Tucker Basketball...

Tucker started basketball, and loves it. They are the goblins. He has loved it, of course! They have improved so much since their first game. They are still in the stage where whenever they get the ball, they just want to take it straight to the hoop, and shoot, no matter what. But it is so cute, and they are improving. They don't keep score yet, and they don't call travels or double dribbles, which happen constantly!!! :) But the coaches are able to get out there and coach during the game, so they learn, also all of the ref's have been so great also teaching the boys the technicalities of the game, so it's been a great learning experience.

His coach is this cute little old man who is the grandpa of one of his teammates. He is so sweet, and is totally old school. He makes them thank their parents after every game and every practice, he teaches them to congratulate the other team when they make a basket, and they have to play with their shirts tucked in. :) I kind of like it! :)

I love watching my little boy learn these new sports. Sports were such a big part of my growing up, and I'm hoping to pass that on to my kids. I know it's not detrimental to their eternal salvation, but I know that learning these skills, and what it takes to work and be a team and reach goals will totally help them, and hopefully keep them busy enough growing up to not get into too much trouble! :)

They wear these colored scrunchies on their wrists so that they can remember who their guy is to guard. :)

He was spoiled to have my mom, dad, his aunt Kayla and cousin Kenzie all here to watch his first game.

This little lady also loves basketball, and, of course, wants to do all of the sports her brother does...

He was excited to earn a dollar for every basket like he does for every goal in soccer. I told him that wasn't going to happen in basketball, so after some discussion, we decided that he gets ice-cream if he makes baskets. Luckily for us, he has made a few baskets every game and so we've been making some McDonalds and Dairy Queen stops after each game. :)

Feb..

So, this may have just recently happened:

Anyone who knows me knows how bad I am with my phone. I forget it, drop it, and leave it places all the time. This was the last straw though. It dropped in the middle of the Target parking lot. Of course, it was Target, my second home. I used it like this for a few weeks though, before I just couldn't do it anymore. It started to cut me when I would try to swipe. :) I did get a new phone out of it though, so that's pretty cool. My first new phone ever. I always get Ben's hand me downs, and so I feel pretty special! :) 

Anyway, my kids actually looked cute one Sunday, so I had to document it. I've been such a slacker, that most of the time I get such a whine fest when trying to put them in Sunday clothes, that it's not worth the fight. Oh, but listen to this, this is hilarious. A few weeks ago, Wes Mortensen was in our branch to talk, it was the week after we were in Mexico, so I was chatting with him after Sacrament, and he says to me, 'did my wife tell you what Tucker was wearing to church last week?' (the week my mom was with them at church and we were in Mexico) And I said, No. So he then tells me that the previous week he sees Tucker in the hallway wearing his normal Sunday pants and shoes, and then on top he's wearing a nice Sunday suit Jacket. He doesn't have one that fits him right now, so I'm sure it was his older one that is a bit too small, it was buttoned up and underneath was just a white Hanes T-shirt!!! :) He said him and Meg were laughing so hard. So, I asked my mom about it and was giving her a hard time for dressing my children like raggamuffins for church, and she said, 'what?? I thought it looked good!' I was laughing so hard. So, needless to say, I don't usually let them dress themselves for church, but we usually have to compromise.

And how could I resist this cute Maxi skirt in Taylor's size. Too cute! I wanted one in my size, but no luck!

This little boy is so sweet! I could just eat him up, seriously!!! I had to move my car and just put him on the front seat. He felt like such a big boy, he loved it! :)

I love his little smile so much. I know parents don't have favorites, but I always jokingly tell the other two that Jackson is mine right now. It may or may not be true!!! :)

Tucker started basketball, so we spend a few nights a week doing this with him:

Jackson has a girlfriend in our Branch, my friend Yulissa. She is from the Dominican Republic and a little loud and crazy (and we love her for it!) She holds him most every Sunday as long as she can, and I think that sometimes he just doesn't know what to think of her! :) He will just sit and stare at her! :)

