Oh Joy! The Television!

Some would say there is only one way to watch TV. Those people are boring. Our children will now demonstrate just a few of the many, many ways one can enjoy the television:

Number 1: The Blah
This pose truly encapsulates the essence of TV watching. Zero movement. Half closed eyes. PJs. For extra bonus points, a side ponytail always classes up the event.

Number 2: The basket
This dates back to pre-Colonial times when the natives would weave TV baskets to sit upon for viewing enjoyment. Few possess the ab strength to maintain this pose for long so a good core workout is essential.

Number 3: The sibling squish
To achieve this masterpiece one must, obviously, have a sibling to perform said 'squish' upon. Although fights can erupt after an attempt at the 'squish', if performed correctly, it can be very comfortable and satisfying.

Number 4: The laid back
Often a favorite among Dad's, this pose can be achieved in a number of ways as long as the participant looks very very very relaxed yet also cool. (As a bonus: Charlotte is demonstrating "The Dinosaur" wherein one will not put down the squeaky Dinosaur for an entire episode of SuperWings. Masterful.)

Number 5: The "I died"

Charlotte has mastered this pose which is considered by the experts to be the easiest and also, the most likely to result in sleep. We believe Charlotte studied under the master sleeper, aka Dana. 

Number 6: The Whatever
Finally, the classic whatever demonstrates mastery over ignoring the Mom no matter how many times she asks you to look at her so you can take the picture already. Use of the thumbs up is a further affront because it conveys that, yes, you did indeed her but no, you cannot look away from Michael Jackson's Beat It long enough to just smile already. This look comes naturally to most small children and husbands.

Cancun, Take 2

Saturday was our second Excursion and really the main reason we came to Cancun (besides the food of course): Chichen Itza. We used Helaman Tours. They were incredible. We were picked up by Jonathan and chatted the whole 2 1/2 hours over about his family and the history of the country. (On the ride back we mostly chatted American vs Mexican cars and soft drinks. Dana bonded with him over a love of Squirt.)

So warning: there are a lot of pics of me in a very large black hat. I feel like I look ridiculous and Dana looks like he is trying to avoid a hat in the eye but for the sake of posterity I am including these photos. Look at your own risk.

The pictures will not do it justice. The pyramid is HUGE! It's actually built over 2 smaller pyramids from civilizations they conquered. Archaeologists have dug up sections of the platform that the whole Chichen Itza area was built on. They seriously built and leveled the whole area. It's incredible to think of that. No one is allowed to walk up the steps anymore because people apparently died a few times coming down.

So we did Helaman tours because they mainly focus on the history of Chichen Itza from a Church perspective. In other words: Jonathan talked about these people as Lamanites and showed how all their iconography points to a belief in Jesus Christ (albeit a different view from the Nephites). It was fascinating and when you put all the evidence together it points toward one obvious conclusion: that Jesus Christ visited the ancestors of these people and their culture absorbed and changed many of his teachings. They believed in a God of sacrifice but they believed it was a literal sacrifice of the heart, not the broken heart we believe now. Thus, they sacrificed a lot of people and had a LOT of altars.

 This was the altar of skulls, where rivals would have been sacrificed. It's amazingly preserved.

 This is the famed ball court where they played Pok da Pok, a lacrosse type game. The captain of the winning team was sacrificed.

 This was the astronomy tower.

 And this was the King's house. It's set a ways off from the pyramid but it had several houses around it for his wives. Funny story, the section on the right wa completely blown away by a really dumb archaeologist years ago, who used dynamite to try and get to an inner portion. Almost brought the whole thing down. Head slap! Another cool story: the piano guys played here a few years ago, which was a huge honor. The piano was nestled in the bottom right of the frame and the cello player was allowed to play on the tippy top.

 This is a face carved in the side of the King's house, complete with a curly Q nose:)

Front of the King's house. 

 This part was cool. There is a section of pictographs that show daily life but they also show what is unmistakably a horse. Horses weren't supposed to arrive on the American continent for centuries but of course the Book of Mormon mentions them. Very cool.

Two hours at Chichen Itza literally flew by. On the way out we bought the cutest blue dress for Charlotte and a mask for Uncle Matt. The Jonathan took us starving tourists out for amazing tacos at this crazy cool Spanish Villa that's been converted into a B&B.

 Our last stop was the town of Vallidad. It was...meh. After Chichen Itza it was hard to be impressed by a little museum and the story of the conquistadors basically slaughtering the townsfolk and dismanteling their pyramid to build a church. But we still had fun and got to try local popsicles (which we totally were expecting to make us sick but thankfully did not!).

 Jonathan was looking a little green after all our walking so we called it a day. We had a blast with him but next time, more couples might be fun:)

We had dinner on the beach at La Pina and watched the sunset. Perfect day.

Sunday was our favorite day. Why? Because we spent the morning doing absolutely nothing. We sat our butts on the beach and read. And got fruity drinks. And watched this poor guy try to keep his yellow parasail flying.

Seriously, it was the best. Only the promise of 3 hours of pampering could have pulled us from our beach perches. We visited Bamboo Spa for 80 minute massages, facials, body scrubs, and pedicures. Yeah. Our lives are super hard. Along the way we picked up a tamborine for Clark, chocolates for the parents, and a cute little nativity scene in a cactus.

