Wednesday

We got on a plane to Dallas Texas first.  We waited 2 hours until we got on our plane to Mexico.  When we landed we had to wait in a really long line just to go to another really long line.  Then at the end of that long line we pushed a button with a random red or green light.  Then we got in a rental car and drove to the Royal Sands Hotel.

Thursday

We went to a hotel not to far away called Cancun Palace.  We took a tour and went to the Infinity Pool.  (We got a lot of tours for the 7 of us for only $225, well worth our time!)  My brother Devon and I went to the beach which was seriously right next to us.  I found some really cool shells and 2 rocks, on the beach, under the sand.  We ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant.  We went to a show about Michaels Jackson.  It was an OK show, not the best.  (Carson asked during the show.  Is Michael Jackson supposed to be a boy or a girl?  Good question.)

Friday

Today was the boringest day ever.  I had to go on this bus.  It took 3 hours to get to this Mayan temple named Chitzenitza.  IT is really cool because when you clap you hear a sound like a gun shot.  There is this God that is a bird snake.  The gun shot sound is the bird.  If you listen to the left there is the rattle (snake sound.)  There is a phenomenon – there are 7 triangles on the steps and the head on the bottom.  September 22^nd and March 21^st the sun lights up the triangles one by one.  If all light up it will be a good year.  2005 it was cloudy so it was a bad year.  (Lots of damaging hurricanes.)

Saturday

At 11 am we went to a Marina and went on a cool tour.  While we were doing it a level one hurricane was coming.  On the tour we were on little speed boats.  We went through Mangroves.  When we started back it started to pour.  The water droplets felt like bullets.  It got me cold so I hid under the bow of the boat.  We are just about to be in a level 1 hurricane.

Sunday

This morning really early Hurricane Ida hit us, just the edge of it.  We went to the pool and swam for a minute and a half, and then the manager told us to get out.  Two hours later we went to the pool attain.  WE stayed there for at least 2-3 hours.  The Devon, Pop-pop and I went up the elevator.  I went to the back corner of the elevator and I stepped on a piece of glass and cut my foot.  Then when we got to our room I went to our porch.  Our dad helped me with the cut.  Then a doctor came and helped with my foot.  Then I went back inside and watched Toy Story 2 and ate ice cream.

Monday

We tried to go do a zipline.  It was cancelled so we rescheduled for tomorrow.  We decided to go to Coba.  We did a 45 minute tour with a guide.  Then we went on tricycles with a pedaler on the back driving us around.  Then Devon, my Dad and I climbed up the big temple pyramid called Coba.  There was a spectacular view from the top of Coba.  Then we all climbed down which actually was not too hard.  Then we stopped at other sites on the way back to the car while riding on the bikes.  Our pedaler was our tour guide.

On the way back from Coba we drove into a 2 foot deep hold in the middle of the road with no warning.  We popped our right front tire.  Apparently the hole was right next to a little police station.  Then we got the care fixed and drove back to the hotel.

Tuesday

We started our day with a Zipline Adventure.  We started out with a slow moving one for the zipline.  Then we went down a longer zipline, which was also very fun.  The ziplines kept getting longer and longer.  On one zipline when you were done you had to walk over a bridge.  The 2^nd to last zipline I went on upside down.  The last zipline was the longest and funnest.

Then we went on a boat ride that was called a shot over jet.  There was a professional driver driving the boat.  We did high speed turns, which dint’ get me dizzy at all.  It really cooled me down on the hot day.

Wednesday

I went to the beach in the morning.  I collected some shells and rocks and a cool piece of coral reef (that I lost) we were at a yellow flag doing stuff because every place else had a red flag.  I lot of rocks had been unburied by the hurricane.

We went to the pool and played a few hours there.  We went back to our room.  Then my Dad, Mom and baby brother decided to go to the kids place.  We played a little ping pong and then we hit it on the wall.  Back at the hotel we watched Kung Fu Panda, which I have seen 10 times.

Thursday

We went to Wet and Wild.  My favorite ride at Wet and Wild was the double space bowl.  We went on all the rides.  One ride was called Kamikaze.   There were Bumper Boats.  There was the Kids Park, Wave Pool and Lazy River.  For lunch I ordered Pepperoni Pizza.  On the Kamikaze, you went down a slide really fast, when it feels like a free fall, you land!

Friday

We flew home.

That about sums up our trip to Mexico.  It was pretty great.  Fun memories made.  Bryson said, “I am happy to be home, but I miss Nana and PopPop!”

The only bummer was the only sunny day was the last one, when we went to the airport!

We went to Wet and Wild on Thursday and it was practically empty.  If only it had been warm instead of chilly.  The boys didn’t seem to mind.  They never do.

Here are the rest of the pictures!

Hurricane Ida

Carson cut his foot on some glass.  Lots of Blood.

Driving home from Coba we hit a HUGE hole in the road and get a flat tire.  Change tire on side of busy Mexican road.

The great news is despite these drawbacks, we had a lot of fun! 

Thanks to the Hurrican MUCH reading was done by everyone. 

Devon – The Lightening Thief 1, 2, 3, we didn’t bring 4 after suffering and rereading 1, 2 and 3 he goes online in search of 4 and finds out that our public library has it available for download online for free!  So now Devon is attatched to his Shuffle for the next 10 hours.  It is pretty quiet around here. 

I have read Vanishing Act, Handle with Care, Shadow Divers, ZooKeepers Wife, The Lightening Thief 1.  The problem with books is they are heavy and you can only bring so many in a suitcase. 

Carson started Fablehaven, but once I had finished Lightening Thief 1, he grabbed it and is reading that too. 

It will be the boys next Book Club Book.

