Cancun, part 5

 

Wow!  Things have gotten behind on this ol’ blog of mine!  I’m trying to keep this going as I love sharing our adventures.  But, life is busy and we are having so much fun, that I rarely sit at my computer much anymore. 

 

The most favorite day of our whole vacation (as if everyday wasn’t my favorite on vacation!) was this day – the day we decided to take everyone snorkeling.  For those with young kids – you know how much this must mean.  We have a 3 year old and a (now) 7 year old, who just learned to swim last summer.  We have a 3 year old who can’t “swim” without floaties and/or a life vest.  But, we did it anyways.  Alex was loving his snorkel in the pool and Sara was so easy going and brave in the shallow ocean right outside our condo that we decided to go for it.  At the very worst, one of us would just sit on the boat. 

 

We made arrangements with the same place we went scuba diving and they took us to a calm bay about 20 minutes north of where we were staying.  It was protected by a coral reef and the waters were calm and warm. 

 

In short – this was my best thing we did all vacation.  Connie and Steve joined us too!  I loved seeing Alex snorkel in the ocean and see the sea life with us.  I loved seeing Sara and her floaties and how brave/calm she was with the whole thing.  We saw a sea turtle – which is what I wanted to see.  We saw a sting ray, many fish, lots of coral, and an eel.  We put Alex in a wetsuit to try to keep this little man as warm as possible (he has no body fat – this kid is pure skin and muscle).  Sara didn’t really get too cold in the pool and the ocean water was warmer than that – so she was fine.  Plus, there were no wetsuits her size. 

 

A funny story was when Lance saw the sting ray – he poked his head up and told me there was a sting ray and to take a look.  The kids both started screaming at this point – thinking the stingray was going to sting them!  Great – two screaming kids in the middle of the coral bay.    Maybe sting them like like a jelly fish?   I don’t know… We calmed them down by telling them that the stingray wasn’t interested in us, and it was way down on the bottom (maybe 10-12’ down) and was going to stay there.   It took a while, but they did calm back down and enjoy themselves again. 

 

I hope you enjoy my photos and videos.  I enjoy sharing them with you.

 

Sea turtle

 

Sara on Mommys back, little kickers

 

Sting ray

 

Alex snorkeling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is how Sara did part of the snorkeling trip – either on my back or on Lance’s back.  Also, for a while she would just do her little swim/kick all by herself – of course with her big smile the whole time.  She just loved it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cancun, part 4

We went diving on the 5th day of our vacation – Lance, myself and Grandpa Steve.  The kids stayed with Grandma Connie and played on the beach and never fought once, we heard (! they only fight when we are around, I guess). 

 

We had an amazing time!  I got a refresher (taking my air out, clearing my mask, etc) since I haven’t dove since our honeymoon 10 years ago.  It was a good thing!  I didn’t remember much, but just like riding a bike – it came back to me easily.  I’m SO glad I did it.  The real dive was very easy compared to the refresher and I felt very comfortable. 

 

We took these videos with our go pro silver.  It takes amazingly cool HiDef videos.  It’s a wide fish eye angle, so things get distorted a bit.  But, we love the clearness of these movies.  It also seems like it has stabilization, but I don’t know that for sure.  It only has 2 buttons on the camera, plus one button for wifi.  It’s kinda intimidating for me – I’m used to way more buttons!  But once you get the hang of it, it’s OK.  Actually – the go pro was Lance’s “baby” on this trip.  He was taking movies left and right.  Also, as a note – the go pro doesn’t have great sound, or good sound at all. It’s all waterproofed, so sound is not good or even there much at all.  Also, the colors are so less vibrant than what you see when you are down there.  It looks all blue. 

 

Our kids are also loving to blow kisses lately, so I thought when we were waiting for our 3 minutes while surfacing, that we could blow kisses to them underwater to let them know we were thinking of them.  They loved it when we showed it to them when we got back. 

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Allison's refresher

 

Lion fish

 

Underwater and and eel

 

Blowing kissess

Cancun, part 3

 

After a big day at Chichen Itza in part 2, Lance and I celebrated Valentine’s day by walking to the store (~20 minutes each way) with backpacks to get as much food as we could carry.  Surprisingly, cars (that fit 6 people) are pretty expensive to rent down there, so we didn’t have a car.  It actually wasn’t too bad of a walk.  Some nice person even gave us a ride back on their golf cart when we were back on the resort.

 

We surprised the kiddos with Mexican Valentine’s Day donuts.  We all loved them!