Dinner at Da Vince topped out our day and we were treated to a Mexican dancing group as we headed upstairs.

 Monday brought the rain. It was a bummer since it was our last full day but actually cool to see. We spent the morning walking the beach and trying not to freeze in the wind. Eventually we gave in and just ate food and watched TV:)

Oh, and went back to Da Vince so I could take a picture of this teeny tiny chocolate piano dessert. And yes, I got dessert every day. Usually twice a day.

Our last morning was a bit of a sad farewell. We were chased off the beach by some serious wind but then we ended up at the Mayan Museum which was pretty cool and warm. We found some sculptures of an Alebrije (from Coco).

This was another small pyramid that these people built right on the coast. 

 This was a huge lizard that spooked Dana. He was very alert the rest of the time we were in the forrest.

 Last pic in Cancun, in front of a faux waterfall at the hotel:)

We loved Cancun! But glad to be home and dreaming of more adventures to come. And definetly taking Clark and Charlotte back someday to see Chichen Itza!

Cancun, Take 1

Dana and I finally took off on our amazing Mexican holiday this last week. We had a total blast but missed the kids like crazy. Seriously, how can you not love  a kid who can shot a spiderman blaster on the fan or possibly the worlds cutest ninja turtle? They had a ton of fun with Grandma Tina and the cousins (after the cousins, you know, stopped spewing vomit from their mouths, gross) and we so appreciate Grandma Tina for spending a fun week throwing balls, giving tickles and snuggling in the hallways at church with the two awesome kids. 

Okay now to us! We took off Tuesday night over the snowy pass but made it without incident, only to discover that our hotel was basically empty because they had no hot water. Awesome. But we had a short night's sleep, followed by the coldest shower on record (seriously, I could NOT have been a pioneer) and then a loooooong 6 hour flight down to Cancun. We stepped out to blissful sunshine and were greeted at the Omni Resort by Pina Coladas and a timeshare pitch:) 

Our first morning in Cancun, we ate breakfast on the beach. Literally, our feet were in sand. Super cool!

 We had a lagoon view room and the level of green was just astonishing. We spent Thursday walking the beach (probably too far...is 5 miles too far? It seemed too far), getting heckled by every vendor at the Flea Market, and exploring the restaurants. Side note: I was amazed at a moving ramp/walkway in the grocery store. How do we not have these, America?

 Caught this guy building a pyramid in the sand. Umm...awesome!

 Saw the sun for the first time in probably a month. And drank at least 10 pina coladas. Dana was in serious heaven.

 

Friday was excursion Day 1. We went to Xplor. It was a day of ziplines, underwater rafting, cenote swimming, and amphibious vehicle driving. It was all wet. Unfortunately, the weather was on 75 so it was a tad cold in the caves but hey, we were kid free and stuffed full of hot chocolate so we were a-okay.

AMPHIBIOUS VEHICLES

These were like souped up golf carts that really had very little power and absolutely no steering but hey who needs that when you are zooming through rivers, waterfalls and very tight caves. Dana actually took a very "colorful" photo in the test car but I guess it was scrubbed by quality control, much to his dismay. 

UNDERGROUND
Most of the park was underground, which I was not expecting. There were cool stalagtites and cenotes and plenty of random cave to smash your head against.

 And if you ever got lost, just find your way to the Corazon, aka the "heart" of the park. Complete with a big cheesy red heart:)

They have apparently found dinosaur bones in Mexico. I did not know this. Also, I don't remember taking this photo. Seriously. I remember zero dinosaurs but here is the photo evidence so apparently I was really tired by this point.

Can't see us in this one but it was a big deluge of water.

 Dana is the X. I'm hidden in the P.

CENOTES
Just when we were about to get dry we decided to do the cenote swim. It was actually pretty warm and very neat to float underground. 

This is pretty much how Dana wanted to do every photo:)

We don't have any photos of the river raft because we did the shorter route (which had no cameras) to save ourselves the misery of following behind the slowest, most uncoordinated people alive. Seriously, Dad Kitchen would have lost his mind watching these people try to steer. 

HAMMOCK SWING

Not sure where Dana's photo went (perhaps he was showing an inappropriate amount of skin?) but this was pretty fun. Except the part at the end where you try to pull your feet up to your face to keep from skipping your butt on the water...and fail. Fail hard. 

ZIPLINES
We did this first and it was hands down the highlight of the day. Yes, I looked like I had a huge blue diaper on because of my skirt but whatever. It was SO high. And SO fast. Sometimes our legs would fly up when we hit the other end, which was always amusing for the other guests and spouse. And even though the photos make it look like we are just casually gliding down a rope, I promise you it felt like we were rockets. 

 We hit a slide halfway through. Dana didn't think it was fast enough; I felt like I was gonna die.

 At the end of each zip course was, of course, a giant waterfall that you had to (I mean, got to) go through. We always tried to look graceful and poised. We always failed and ended up like drowned rats.

Just had to get a cute one of my bathing suit in:)

This was the bus we took back. Had to take a picture because how often does one get to see a pink Jaguar bus in life?

Had dinner that night at La Vista. It's the Asian Fusion restaurant which I'm not a huge fan of but the fried ice cream was delish. And that sunset...what more could a person want?