoring. Hundreds just passed out. I really wish I would have taken a picture. We found the airport art gallery and it was less crowded in there (only 5 or so sleeping in there.) I passed out while Kurt studied the art for 2 hours. After we rechecked our baggage we found a more comfortable sleeping spot so Kurt could snore. LOL Thank goodness I had bought an over priced copy of "The Host" at the resort gift shop before we left. It seriously saved my life. We finally got home. 12 hours later than planned. I was beyond itchy to see my kids at that point! I didn't complain once but I think Kurt was ready to thump me cause I was SO antsy! I love my family.

Thank you to everyone who made this trip possible! We LOVE You!