Tulum

We couldn't be so near Mayan ruins and not go see them....especially since it was Tulum, the city Sofia was "assigned" in her social studies class. (Besides, a trip to Chichen Itza would have taken all day, whereas we could see Tulum before lunch and then go swimming.)


As soon as we got there, we let the kids each pick a giant hat to protect their dear little faces. I didn't force one on Cozy, but I should have. Her little scalp got burnt. Annika insisted on wearing her hat backwards for most of the day. (Here's one of the few moments it wasn't.)


There was a huge pole where you wait to take the tram to the ruins...topped with Mayan musicians.




We were impressed even before they started to do this...


It spun, the roped unravelling further and further, until they reached the ground. It was cool, but I seriously got dizzy just watching.

We didn't take the tram. Our theory is "walk down, ride up" (when you're extremely hot and tired). I tried to impress James with the "train". He looked at me like I was crazy. "That's a tractor dressed like a train." (Moms can be so dense.)


Entering the city....


Being really hot...


Taking cool pictures...


Not letting kids get sandy and wet ("We'll go to the beach when we get home!")....


Neat to see the ruins, but I think my family came to the consensus that we only wanted to learn about them in the shade.

Lucy's

Just to warn you, I'm going to be droning on about my vacation all week. Feel free to ignore me for however long you need to. :)

Tony and I think ice cream is an important part of any vacation (which could explain my desire to go to Italy), so how relieved was I when I saw a "homemade ice cream" sign as we were driving by the beach! Thank you, Lucy's!


They had new flavors every day. You heard me - every day. You have to be committed to maintain a figure like mine. (Also, it was an effective way to get kids to leave the beach - "Come on guys, we're going to get ice cream!")

Among all of us, we tried mango, carmel, ginger, nutella, chocolate (some of my kids are pretty boring that way), butter pecan, vanilla nut crunch, vanilla (ditto on the boring) and strawberry.


Complete with homemade waffle cones...and I'm pretty sure we only used the last of the cones once (leaving my sil's family with cups - I hope they aren't grudge-holders).


Yum.

Our Townhouse

Behold - Casa Romero. Seriously. That's what it's called. It was built by the Romero (of no known relation to us) who founded the town of Akumal. I know it sounds and looks very historic but...


...it was founded in 1975. (In all fairness, that was before I was born.)

We were staying in one of the townhomes on the other side of the circle. French Angel? Blue Tang? I can't remember which. It was perfect. Two big bedrooms: one with a king, one with two fulls (for the kids). Three bathrooms for de-sanding and rinsing the saltwater out of your hair.


...and do you see the balconies? They lead to the roof. Show 'em, Sofi!


A pool on each house...in case you're tired of the fish nibbling your bum when you swim in the lagoon. :)

Also, it was shallow enough for the kids to swim without life jackets.


...and, as it was a family reunion, we had built-in playmates. Odie had two big cousins to get into trouble with. There were 2 other 7-year-olds for Jonny to pal around with. Sofia and Annika had to share Lizzy...but at least they shared nicely!


...and friends for grown-ups as well! I think Missy taught us at least four new games over the week: nerts, farkle, hand and foot, and bananagrams (which I've had since Christmas...and have been too lazy to read the directions.) So fun!


From the roof, we can see the lagoon...so that we don't forget to get our daily snorkeling in.


Did I want to come back home? Not really.

Up in the air...

On the 12th we began our trip to Mexico. I was super-nervous about taking a multi-flight, out-of-country trip with the hooligans, but my husband was sure it would be great. ...and if he wasn't sure, he has a very good poker face.

We left early, parked in the new, ultra-luxurious Wally Park Garage (seriously - it was posh...and only a dollar more a day than the outside lot, with their grand-opening special).


Clearly we don't travel much (except in the van), because the kids were were super-excited about the shuttle ride to the airport.

Cozy climbed onto a seat and was so happy to be buckled up like a big person.


Sofia (like the new do? Shockingly similar to Odie's haircut - don't you think?), before the word "Shuttle" reminded her of Star Trek...


...and she stared making everyone do this....