So, this boy isn't very mobile yet. Tucker and Taylor didn't start crawling until about 10 months or so, so I'm not too worried yet, but getting there. I'm sure he'll come around. But he seriously has absolutely NO desire to use those legs of his. I have to set up all his toys around him so he can reach them all and then he is happy for a while! :)

Riding in his new wheels:

Our Favorite cousin, Kaiya, moved to England this month, so we sent her an airplane care package. She has never flown before, AND it is an 8 hour flight, so we wanted her to be entertained. Taylor decorated a picture frame for her, and I put in my favorite picture of the two of them:

This picture of the two of them makes me so happy:

She got to open up a little present every hour of the 8 hour flight, and we threw in some extra's. Some were treats, some were little toys, we just hit up all the dollar stores/dollar sections we could find, and put together a fun box for her! :) We will miss Kaiya (and her mommy and daddy) so very much at all of our Pyper family reunions! But I'm excited for this adventure for them, and hopefully for the chance to get to visit them over there!! :)

Visitors & Celebrations...

My sister and her family flew into town a few days after we got home. It was so fun having them here. I wish they lived closer, and I wish they visited more often! That little Kenzie May is one of my favorite little people of all time! :) Of course, a few Cafe Rio trips were made:

My mom did go home for a few days after watching our kids while we were in Mexico. But then came back up for another week while Kayla was here. These two girls' birthday's are only a day apart, so we wanted to have a joint celebration.

We had quite the adventure while driving up north on Presidents day to hit the Carters Presidents day sale. We had to hit the Carters sale to stock up for that new little man coming in July to the Croskrey family! :) --So excited for them, and Kayla is seriously the cutest little pregnant lady! Just a tiny little belly popping out! :) Kinda makes me want to do it all over again! :)

My van had started having issues with the sliding door again, but it was just one of them, and the other one worked fine, so it wasn't top priority to get fixed (at least not until after all of our company left) So, we driving up and all of the sudden it feels like I had hit something, or ran over something. But there was nothing on the road that I could see. A few minutes later my power steering goes out. I never realized how much I appreciate power steering until I didn't have it! While going fast, it was fine, not too bad. But when I tried to park in the parking lot, I seriously COULD NOT turn the wheel, I was pulling and pushing with ALL of my body weight and might! Anyway, we did our shopping, called our mechanic who couldn't get me in to look at it until the next day, so just drove home so as not to get stuck somewhere before then. Luckily my mom was here, so we had her car. Kayla and Jason had one of the Croskrey cars, so we were just fine. The next morning my mom follows me to the mechanic so he can take a look at it. On the way, literally just a few blocks from our house, the lights start to flicker, the gauges go down and it is totally dying. Called the tow truck through our insurance and he comes and asks me if I think it will start enough for him to move it away from the curb a little. So, he tries, and it starts right up! So I ask him if he thinks I can drive it to the shop. He asks me if my steering is always that tight. So, I tell him that my power steering went out. He tells me he's not a mechanic, but knows a thing or two about cars, and then pops my hood. My serpentine belt was totally gone. He was kind of in shock that I could have driven it as far as I did. I think that the thing that I thought I had ran over the day before was my belt somehow falling off!!! Without the belt, the battery doesn't charge, and the belt runs the power steering etc... yada yada yada, he towed my van in, and a few days later she was running just like new with a brand new serpentine belt! OK, sorry--long story! :) It was a fun adventure trying to drive my car with no power steering, Kayla had to reach over and help me make some turns... :)

But we also did get to go out with my Auntie Lorraine one day for lunch to Wadells. A new favorite of mine! It is a burger joint on the south hill featured on 'Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives'. It is divine! :)

Taylor wanted to take some pics:

My aunt Lorraine gave us these books that she had made for her kids for Christmas. It is a book of poems that she wrote, but it is so cool, because it is also filled with old pictures of my mom, aunts, uncles and grandparents growing up. I will cherish it forever, I love stuff like that! :) And the poems are --awesome!! :) Such a sweetie, that Auntie Lorraine! :)

Cutest picture ever of Kenzie & Taylor:

This girl is a riot, I loved every second she was with us. She calls my mom 'lady' so she was always saying, 'hey lady, come here' or 'hey lady, do this, or do that' It was hilarious! :) I even get an Aunt Taraka, but not grandma, she's just the lady! :)

This boy loves him some grandma. It doesn't help that she barely lets me see him while she's here. Seriously, she takes over, and I don't even get a chance. :)

Grandma & Jackson waiting in Grandma's car for the tow-truck that morning...

