Cancun... one hot place!

Alright... so my trip to Cancun was def fun but full of little bumps along the way! We fly out on Friday the 13th (of June) and it took almost all day. Our flight left at 430 am and we got there at 830 pm. By the time we rented our Suburban ( 7 people plus 7 bags) we were ready to just get there and go swimming. The pool at our resort was approx. 2 miles long and had all these different inlets: volleyball, lounge chairs in water, climbing rocks, discs to hop across the water on, bars, etc. We were a bit shocked when we first got there but def enjoyed the resort during the week!

On Sat we went to the place we found online called Hidden Adventures, which was hidden all right. We pulled in and thought we had made a huge mistake. But we did figure out what to do which was to hop on the 'trucks' which were really just engines and boards. We held onto poles while they drove about 8 miles into the jungles of Cancun. Once we got there we could see the zip line and adventures that awaited us! The first thing we did was ride a bicycle while on a zip line... looked a little sketchy but we all did it. It was fabulous! Prob my favorite thing there... we rode down to a cenota and went snorkeling in the caves. Then we went back up and went ziplining while harnessed in. Mom was all excited but then she say Jared all crazy on the zip line and she started freaking out. It was quite funny because she was just gripped with fear... but once we pushed her off the platform she screamed and seemed to enjoy it! Then we went repelling into a cave and then we reached a platform that we could zip line into another cenota. .. That was a lot of fun because we were gonna land in water so we went backwards and were twisting and stuff like that. We saw a lot of stalagmites and stalactites while snorkeling. Chelsea even hit her head... That day was so fun except for one thing: The mosquito bites we realized we had when the day was over. We thought we had been prepared, spraying ourselves with bug spray but apparently not! We got home and the girls were miserable. It appeared that only the girls got bites and Jared, Tighe and Dad were just fine. Overall I had 53 bites, Chelsea had 38 and Mom had a few but Breann had over 70. From that day forward we were on benadryl and had used three different creams to stop the itch! It turned out that Jared and Tighe did get some too but theirs didn't itch. Dad didn't get a single one... what the heck!!!

The next day was sunday and mom had gotten the address of the church building in Puerto Morales, which we thought would be a normal building. With our translator (Jared) we asked a few people and made some progress but could never find it. Finally we saw a guy in a white shirt walking towards a house. We talked to him and found out that their wasn't a building but that the address and church was an actual house!! So all 7 of us white people walked into this house in the middle of sacrament ( of course we were late) and increased the multitude by about 1/5. Their was about 40 people in total and the services were totally in spanish so we just sat there and listened and tried to understand a few words and said 'amen' whenever we could! It was a little hard for Tighe...he isn't a member but is Bre's boyfriend... so he had no clue what was going on. It was very refreshing that we knew what was going to happen and knew that no matter where we were in the world the church was still true and functioned the same way. After that we enjoyed the outdoors some more ...or stayed inside where it was cool.

Monday we had decided to explore again and went south, past Playa de Carmen to a waterpark called Xcaret. We were very excited for this place because my parents couldn't stop talking about it from the time they came before. However, the kids decided it was not as great as they made it out to be. They had a natural river (about 3 miles) that we floated down and enjoyed the beauty of the area. After that they had a cove with restaurants around that we hung out at for a few hours. They also had dolphins in this cove that you could swim with. We were going to do it but their were so many people that wanted to we opted out for just watching and enjoying the wonderful water and beach. They had some animals at this park that you could walk around and find but we aren't truly interested in a lot of animals... so just the turtles got our attention! They had huge fully grown turtles that prob weighed 700 + pounds and then they had baby turtles... so cute! They also had a small show explaining some of the prayer rituals that the Mayan people had... they climb this 30 foot pole and swing down on ropes while circling the pole. It is incredible looking but they have this flute like instrument that is played during the whole ceremony that was VERY annoying! Throughout our trip in Cancun we prob saw/heard that instrument 6 times... oh vey! We stayed for the history show that is at night. It starts with the Mayan people explaining and playing rituals and games , then goes into when the Spanish conquistadors came over and took over their lifestyle and finally got around to the rituals and dances of the Mexican people. I wish they had done it all in an hour and not in two... Jared absolutely hated it but that's how he rolls... It was interesting but way too long. Lots of colors and outfits thought- I think that's what mom loves the most.

