Cancun Trip

Jon has a sibling who owns an Air B&B on the beach outside of Cancun, it was offered to his family to use during off season.  They invited our family, Steve, and Blake and Sherri to join them for the week.  We had such a great time with cousins, hanging on the beach, swimming, playing games and exploring Mexico.  

Every night sea turtles would come up on the beach to lay eggs and one night a nest of baby turtles hatched and found their way to the ocean.  People took turns making breakfasts at the house, we also made lots of fresh guacamole and salsa and had lots of yummy fresh mangos and fruit. 

We attended a sacrament meeting in Spanish while we were there.  That was an interesting experience for our kids. 

We took the group out to Chichen Itza ruins.  

On the way home Steph and Jon took me and Blake and Sherri to a cute little Mexican town with a beautiful catherdral and a little central square with little craft tents set up.  I bought some new leather sandals and a churro.

We would typically eat out for dinner as a family and it was fun to have discussions together around the table.  

One night we shared favorite memories of Diane.  Another we all shared some favorite vacations we had been on.  The food was fantastic and my kids ordered ceviche every night. 

 One night after dinner in Tulum (which is such a cute town) we walked down the streets and explored the shops after.

Another day we went to Xcaret which was a neat little amusement park.  Kind of like a zoo, with a beach, a boat ride and a river cenote to float in. 

They had a nice little lunch buffet we all enjoyed.  It was so hot and humid we were all super glad to jump in the water. 

We ended the night with culture dance performance. 

One day we went to the most beautiful cenote to swim with Chase and Daniela.  We found fresh water turtles and the kids really enjoyed cliff jumping into the deep clear water of the cenote.  We also saw monkeys swinging in the trees. 

We had a second ruins day where everyone went to Ek Balam.  

This was such a fun ruin that they would let you climb on. 

It was interesting to see some similarities in these Mayan temples to both and ancient and modern temple practices. 

The kids went home after Ek Balam and Blake, Sherri, Derek and I went on to Coba.  I loved Coba- maybe even the best of all the ruins.  It felt so primitive like you just happened upon ruins in the jungle.  You ride bikes out to the ruins- we actually hired a biker carrier to ride us out through the jungle to the ruins. 

The only downside to the trip was that Derek and I felt the need to be on constant guard for being scammed.  We had to watch our restaurant bills for over charge, we were always anxious about being pulled over by Mexican police as we drove around, and we ended up having to cancel 3 credit cards while we were there because of credit card information being stolen.  The worst offenders were the gas stations.  It was a great, eye-opening experience for our kids to be in a different country and all the memories with cousins and aunts and uncles will forever be cherished.  When we got back to the Salt Lake Airport the first thing Camden said was- “Trash cans!  I missed trash cans!”  So grateful to Steph and Jon for inviting our family along on this trip of a lifetime.