We finally had the celebration that the girls were waiting for. Taylor woke up that morning and got to open her presents from us up:

I may have gone a bit crazy buying her clothes. Little girls clothes are seriously so cute these days. I think I just buy vicariously through her, because heaven knows she is such a tom boy, she probably won't wear them that much! :)

Little man got to ride around on her new Radio Flyer saucer thing. It looks like he liked it! :)

We then thought it was a great idea to take the kids bowling. And it was a great idea. We reserved three lanes because some of Kayla and Jason's family and friends were going to show up. They didn't end up coming, so we had 10 kids on three lanes of bowling. Needless to say, it didn't take long for the kids to get bowled out.

Well, all but one! :) This little Kenzie May was going going going all night with the bowling. She seirously would have bowled every single players turn all night if she could. Jason had to rein her in now and then! :)

This boy enjoyed the view from his car seat, but he's such a sweet and happy and content little man that he was just fine with that! :)

My favorite birthday girl!

Cole must have bowled a good round! :)

Me and my girly's Tara & Meg. It's really too bad that none of us are photogenic! :)

These two BFF's also enjoyed their night of bowling. Tucker must have done good! :)

The whole birthday gang:

Afterwards, we came here for presents and cake and ice-cream:

Love me some clearanced out Valentines Dairy Queen Ice cream cake. What?? That was TOTALLY their decision! :) I had nothing to do with it! :)

This picture is very typical of their personalities: :)

Love that little squishy scrunched up nose:

Me and my seester and our birthday girls. So much fun! I love all of these ladies so very much!

Another celebration we got to have was a baby shower for a friend in our branch, Carolina. I was asked to bring a treat, so I thought I would make mini-cupcakes. Well, for those of you who know my cooking skills, this won't come as a shock, but I messed them up big time. For some reason I read that the oil amount was 1 1 /3 cup. It was really just 1/3 cup. I tripled the oil! I didn't have another cake mix box, so I had to make due. So, I did what any other cooking expert like myself would do, I added some corn starch to thicken the batter back up a bit. Then, so as to not lose flavor, I added some vanilla. I had to roll with it, because I didn't have time to change. I made the cupcakes. The cupcake holders came out a bit greasy after each batch, but the flavor was still there, so I just prayed that no one noticed! :) I have never gotten more compliments on a dessert than I did these cupcakes! :) Everyone was asking me how I make them! :) I was dying. Little did they know they were eating pure oil! :) {But they were pretty tasty!} :)

Carolina had to feed Jenny with her eyes closed just like she would feed a baby. :)

It was so much fun, our branch has some pretty amazing women in it, and I am so glad that we are all together. It's been so wonderful getting to know them! I feel so blessed to be a part of the branch. Since most everyone in the branch is from a different country, and most of their families are far away, we have become like one big family. I have loved this experience of just being put together with these women I don't know, and have loved getting to know them and learning from them and serving with them. They are truly amazing women. I hear about stories of their baptisms and conversions, and the sacrifices made to go to the temple, or go on missions, and it is truly humbling and amazing!

Both of these women are amazing, Carolina just moved here from Brazil, and has no family and is due this week to have her baby, and it has just been great getting to know her. Jenny, the baby, was just recently baptized a month ago. She is 17 years old and a Jr. at U-High. She bares her testimony all the time, and is so strong in the church. Just started going to seminary, wants to go to BYU, and is just amazing. The sisters are still teaching her parents, but Jenny just totally grasped the gospel and has been amazing. I've been taking her to church and activities, and it has been so wonderful getting to know her! The other ladies in the back are Hna. LaCasse and Hna. Zavala. Hna. LaCasse is our RS president and Hna. Zavala is her counselor. They are both amazing women! I love them all so very much!