The next day was a fun pool play day. We had found out how to rent the cabana's and have a bed under the shade as well as take all the lounge chairs we could use! It was a lot of fun as we were in the pool by 7 am and laying out all day long. Even if clouds were rolling in it was still so sunny and hot that you had to routinely dip yourself in the pool so you wouldn't burn. A few of us joined in on the water volleyball games that happened and generally we were lazy. But isn't that what vacation is all about! We had finally had enough sun around 5 and decided to head up to Cancun city and go to dinner on the pier. We found a Bubba Gumps- which is a restaurant we always go to if its around. Usually only found on island areas, the last one we went to was in Maui. Anyways, we had a live singer and the whole crowd eating on the deck were singing along. It was a lot of fun!

Wednesday we had decided to go to Tulum, some ancient Mayan ruins. Mom had heard from some friends that their were LDS tour guides and that if we requested them we could have not only the history but the Book of Mormon history enfolded into the tour. This was fabulous! We were able to learn how the Nephites are considered the Mayan people and the Lamanites are considered the Aztec people. Our guide gave us ten distinct reasons why this is true and it was all done by LDS archaeologists. It was very interesting to learn that these ruins were the first to use 'cement' because of the loss of wood for building- found in Omni. They have three statues on the top of their temple... the middle is representative of God the father, the one on the left is represented of Jesus Christ and the one on the right is representative of the Holy Ghost. The one on the right has no physical form since he was only a spirit. It was so cool to me to learn that they believed the Godhead was made up of three separate beings yet all three were together in their teachings. Also we learned about the human and animal sacrifices that were done and how they were started. Apparently they Mayans were easily influenced and followed not only some Aztec ways but also the Conquistadors ways when they came over. We saw graves, kings homes, temples and many other ruins that are still around. This was prob one of my favorite things to do. It really makes me want to research a bit more of these people and relate them to certain areas of the BOM. After Tulum we found a beach, Paradise Beach, and boy was it paradise. The whitest sand I have ever seen and the warmest water for the ocean. It was still shallow enough that I could walk out forever and it was like being in a bath tub! So happy we found it!!

Our last day in Cancun was another pool/ resort day. We were glad to have the down day to pack and catch up on our reading and stuff. Jared was getting bored so they rented jet skis for an hour or so and went out onto the ocean. Mom and Chelsea had never been on them before so they rode with Jared- which was prob a bad idea. They both got thrown off by him... mean to his momma!! But all seemed to enjoy it. The only sad thing was that Bre's ipod was stolen off of the lounge chairs when we were enjoying our margaritas (virgin of course) and eating lunch. She was super sad about it as we all can sympathize on how we would feel. Btw, every member of my family including my dad and nana have ipods... WOW!!! We all ate at home that night and packed and showered. We had a long day of traveling ahead of us.

The trip home was interesting as well because first of all the Mexico City airport just sucks as does the Dallas TX airport. The Mexico City airport no one knows what planes are leaving out of what gates, etc. We had to walk through it so many times that everyone was frustrated and determined to get out of Mexico. We had had enough! Once we got to the Dallas airport though we knew we were in some trouble. We should have had about 50 min to get our bags, go through immigration and customs and finds our next terminal. EXCEPT... our flight was 20 min late getting into Dallas. Immigration was quick but Tighe's bag got searched through customs and the terminal we needed to get to was in a different building. By the time we got to the gate, it had closed for 5 min. That's right... we MISSED our flight! We were then routed to the last flight out, two hours later. So we went and checked in at that gate, got upgraded to FIRST CLASS and given MEAL tickets. So we went and ate at a nice restaurant for an airport and came out and they were boarding the plane.. except not to Ontario CA. They had switched gates on us again and we had to run back to another building to catch our flight. Phew we made that but it was still a long addition to our already long day. By the time we got home it had taken us 15 hours to get there. (It should have taken about half)

Some random things that happened: Bre got up at 4 AM to shave her legs because she was so disorientated from the time changes... All the girls got up two hours before we had to on the last morning because we had set the clock wrong... We went through4 bite creams before we found one that worked...Jared flew on different planes then us because his ticket was done weeks after and we were all worried he wouldn't make it (because of prior flying track records)...We all came home with a bug that didn't let us eat much... Jared and Tighe looked almost black after the week and Mom started to peel... The vacation was a good one and not one to be forgotten!!