Vacation 2013: Mexico

  From December 12th to December 20th, my family took a vacation to Mexico.  We haven't been on a family vacation in a few years and we've never gone anywhere like Mexico.  So...we all packed our bags and headed down to the wonderfully sunny, warm, and sandy Play del Carmen.  It was a wonderful escape from our cold, snowy, negative temperature Minnesota. :)

  Many of the days were spent by water and since my camera is bigger, I left it at the hut and just took my phone.  So once again, my cell phone photos will have to do most of the time.  Also, not all pictures are mine -- some are my sister, Frankie's.

  Chichen Itza was our first stop on Friday.  It was beautiful there, but my favorite was Ek Balam (below).

Ek Balam is the oldest discovered Mayan civilization.  Ironically, it was the only one of the two (Chichen Itza and Ek Balam) where you could actually climb the buildings.  The bottom photo is the view from the top of the "pyramid" (left-side photo) -- they still haven't finished digging it.  The steps are super narrow and at one point, at the top, my legs literally would not move, but I eventually made it down.  The top photo has been reconstructed.

We also got to spend a little time (only 15 minutes) in a cenote!  It was beautiful...and cold. :)  We only jumped off the "cliff" (~20 feet) twice because it took us so long to get up the nerve since it was so cold.  It was a blast, though!

  On Saturday, Aidan, Frankie, my Mom, and I went to Dolphin Discovery where we spent time with dolphins and manatees (my personal favorite).  It was so much fun!  We were dragged by the dolphins' dorsal fins and also got the foot push.  With the manatees, we got to feed them and when they want food really badly, they'd wrap their fins around your legs and hold on for dear life.  It was awesome!

  After we met up with my dad again, we all headed for a walk on the beach.  It was gorgeous!

can you tell i've found picmonkey.com?  awesome!!

  Sunday was spent at X-Caret.  It was a beautiful day and we got to go snorkeling in a cave and then we took a snorkeling tour in a reef.  That was the highlight of the day -- maybe even the trip.  We all loved seeing life under water...but my personal favorite was the sea turtles.  I saw three and they were so close we got to hold them between our hands!!

 Now, Monday was an interesting day.  It was not my favorite, but I found it very fun and adventurous!  My mom, Frankie, and I were supposed to go spend the day with more dolphins and my dad and Aidan were to go ATVing.  However, there was a mixup of pickup locations for us girls and we didn't end up going.  And the boys' activity was rescheduled for later in the day at the last minute, so we decided to just spend the day as a family instead.  We ended up taking a ferry to Cozumel.  Before we boarded, we were told that we would be able to help release baby sea turtles into the ocean and snorkel since it would be nice on the other side of the island.  So when we got to Cozumel, we rented a car...

...a 35-year-old, falling apart Volkswagen Beetle.  All five of us piled (literally) in and we just couldn't help but laugh.  When we got to the other side of the island, we discovered that we had been taken for a ride as there were no baby sea turtles to release and, by george, it was just as windy as the other side of the island!  We stopped at a beach-side restaurant and then Aidan and I did some body surfing -- at least the waves were still enjoyable for something!

  Tuesday dawned nice and sunny.  We spent the day at Xel-Ha and spent over three hours snorkeling that day.  And although the day started out sunny, it down poured three different times while we snorkeled.  At Xel-Ha they have a large lagoon for snorkeling, a small rope course that Aidan loved, a few small zip lines, and cliff jumping.  Aidan and I decided to try cliff jumping and took a few plunges from 40+ feet -- that was FUN!!!  Although the second time, I lost a strap to my flipper and therefore had to go without flippers for the next hour and a half.  Swimming with no flippers in a windy rainstorm is not easy.  At one point, I was kicking with all my strength and was seriously staring at the same seashell at the bottom for about 20 seconds.

  Wednesday ended up working out for us girls to spend the day with dolphins at the program, 'Trainer for a Day'.  We spent over three hours in the water with them and also got to see a couple trainers training their dolphins.  In the water, we got foot-pushed more, got dorsal-dragged more, participated in training them (I made a dolphin jump! my highlight), and got to snorkel among them.  It was a day well-spent...we all had a blast!

 Our last day of activity was spent at Xplor.  This was definitely a tiring day but it was SO.MUCH.FUN!  We went on over two miles of zip lines, over six miles on ATVs through caves and water, and went paddling through a stalactite cave.  All three activities showed gorgeous proof of God's beautiful creation!  Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of this; it was such an active day that we didn't really have time nor the ability to take pictures.

  Friday morning was beautiful and us girls went out to the beach to take a few last photos before we headed to the airport.

  We all had such a good time, but we were definitely tired!  We all agreed that we should have taken one more day to just sit on the beach.
 
  And now that we're home...there's so much to do!  Christmas is only a few days away...I have a ton of school to do, I have so many opportunities for this coming year my head could explode, and I have a lot of things for LIVE to plan and look forward to.  I'm so excited for 2014...but more on that later. :)

  Sierra