It was definitely a month to celebrate!!!

Home Sweet Home...

Unfortunately, we came home to this:

And this:

{I love my mom dearly, and to pieces, but her level of tidiness around the house is no where near my OCD level-and I'm totally not complaining, she can mess up my house any way she wants while she is watching my three kids for a week. It's just a lot to do!--Love you mom--thanks again!} :)

And this took a bit of getting used to again. I really enjoyed the quiet of not always having a child screaming at me for something somewhere. aka...Taylor screaming for something somewhere! :)

While we were gone, the polar vortex hit the hardest here in the Northwest. It was like negative temperatures, and snowy, and there were all sorts of storm warnings. School was almost cancelled... Not to mention all that I had to do to clean. Organize my house, unpack and do laundry. The first few days we were back, I was kind of overwhelmed with where to start....But we were very happy to be back with the babes. Every time we leave, it's the same. The first few days are AWESOME. The break is great. But then I start thinking about all the fun things my kids would enjoy wherever we are, and then I get sad that they aren't with us. I can't wait for them to get a bit bigger to enjoy these adventures with us!

And this little dude, I swear grew like 5 inches while we were gone:

Seriously though, do you think he is getting to big for the bouncer??? :)

Oh, and Valentines day was the week we got home. Oh, and pre-school was at our house that week, including a V-day party with the kiddys.

I had to scramble to pull some things together, but we got it done, and had a great party!

Valentines bags for each other to exchange our Valentines, and we made cards for our families. I love how most of the kids also made cards for themselves. This age is so funny when it's all about them! (OK, I'm not sure anyone ever grows out of that stage, but....) :)

{Oliver, William, Tucker, Amber, Taylor & Lily}

This is what my table looked like after all the creativity happened. But that's a sign of a good time, right!? :)

Oh, and I was in charge of planning the field trip that month for our preschool class, which also happened to fall that week. We went and did a tour at Krispy Kreme. Which totally sucked by the way. Well, it was great in that we all got a free doughnut. But basically a worker walks you through what the machine does (that is not even on) through the window, that you could have just walked by yourself. :) Free doughnut = good. 'Tour' = Lame. :)

Although you can't go wrong with these cool Krispy Kreme hats! :)

Also that week, my very bestest friend from high-school and college, Jessy was in town. So, of course, we all had to get together. I should have seen her a few times, but I was pretty busy and overwhelmed. I'm bummed I only got to see her this once, but I'm glad I at least got to see her at all--she needs to live closer!!! {Hear that Jessy--come live by me!!!} :) It was also so fun to see Erica and Marsha!!! Blog's just aren't the same as keeping up in real life! :) {Hear that Erica, let's play!!!} :)

Mostly, I was just glad to be back with these two wack-o's:

Hanging out all day (clothing being optional), Eating bon-bons and watching cartoons all day. That is what I usually do with my time!

Oh man, I missed this fat little face! :)

Cancun...

Our last full day as a group was Saturday. Everyone's plane left at 11 and we had to head up to Cancun to get them to the airport. We, of course, spent our last morning at the pool. I was sitting comfortably in the shade of a sofa, while Emily and Delphia got the last bit of sun they could. (those are their legs!) :)

You know it's been a good vacation when your balcony looks like this:

After dropping them off at the airport in Cancun, Ben and I got our own car for the rest of the day and toured around Cancun. We were so sad to see our friends leave. We had such a great week with them. Seriously, so relaxing and fun all week long, we did nothing but laugh and joke and have fun the whole time!!! We're grateful that they let us tag along on their trip! :) But then felt bad when they found out that their plane got delayed and then they missed their connecting flight in Salt Lake due to the polar vortex that we were luckily missing. :) We decided that every few years we are going to start visiting all of the seven wonders of the world. We are going to make our rounds and I think that the six of us make some great travel companions--and I can't wait for our many adventures to come. :) (we'll see if that actually happens...) :)

