From Jan 28 - Feb 4th, our Schultz clan of 4 enjoyed the beautiful Cancun shores for a wonderful family holiday. It was a wonderful week; early mornings and all and thankfully, we had no need to visit a hospital! (My husband Mitch unexpectedly had to have an appendectomy while we visited family in Texas in November. I talk about it HERE. )
I love how fast my iPhone's camera shutter is. When there is good lighting, it can capture some great sequence action shots.
Our Schultz crew, Josh/Carmen & Taya, Braden/Carrie & Lucy
We tossed around the idea of a cruise or staying in an all-inclusive resort, but when Carmen found this great Condo, we were all sold. Now being on the other side of the holiday, I am SO glad we went the condo route. For this stage of our lives with small children, I think it is our best option. The condo was perfect for us. Four bedrooms, a beautiful living area and kitchen/dining area and the best feature: a large balcony (sporting a hot tub) overlooking the Atlantic ocean. It allowed us all to keep a semblance of routine in our children's lives and while they napped, we could still breathe the tropical air and enjoy each other's company.
Here is a far away view of our condo from down on the beach. It is on top of the closest tower in this pic. Not the very top "peak", but just below that on the right side of the building. If you look closely, you can see a long balcony with a glass railing. That was us.
You can see Lena still has sleepy eyes here... but not sleepy enough to stay in bed! I guess she just wanted us to savour every moment in Mexico. ;)
The girls (Kalena, Lucy & Taya) loved checking out the view, too. (even if they are just looking at the balcony in this pic.)
Aunty Carrie and cousin Lucy joined us for a few of our early mornings. ;)
Without any exaggeration, I think Jett was in the hot tub (more of a warm tub, actually) four times each day. His general pattern was beach-pool-hot tub; in that order. ;)
J and Lena wore these cute "Mexican" outfits out to dinner Tuesday evening. Grandpa and Grandma Sawatzky actually brought these outfits back from Puerto Vallarta for the kiddos.
The girls loved exploring every corner of the condo! Who needs a broom? :)
Kalena, Taya, and Lucy were good little buddies on the trip; such little sweeties!
This is the view looking into our condo from the balcony.
Here's a shot of our balcony. (At sunrise, of course :)
This is the view looking out the other side of the condo. Most of Cancun's resorts are along this strip where their is ocean/beach on one side, and lagoon (massive lake) on the other side. This is the "non ocean" side. That hut-looking place is actually a really nice restaurant that we ate at one night. Most of the restaurant is on a dock. Beautiful.
This was our route back to the condo from the beach and/or pool. We travelled past here several times a day.
The pool. We logged many hours here; either in the water or hanging out beside it in the lounge chairs.
Such a cool dude. :) J loved wearing his shades.
On one of our last days, Jett was actually tuckered enough that he napped outside by the pool. :)
Beautiful ladies.
The men and their baby girls. ;)
As I've already said, the "tourist" area of Cancun is mostly isolated to one long strip, which makes it very easy to navigate your way around. We could hop on the bus for less than $2 for our family of 4, and ride down the road to a restaurant, shopping area, and most importantly, Starbucks! ;)
Our favourite destination was a beautiful outdoor shopping centre called La Isla (The Island). Many nice stores and restaurants and TWO Starbucks' :) Not cheap, but nice. On our first visit there, we had lunch at a place called Jugo de Limon (Lemon Juice) where they serve "traditional Mexican seafood". Delicious. The highlight of this place, however, was that it is built around two huge tanks holding dolphins! Naturally, they offered several options where you could swim/interact with the dolphins for an additional fee. We ate lunch while looking down at a mama dolphin and her baby. Jett interacted with them more than the rest of us. He dropped his menu into the pool. ;) There was also another huge tank holding several varieties of sharks. (You couldn't swim with those guys)
The Shopping Centre had a Lego-land store! Very cool, but crazy expensive. This play area that it had was a hit with Jett, though. (AND maybe Mitch, too :)
I have searched everywhere I can think of in our house to find pictures from our Honeymoon, but they are nowhere to be found! I have a sinking feeling that they were saved on our old laptop and we ditched that piece a few years ago... arghhh... Oh well. In April 2005, Mitch and I honeymooned in Cancun and we stayed at Dreams Cancun. We have a picture of us posed in the exact same place as the two pictures below and I really wanted to post it for comparison, but I guess it's not meant to be. :( I can see the picture in my mind, but the rest of you will just have to imagine Mitch and I (younger, skinnier, etc.) with a newly wedded glow. Times sure have changed! :)
We went to Dreams and walked right in as though we belonged. (No one batted an eye). It was fun to walk around and reminisce about a week that we have very fond memories of. The resort has made some changes and upgrades that look really good, but it still felt familiar. It was hit pretty hard by Hurricane Wilma back in 2005, just months after we were there, so they had made some pretty significant changes in the rebuilding. One very cool change/addition is that they now have 6 dolphins right in the resort! As Mitch and I walked around, we were carrying two sleeping children and very aware of how our lives have changed in the past 8 years! (We feel very blessed)
The beach. We all LOVE the beach. AND the ocean. :)
I have a couple hundred pictures I took of the beach, the ocean, the sand, etc. so I could make this post FAR longer than it already is, but I really do LOVE THIS.
Even at 6 in the morning, I can muster up a smile on the beach! :) The coffee helps...
Jett loved the, "CABS", but was frustrated that he could never actually catch one. They are fast little suckers.
I LOVE my boys.
It really was a lot of fun to have friends/family to visit and hang out with while vacationing. None of them ever did join us for our 6am beach sessions, though...
The guys got to play volleyball a couple of times.
Uncle "Bean" buried Jett in the sand here and this picture makes me chuckle for 2 reasons. First, we joked about how effective this was in making J stay put so we didn't have to chase him down on the beach. Secondly, he is wearing that silly girly hat. The hat is actually Kalena's, but she had a spare and we couldn't get him to keep his own hat on. This one has a chin strap and actually fit J well, so he wore it several times. :) I ripped off the big plastic daisy that was glued to the front, but with pink polka dots covering most of the hat, it wasn't super masculine.
This little chica loved the sand and the water. She was full of smiles and giggles and would crawl all over the beach, exploring it for herself.
Playing "chase" with the surf was an extremely fun game with anyone willing to play with Jett.
Jett may have had something to do with this sandy pout... Sorry, Cousin Lucy!
On our last evening in Cancun, Mitch and I took the kids to Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory for dinner. It was a fun evening, but Kalena was out of sorts (she had a bad diaper rash) and fell asleep for most of the meal. It was during the Super Bowl game, so the restaurant was loud and had a very fun atmosphere as all of the servers wore jerseys and clowns with balloons visited tables. There were people actually watching the game, but I laughed at how the crowd of observers grew significantly when Beyonce took the stage at half time!
And that's it! The week flew by and we were back on a plane to fly home before I actually felt ready to say good bye to the sun, sand, and surf. It's never really good bye, I suppose. More like, "Until next time." :)
Jett is actually an amazing traveler, thanks to modern technology that can effectively keep him entertained. Kalena, however, made our 6 hour flight from Cancun to Calgary seem more like 20 when she only napped for about the first half hour...
Hasta luego (See you later) Mexico!