We managed to do a lot of fun activities.  Chitzenitza, Coba (my favorite ruin by far), zip line, the boys went on 2 fast boat rides.  We are going to Wet and Wild tomorrow too.  Pool and beach and sun and fun!

I think Devon grew an inch while he was gone.    Carson turns 9 in 2 days, which is absurd.  I am pretty sure Devon is still 9. 

Bryson who missed them SO much, was so excited at the airport.  They were the last off the plane and we gave them lots of hugs.  Devon even hugged back!  They were full of stories and after about 15 minutes in the car, Bryson was saying, “SHHHHHH!”  It definitely is louder with them home.  Then the next day when Devon said Bryson couldn’t play with his legos, Bryson was sad again.  He was used to having run of the house.  But overall he is happy they are home.

I am happy too.   We had a fun rest of the week.  Devon’s movie is coming along.  We are planning the world premiere of Project Ozone in the next week or so, with the families of all the boys involved invited to watch.  I think they are really done filming and Devon is busy editing now. 

The boys talked our ears off about all the great things they did.  Fishing was one of their favorite.  They also love the Museum of Science and Industry (my fave of all time) they actually went there 2 days in a row.   It was another wonderful memory making trip to visit the grandparents.

At first I was sad I didn’t read more, but then I realized why…. no plane rides.  I can usually read a book during each plane ride. 

The Mislabeled Child is the non-fiction book I am reading here.  GREAT for understanding my sweet Devon.  I listened to a gifted conference by the authors and a 2E (twice exceptional, meaning gifted with learning issues) conference by them and finally have confirmation that indeed Devon does have dyslexia, because he is gifted and can read at a high level and has great comprehension, it is called stealth dyslexia.  It doesn’t appear as dyslexia, but he has pretty much all the signs of it and I have always thought he did. So this book is a really interesting read.

Same Kind of Different as Me – Wow, this book was really inspriational and amazing.  It demonstrates the power and faith one woman can have.  The strength of marriage and friendship and love.  I think it probably goes up there on my top 5 books everyone should read.  I only had 2 books on that list so far (The Hiding Place and Uncle Tom’s Cabin) but now I have 3. 

The Help -Another great read.  This is set in the 60’s in the south, looking at the black women who were maids in white women’s homes.  They share their stories in a wonderful way.   I loved each character and the whole book.

The Double Bind – Hmmmm, this was a disturbing book.  It was well written and would be a good book club read, because you really want to talk about it afterwards.  BUT, because it is disturbing, I wouldn’t want to tell my friends to read it.  So read at your own risk.  It did make me want to read The Great Gatsby, because it references that book.

Rising Tides – Devon got this for me for Mother’s Day.  I think someone must have brought a lot of used books for the kids to pick from.  He picked me this one because I like plants?  I don’t like plants.  But there was a picutre of plants on the front and apparantly Devon thinks I like plants.  It was a good vacation read.  It helped me stop thinking about The Double Bind book, so it was a good thing.

In May we drove to Sedona, talking and listening to some talks from the TJED conference. 

We got to our hotel and checked in around 8. 

Day 1 was HOT.  We started off our trip trying to get some things situated with our refinance, which included a trip to the bank.  Then we went on a short hike (2 hours).  It was pretty and fun, but a bit too hot.  Then we went back to the Summit to get lunch.  Then off for a drive up a bumpy road in Rob’s new 4×4.  Then dinner at Cafe Jose which was YUMMY! 

Day 2 was great weather.  We decided to do our long hike today and went to the West Fork Trail.  I was navigating and not understanding where we were going, so we drove to the top of the mountain and so we got a later start than we had hoped.  But it was ok.  It was about a 5 hour hike.  It was really beautiful and nice.  Luckily I had brought some hard boiled eggs, so I wasn’t starving.

Then we drove to town and ate at Javelina Cantina, which was reallly good.  Then a trip to the camera store to replace a filter we broke on the camera when Rob dropped the bag by accident.  Then home to rest.

Day 3-5 Hiking and 4 wheeling and eating and resting.   There are so many great ruins to visit here.  We loved Lake Montezuma.  It is just a fantastic area to visit.  We look forward to bringing our boys back. 

Day 6 Another hike, the pool and packing so we could leave to go visit our friends Mike and Melissa.

Overall I have enjoyed vacationing in Sedona.  I would say that the hiking was fun, beautiful landscape.  We didn’t have a day where we just did nothing, which I missed, but I was able to read 4 books and enjoy being with Rob, so I am happy.

Here are a few pictures.

Carson did not want to go on this.  He was really very grumpy as can be seen in the pictures. 

Devon didn’t feel he needed a hat and after yelling at us and saying, “How come I can never learn from my consequences?”  We let him go hatless and he was cold.   The driver put him up on one of the HUGE horses after the ride. 

But overall it was a lovely sleigh ride.  My first experience on a horse drawn sleigh and it is amazing how strong those horses are. 

It was a cold, wet day.  We were bundled up with hats and mittens.  Bryson had fun driving, flying and riding horses.

Bryson still talks about riding on this horse.  He loved it!

I love the internet, here we are driving to Utah and I am simultaneously posting on my blog.  How cool is that? 

My plan was to be on the road at 7 am.  We were on the road by 8 am.  Typical for us. 

It is raining, but the drive has been fine so far.  The big boys are busy watching Little House on the Prarie shows. 

Bryson keeps asking, “When are we going to be there?” 

-9 hours- 

“That is a long time.” 

- you’re tellin me!-

He has his pacifier now and is happy and quiet.  I was going to have him give it up at Christmas, then thought I should wait until after our trip and I am glad I did.

(The car ride ended up being 13 hours. But we made it safely!)