 Anyway, Cancun wasn't too impressive to me, I'm glad we spent the majority of our trip down south more. They did have a Costco, though, so you know we were there trying samples. It was kind of a joke the whole time that Ben wanted to find a Costco, and there was one in Cancun, and after they all left, he told me he really did want to hit up Costco. I obliged because I thought that they might have some good souvenirs. I preferred the local trinkets from the streets and flea markets, but it was still fun trying the Mexican Costco samples. :) We also had a joke that we were going to come back one day and Ben is going to give us a tour of all the convenient stores. He wanted to stop at them all the time to get a drink and a snack and everyone gave him a hard time for it. :) The man loves him a diet soda, what can ya do?

{Like a kid in a candy store!} :)

We did find a great little taco joint and they seriously had THE BEST tacos. This is authentic Mexican at it's best. Seriously, nothing better! Tortillas, Steak, onion, cilantro and a little lime and salt. perfection.

We then went to a beautiful beach and just hung out...

It was seriously the best afternoon. We hadn't brought our swimming suits, but it was just such a perfect afternoon and the beach was so beautiful that we couldn't help ourselves. Well, I could. But Ben couldn't. He just jumped right in in the shorts he was wearing. And I just enjoyed every beautiful second just people watching on the beach! It was the best!

We made friends with these two cute boys playing next to us, and I think I fell in love with them because they reminded me of the friends we have made in the Spanish branch over the last few years. Ben was finding them shells, and they would give them to me. People were always shocked when we started speaking Spanish.

This lady asked to take a picture with us. Well, we were walking by her and her family and one of their sons was taking a picture of the rest of them, so I just offered to take it for them so he could be in it. Then I asked one of them to take a picture of the two of us, and she asked if she could get one with us. So, we got one with her. :) 

I had been searching for a headband all week, and finally found one in Cancun. They did have some pretty good shopping there! Cancun Selfie!!!!

After Cancun we headed back down to Playa del Carmen. They had a shopping area down there that was pretty popular called 5th Street, (calle quinta) and we hadn't been at night yet. We heard there were lots of cool shops and good resteraunts. (Although most of the times we were in Playa, we asked the locals the best resteraunts, and they weren't on 5th Street. And we had some great food outside of calle quinta.)

Fish spa, where you could sit and let little fish swim around your feet. I saw these in some random stores:

Looking down one way on 5th street. It was actually really cool, and fun. Totally toursity, and lots and lots of people, but lots of fun, and cool to just hang out and walk around.

We ate dinner and were serenaded by an awesome mariachi band. They even sang 'Guantanamera' which is one of my favorite songs!! It was so fun!

And I got my last Pina Colada of the trip that night.

I was sad to see this week end. It was the perfect mid-winter break from the throes of reality and weather in Spokane. I really do hope one day to get back to the Yukatan! Maybe I should have been born a Mayan???

Coba...

We had the resort booked for 7 days, Sunday to Sunday. But Emily wanted to get back for their Ward conference on the second Sunday and didn't want to miss another day of church, so their flight home was on Saturday morning. Since we had bought our tickets separately, we decided to stay until Sunday and that meant that Friday was our last full day together with our friends. There was one more ruins site that we really wanted to see, one where we could actually climb and walk on the ruins. We decided against a tour guide, but kind of, in the end, got one. :) 

If any of you know Ben, you know that he had been dying to get up and explore the ruins from day one, and was so happy to finally be at a place where he could do just that.

There was that temple and a ball court right when we walked in, but everything else is spread out over lots of land. So, they have bikes you can rent or catamarans that will bike you around. My skin was on fire, so everyone else rented bikes, but I got a guide! :) It was perfect, because he was so nice and would just tell us things as we drove. Ben and I on our catamaran...

The path in front of us getting from ruin to ruin:

One of the many Codex's. They were all carved, and definitely weren't as easy to decipher as the carvings from Chichen Itza:

I just put up my camera and snapped a shot, hoping to get one of all of our friends on their bikes:

We finally made it to the Temple in Coba. The main Temple of that particular city, and one of only 2 in the area that you can still climb up. Although we kept on hearing rumors that this one too, will soon be closed to climbing. You can definitely tell that the foot traffic as worn away at the steps. Chichen Itza and Tulum were also open to climbing until like 2008 or something.

