The First Day of School

The first day of school was September 1. The girls had a great day!

Anna has Ms. Briggs. Soon-to-be Mrs. Bradshaw.

Carly has Mrs. Davis. They were both excited but a little nervous (they wouldn't look at me in the pictures.) I remember not really liking the first day of school so I can totally understand. Here is to a good year gals!

Carly's Birthday - Part 2

When we got back from Cancun we had a little party for Carly. She chose to go bowling and have rice with soy sauce for dinner. What? A birthday dinner is rice with soy sauce? Whatev... When it is your birthday you get to pick. We had a fun night and Carly had a great birthday. Her uncle Brock nicknamed her 'The Monkey' because ever since she was little she has climbed everywhere. So this year we had a monkey cake.

She even got a birthday strike!

Carly with her new doll Kit.

Goodbye Cancun!

Ahh! It was such an amazing week! It went by really fast but it was so incredible. We left much more relaxed and in love. :) A much needed vacation for us.

Love ya hon - till next time!

Paco's Tacos

We ate at this restaurant so many times it deserved it's own post! It was amazing to say the least. My new favorite fish is grouper (never heard of it before this.) These tacos have lightly battered grouper, avocado, cilantro, lettuce, pico, and this incredible honey mustard sauce. I would go back to Cancun just for these tacos. My mouth is watering just thinking about them. The anticipation is killing him!

Oh and the lime just squirted on just before consumption is just the frosting on the cake.

The chips and salsa were pretty good too. Nothing like the tacos but still pretty good. Till next time Paco!

Ek Balam

Our last stop was at Ek Balam. It was a great place to see more ruins because we got to walk up them. I am sure this symbol means 'a total stud muffin.'

With the Petersens at the top of the Temple.

The Cenote

In between ruin sites we stopped at a cenote (a fresh water sink hole in the jungle for swimming - I had to look that up because I wasn't ever really sure what it was.) It was amazing! The perfect way to cool off. Very Tarzan and Jane.

I could only work up the courage to jump off the ledge once but McKay did it a bunch.

Good times!

Chichen Itza

On our last full day in Cancun we headed out to the ruins. We received a great recommendation from McKay's brother to go with Helaman Tours. It was an amazing experience! Nefi was our tour guide and we knew we hit it out of the park when he pulled up with a BYU hat on. We got the full experience when we were pulled over for no apparent reason by three cops trying to get something from Nephi. Luckily he had his papers all in order so there wasn't any thing to ticket him for. Wow.

Here is McKay at the "Ball" field in Chichen Itza. I kept thinking of Quidditch and Harry Potter, except the winners get killed.

It was very impressive and great to hear an LDS view on the ruins.

Our new BFF's the Petersens. They were so fun to hang out with and it was nice to have another LDS couple with us.

Carly's Birthday - Part 1

Since we were in Cancun for Carly's birthday, everyone pitched in and made it an awesome day for her! Rachel decorated the house so cute and she got lots of phone calls and presents. Our awesome friends and neighbors had a little pool party with cupcakes for her and she got to go out to eat at her favorite restaruant - Souplantation - for dinner. We were sad to be gone on her birthday but she was a champ and loved all the attention from everyone else!

The Jungle Maya

On Wednesday we went on a tour called "The Jungle Maya." We were looking for some fun kind of exploring/adventure and this hit the mark. We started the day with some biking (I am pretty sure the bikes were older than we were but fun nonetheless.) We saw a tarantula and stopped to take a picture until it tried to run in McKay's backpack! Ugh... Yuck... I hate spiders. It creeps me out just to think about it. After the bike ride we went on some zip lines. Very fun but so not long enough for McKay.

You can't really tell but McKay is hanging upside down on the zip line. So much for the rule to 'sit up with your legs extended.'

These are the little sticks they gave us to help us brake. McKay never used his.

We repelled down into some caves and went swimming and snorkeling. Kind of a wet/dry/wet/dry kind of day. I am trying to be better about being wet. :) Before we could enter the water we had to be cleansed by a Mayan Priest (who was earlier the guy who helped us on the zip line, apparently Mayans are great multitaskers.) Strange, but we tried to be respectful. The caves were fun but slightly creepy. Definitely kept saying to myself "this is a once in a lifetime experience." One cave we snorkeled in had a ton of bats. I feel the same way about bats as I do about spiders. Plus I kept thinking, I am swimming in bat poop (everybody poops.) We had to have flashlights to see our way through the water. Yes it was cool in a creepy kind of way.

Tarzan and Jane.

After all the fun activities we had an authentic Mayan meal - it was a little too authentic for my taste but when in Rome...

La Panaderia

On our way to the ferry back to Cancun we were on a hunt for a panaderia. The sketchy chips and salsa was the only thing we had eaten all day and we didn't have time for a big sit down restaurant. The heavens were smiling down on us though because we found this amazing bakery. It was super cheap, anything like this in the states would have broken our budget. I was totally in heaven - I almost got emotional when we walked in.

Lo and behold the guy working the counter happened to be LDS. (I knew there was a special spirit in the bakery.) McKay started talking to him (McKay is so nice and talks to everyone) and brought up his mission and then he told us he had served a mission too. I was slightly suspicious since no one wears two t-shirts when it is a million degrees outside. It was a pretty cool experience.

Yes, I ate cake for dinner. I couldn't help myself. I gave McKay one bite but then ate the entire piece! It was divine, every bite was divine. So were the rolls, brownies, and pastries. All good.

McKay's new friends from Ireland took this picture while we were in Playa Del Carmen.

McKay's new friends from Brazil took this picture. This is us on the city bus back to our hotel. McKay was speaking Spanish with this couple from Brazil. Then after awhile they both realized they spoke English and gave up the Spanish - the communication wasn't going that great. They told us they were from Brazil but were living in New Jersey. I thought it was pretty funny.