Oh yea, we were on the party shuttle. It could only be downhill from there. The first flight went ok. We passed the credit card around so that everyone could watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Boo was predictably good (give him food and tv...). Cozy was predictably restless.

By the time we got to Houston, I felt like I had taken the kids on an all-day shopping trip and reasonable questions like "where is our gate?" and "Can we get pizza?" where making me want to scream. To make things worse, Tony (with our passports and boarding passes) was nowhere to be found when they started threatening to oust people from the flight if they hadn't had their passports verified before boarding!

Luckily he arrived in plenty of time, piping hot pizza in hand (seriously...we boarded the plane with a giant pizza box), and got us all squared away with the passport police. James and Cozy slept thru the last leg to Cancun, and all surrounding passengers expressed their gratitude (though relief might be more accurate).

We landed in Cancun at 10pm, Tony was unhappy with our rental car situation, so we sat around (car-less) for about an hour until he rented us our dream car...a Sienna (just like the one we left at Wally Park). We started driving south with Cozy screaming and everyone else sleeping. (How do they sleep through that?)

At this point, I did not have very good feelings about our vacation.

All of those feelings just melted away when we arrived at the "family compound" in Akumal. Met by Tony's wonderful family, at a beautiful, beautiful place (even in the dark) - how could you not be excited and happy.

The kids obviously felt the same way...and expressed it by trying to climb the palm trees after tempting coconuts. Thankfully, one of the caretakers got a ladder before anyone got hurt, and they cracked open coconuts to their hearts content. Behold the devastation:


Coconut Apocalypse 2011

Oh, Snaily Me!

Things I've been slowly finishing:


Pillowcases for my sister to take with her to China. (She and my niece are going on the world's coolest field trip: China and Korea. The pillowcases are for the orphanage they'll be helping in.) I think she made thirty...I made nine.


..and...

Cozy's toddler bed. Not my fault...weather has not been cooperating. When it isn't raining torrents, it's too windy for spray-painting. (...and I've been banned from painting in the garage....and justly so.)



Slow and steady, Mamalia, slow and steady....

On an unrelated note, does anyone local want these fingerpaints? The sooner they're gone the better.

Cozy Claus

I think one of the very fun things about having little girls is dressing them up. It's so sad when they stop letting you choose their clothes....or make it such a horrible drama that it's no longer worth trying to inflict your outfits on them.

Thank goodness Cozy is still in the fun phase. ...and it pays dividends to her sometimes too. After Grandma Cozette saw Coze in her Santa dress, she offered to make her a Mrs.Claus baby. Yea! It came in the mail with Annika's sweater...how many weeks ago?....and it's taken me this long to get a picture of it!


The very first thing Cozy did was take off the hat and shoes (because she knows from personal experience that babies hate hats and shoes).

She may not have wanted it on her baby, but Cozy really did like the hat, especially the little holly beads. I think she spent as much time pointing them out as she did naming the babies facial features. "Eye!" (poke! - good thing it's a fake baby.) "Nose!" (poke!) "Ears!" (poke!)


Oops - I told her to smile.


That is her real smile - the "pleased" one.


...and she cradled her baby all day long - just like a good mommy.

I am a sewing ninja

Every once in a while I do something that's impressive...well...impressive to me, and last night was one of those times. Sofia's Irish dance costume has been making me C-R-A-Z-Y. I did a terrible job on the hem (my first circle skirt), the bodice was way too loose, and I don't know what kind of primates they had in mind when they made the sleeves on her shirt (who has arms that long?...not short people like us)!


I re-hemmed, took in the bodice, and yes, removed the cuffs, cut two inches off the sleeves and then sewed the cuffs back on. You can't even tell (except that they don't hang down over her hands now). ...Ninja!

Everything was washed, pressed and perfect for the Pacific Northwest Feis (pronounced FESH - like fresh without the "r") this morning.


...though Sofi still has a little bit of dress envy going on. You have to be a novice to get that novice dress!


Still, I think there's something in that bag that's making her happy...


...two second-place medals (in the Light Jig and the Slip Jig)!