It was definitely a mistake to wear my jean shorts on a day I knew I would be hiking, and hiking with a sunburn, but the pain was definitely worth it!!! :) It was awesome.

The view from the top. I couldn't believe how jungley it was down there. It's hard to believe that there are thousands of ruin sites hidden within this jungle. The one little top you can see on the left, is the watch tower. I guess Coba is a center point between Chichen Itza and Tulum, and had raised roads (just like in the BOM) that lead to both Chichen Itza and Tulum. I think it's really cool that all the cities were connected.

Fry headed down first so he could get a shot of the rest of us at the top:

At the watch tower on our way back down. It was pretty cool for us to think about this as a thriving Metropolis and how it must have been back then. I think it's pretty amazing that all these structures are still around.

On our way there we had to drive through a few little Mayan villages. They were so cool, and I wanted to get out to take some pictures. We passed by the coolest looking cemetery, but didn't get a chance to stop. I kept on hoping we would see another one just as cool, but never did.  We did stop after Coba to do some shopping and I was able to snap a few pics:

When we got home, we decided to eat dinner in that night. We had some food we wanted to finish before they all left the next day. So we made a feast at their place and just hung out. Cary really wanted to do some night swimming, so after dinner, and after it started getting dark, we headed back down to the pool, and enjoyed some night swimming. You can imagine REM was stuck in our head for the rest of the trip!!! :) 

Akumal y El Rio Secreto...

The next morning we rented a van to have for the rest of our week. We decided that it would be worth it, rather than having to pay for taxi's to go everywhere. Playa Akumal was just south of us, close to Tulum, and known for it's snorkeling. After the real high-tech rental car company, Kirt walked it to see that his reservation had been scribbled in the side of just a random lined notebook--but we got the van, so no worries, we headed down. The Christensen's had each brought their own gear, and we rented one more, so had three sets of snorkeling gear and decided to go in groups. The boys went out first. I was already seriously considering not snorkeling anyway, because of my awful sunburn. And when I heard that Delphia didn't want to go because she has clausterphobia with tight things on her face, and Emily didn't really feel like going, us girls just hung out on the beach. When the boys came back and said it was only a 4/10 spot for snorkeling, the decision was made. We just hung out. The boys went out again and seemed to enjoy it, but I was just happy enjoying the view from the sand. 

They did get to swim with some turtles, which would have been cool. But not worth the risk of getting even more sun on my back.

Our next adventure was El Rio Secreto. The area is also known for it's underground caves. They are actually still discovering lots of them. The one we went to, El Rio Secreto, was just discovered in 2006, I believe. It was amazing! Our tour guides name was Jonathan, again. He spoke Spanish, English and French, so we had some French speaking people from Quebec in our group.

Everything down there is tied into the Mayan culture, and so we had to be blessed by a Mayan man before entering the underground caves. He had his smoking stick and was chanting. (I think he may have been actually cursing us, but who knows...) :)

It was seriously so cool. We got to spend the next few hours just wandering and swimming through these caves. It was amazing!

They won't let you take your camera down, but they have a photographer accompany every group, and then after you can buy individual pictures or a whole disc of your group. But it's nice because they already have the extra flashes and lights set up, and know the cool spots for pictures, so we got some good ones.

Some areas were too deep to walk through, so we had to swim...

Our whole group again. They were all so nice. It was fun trying to communicate. Jonathans first language is Spanish, he's from Mexico, but he studied in France for a year or so, and was taught English growing up, but there were still times where he had to ask us, in Spanish, what some things or words were,and we'd tell him, then he'd tell the Canadians in French what it was. 

It was pretty cool, most of these stalagmites and stalagtites are formed from calcium dripping and hardening and then over time forming. And some of them are even formed from dripping over tree roots that shoot down. You can see the holes that the roots come down from, and the ground above us. It was pretty amazing!

Another day we'll never forget, and that absolutely wore us out! After our underground tour, we got to relax,the grounds above the caves were gorgeous, and we also got a nice buffet lunch--our in our case, almost dinner. It seems that most of the touristy places offer a nice buffet lunch! :)

The Mayan Riviera & The Mayan Palace...

After such a long day the day before, we decided to spend the day at the beach and at The Mayan Riviera & The Mayan Palace with some down time. We went to Playa Paraiso, just a few minutes walk down the beach from our resort. It was so nice and relaxing.

It was the perfect day and just so picturesque...

I, of course, got fried. But not after doing some boogie boarding, reading on the beach and swimming in the ocean. It was wonderful! After a perfect beach morning, we walked back to our resort for a late lunch and exploring of our resort.

My favorite part of our resort was the jungle that we had to walk through to get anywhere, right outside our door. I seriously felt like I was in the jungle every time we walked through it.

The Mayan Palace also had these crocodile habitats throughout the grounds. This one happened to be full of baby crocs.

The beautiful fountain at the entrance of the resort...

After cleaning up, we decided to just hang out and play some phase 10 until dinner. That night we hit up one of the restaurants at the resort, instead of heading into Playa del Carmen. 

Just a friendly little visitor in the middle of the walkway...

After a few attempts at different restaurants, we decided on The Havana Moon. We could never trust what the workers told us, or what the schedule in the resort pamphlet said. Even if we were told restaurants were open, it was always hit and miss! :) But Havana Moon was delicious, and we got to eat right on the beach. 

I absolutely love hearing the waves crash against the shore, weather while I'm eating or sleeping, it is my personal heaven. 

Of course, we got our drinks for the evening, to go with our sunburned faces. :)

Chichen Itza y Tulum...

We left bright and early the next morning for our tour of Chichen Itza and Tulum. They are the two ruin sites that are the best restored and the biggest down in the Yucatan Peninsula. It was soooo amazing!! When we first found out about this trip, they had told us that they had booked an LDS tour guide through the ruins. We were a bit skeptical not knowing if we REALLY needed to pay for an LDS tour. We had heard that you didn't actually need a tour guide...yada yada yada. But...we were SOOO glad we did the tour. We did it through Helaman Tours. He is a member of the church down there who has been doing these tours for 30 years. His business has grown so much that he wasn't actually our tour guide, but his son-in-law, Jonathan. Johnathan was awesome.

Chichen Itza was our first stop. It was amazing and I wish I could remember every single little detail that Jonathan told us about it. It is where the biggest pyramid is, The temple of Kulkulkan is there. Kulkulkan is what the Mayan God is similar to the  Aztec's Quetzalcoatl. But here is the city wall around Chichen Itza:

You walk in and I think it's something like 80 square kilometers of ruins, the main and center one being the temple of Kulkulkan:

It was amazing! What's more amazing and what absolutely blew Ben's mind was that there are more than 20,000 ruin sites within the jungles of the Yukatan peninsula, but so little of them are actually uncovered and restored. Ben couldn't understand why they haven't restored more yet, but Jonathan told us that the funding isn't available, so they are little by little restoring them as they can.

Our first stop on our tour was the ball court. It is the largest ball court found so far.

All of us inside the ball court:

They glyph's depicting the winning team beheading the losing team. Although, it was an honor to be beheaded and sacrificed to the God's:

There were the cutest little Mayan ladies outside selling these little handkerchiefs. They were all so old and cute, but this little lady just won Ben's heart. She was soooo teeny tiny!! Ben had me sneak a picture with her! :)

Some more glyphs, and Jonathan showing us the Temple of the Skulls in Chichen Itza...

Another glyph of the 'descending God'. It was so cool to read scriptures throughout our tour, from the Book of Mormon, where it spoke of how they constructed buildings and cities. Because we believe that the Mayan's are descendants of the Lamanies and Nephites, there were many of these buildings built just like the way it's described in the Book of Mormon.

The Temple of the warriors, where they have over a thousand pillars carved for fallen warriors. It was pretty cool. The higher up warriors have square columns with a different pose carved on each side of that one warrior, and the not so high up guys just had round pillars with carvings. They actually aren't sure if the pillars were carved after that particular solider had fallen, or if they all just got one for being a soldier.

The rows of columns went on for a pretty long ways:

The observatory. You know how the Mayan calendar is so popular because it was amazingly prescise, well, this is the observatory where they observed the stars and rotation of the earth. It is pretty amazing to me that they were able to calculate so exact the hours and minutes in the day, and even in the year, knowing way back then that there was a leap day every four years.

A statue build to the Rain God. It totally looked like a totem pole. Amazing how all of the Native American people from the north and south are connected. Jonathan told us that if you get an Aztec person and a Navajo person from Arizona together, that their language is so similar that they can understand each other!

And finally the Temple of Kulkulcan. It was amazing. It is one of the seven wonders of the world. (This is my 3rd wonder of the world to be at!! The other two are Petra, in Jordan. --Indiana Jones Temple-- and the pyramids of Egypt)

It is amazing to me how precise and exact this temple is also. On the summer solstice and Winter solstice, as the sun is setting, the steps make serpent like shadows coming down from the top, and then there are those heads carved into the bottom on either side of the steps that you can see. This was their main temple, and every temple had two rooms at the top. It was pretty amazing to me how their temples have washing rooms, and anointing rooms.

The next stop Jonathan took us to was a cinote for a quick lunch and swim. It was so amazingly beautiful. The area is known for all of it's centoes. They are big underground cisterns, with plenty of water to swim in. It was really cool and totally beautiful! I didn't want to bring my camera down for fear of it getting wet and destoryed, so this is the only picture I got of it, from the top.

For those of you who know me, know that I am a huge wuss! They all jumped and dived off of the area that they have for you to jump and dive off. I chicken out every time I have to do something like this. It takes me forever to build up the courage! In this case, by the time I finally did it, we had to go!!!! :) But not without making sure everyone remembered who I was! :) I screamed SO dang loud that everyone down there was laughing at me, and when we got back to the top Jonathan said, 'did you hear that girl scream so loud!!??? Who was that???' Here is Emily doing a dive off in perfect form! :)

Our next stop was Tulum. It is the only Ruins on the ocean. We had to walk through the city wall to get there:

It was amazingly beautiful, and I was also amazed at how different of a city it was. Totally different that Chichen Itza. This definitely had more of the 'beach vibe' town. In Chichen Itza it was all about warriors, and battle and bloodshed. There is no depiction of wars or bloodshed in Tulum. It is built right on the cliff of the ocean, right at a break in the barrier reef. Probably as a point of reference for boats to come to shore without hitting the reef.

Beautiful!!!

The main Temple in Tulum. Again, with the two rooms on top, and a carving of the 'Descending God' above  the doors.

Two things we saw a lot of that day, besides ruins, of course, were; 

1--Old men in speedos just hanging out, without a worry!

And 2--these huge friends everywhere. They'd just be hanging out on the ruins like no big deal. My kids would have loved it! :)

The amazing beauty of Tulum from down the coast line. It truly was just absolutely gorgeous!

The backside of the Temple, from the beach:

Walking along the cliffs, right outside of the Temple:

Everyone with Jonathan. He was awesome. Except when he almost fell asleep at the wheel while driving from our lunch stop to Tulum. I didn't notice, but Kirt said he had to keep an eye on him, and was ready to jump in and take the wheel at any time. :) I brought it up as a joke with him when our day was done, and he laughed and said that that lunch stop usually makes him tired! :) Oh, and also just flipping through a magazine casually reading it while driving. That also happened. Another incident we poked fun at him for! :) He was fun though, and we really enjoyed our day with him!

Good bye, Tulum! I hope I get to see you again one day! :)

After our long day of awesomeness, the boys decided they deserved a drink and each got their respective drinks. Ben, of course, with his diet soda. And Cary with his water. Kirt was dying for some coconut water, so that's exactly what he got. I'm not too fond of the stuff myself, but it was a good end to a really cool day!