Tulum/Xpu Ha

Well, it's our last full day in Cancun. We had set up our tours when we first arrived last week and had scheduled the trip to Tulum (a set of Mayan ruins on the Carribean coast) and a visit to palace resort's hotel Xpu Ha. Unfortunately this morning, we both woke up with stiff necks. But hey, we're troopers. :) So on with the tour....
Our first stop were the ruins at Tulum (also the name of the nearby city where we made all of our phone calls from during the hurricane trip). We actually liked these ruins more than Chichen Itza. Probably because they were about 2 hours in bus closer and their proximaty to the sea. They are newer than the Chichen Itza ruins (they guess around 1000 yrs old), but not really in any better condition. It was very cool to see.

After our visit to the ruins and a short stop at a souvenier stand, we headed over to the Xpu Ha Palace Resort for lunch and snorkeling. It was quite different than the resort that we are at. We were told that they had originally intended it to be a nature park, but later decided to add a few bungalos. It has a small zoo, nature walk and some natural inlets that we snorkeled in. There were a few cool fish. Pete enjoyed snorkeling quite a bit.

We got back and started to pack. We finish off the trip with the a short trip to the spa tomorrow before heading to the plane. Hopefully American Airlines will actually keep the flights on time.....ha, ha, ha, like that's a possibility.

Lazy Day

Ahh, a day by the pool. We had a very relaxing day not doing much of anything. We would swim a little and dry off and read or in my case do word finds.
We had just made our first round in the pool when Pete looked up and saw the rainbow around the sun. I jumped out, ran to our chairs and grabbed the camera. I’d never seen anything like that before. It showed up a few more times throughout the day so running earlier wasn’t needed.
I have found my favorite treat. It’s like the cream puffs from Costco but larger and rolled in cinnamon and sugar. We have had them everyday but today we found out they only serve them during lunch so today might have been our last ones.
Our room is on the North side of the resort and it is very quiet. We have enjoyed our room. From our balcony there’s just jungle and ocean. Some rooms have no view or are right on a main path so I’m very, very happy with ours. We do however tend to gravitate to the South end pool for our swimming. There’s more shaded areas and livelier entertainment. That being said, we stay on the outskirts so we can just hear the noise without it being too much.
Yes, today was a good day.

Chichen-Itza

Today started off early. We watched the sunrise over the ocean and then headed off to breakfast so we wouldn’t be hungry on our tour. We had a great tour guide who gave us a lot of information about the Mayan people.

Once we got to Chichen-Itza is was amazing to see these ancient structures and more amazing still to realize that so many thousands of years ago they had such a perfect knowledge of the calendar and many other things. It was a very hot day but so worth the trip.

Tonight we found a great dessert place. They had much to choose from but I liked the ice cream best it was called Sunrise Cup. We will be visiting it again I’m sure!

I guess you could say we started and ended the day with the sunrise which is fitting seeing how the sun is what the Mayan people worshiped.

Spa Day in Cancun

Yesterday we had fun by the pool while they had games and music going. The guy that was running the show sounded like the Sabado Gigante guy so we felt like we were part of the studio audience.

Today we had back massages at the spa. It was great! Afterwards when Pete and I met up again we both realized that we had no clue of what we were supposed to do and found a few things pretty entertaining about the hole experience such as bells being rung over our heads (in their defence it's probably how they wake you up), how they kind of push you around a bit to get you to relax before the hole thing starts and do we shower in here??) and oh yeah, where do we change? Clearly Pete and I aren't used to this sort of thing!

We also tried out the snorkeling gear Bob and Kim let us borrow. We were in one of the lagoons here at the resort. It took me awhile to get used to it. I kindof panicked for the first few minutes but Pete helped me out. There was a school of fish that would come right up to you but would take off if you tried to touch them. That was a weird feeling having them swim around me.

Hola

We finally got a new camera! Our old one broke at christmas and that's one of the reasons our blog hasn't been updated much. The camera was purchased because we needed it for our trip. We are in Cancun trying out our luck.

We are here and enjoying the hot weather! A nice change from home. Bob and Kim graciously took our kids so we could have this chance to see what Cancun is really like. The pictures are from our balcony and bed.

Our first day here has been great! We woke up on our own, had a nice breakfast, and walked around a bit to orient ourselves with the place. (there's a lot more than we ever saw!!) Pete and I have slipped into "travel" mode so we haven't eaten too much yet but after an hour class of salsa dancing we needed a little bit of lunch. The afternoon was spent lounging about the pool and loving every minute of it. Thanks again Bob and Kim for giving us this opportunity and Mom and Dad for being just as willing!!

NCAA pool

The NCAA tournament ended and with it, so did the first annual Melanson Family Bracket Challenge. Mike took the crown, but the it was contested the whole way. At the point of the final four, all but a couple people had a chance. The best scenario had Tom, TJ and Josh all rooting for the same champion with different final scores. It came down to Mike and Tom. Kansas hit a 3 with 2 seconds left to force overtime after Memphis blew 3 free throws. Because I can't effectively use a calendar, I ended up in Sacramento and missed the first half of the game hosting a dinner for work. I guess it did save Julie the pain of having to watch another night of hoops though. I have to admit that I was rooting for Memphis so that Tom could have taken the title. It would have been great to have the winner be someone who didn't even watch the final. Congrats to Mike. Enjoy the year long bragging rights.

I discovered that I can no longer guard the crossover on Saturday. I went one way and my back went another. It lead to a weekend of Icey Hot, Advil and back spasms. With it being conference weekend, it worked out pretty well. Not much moving needed. We were kicked out of the house for a couple walk throughs. During that time, we bought the kids tennis rackets. Hopefully it will be something they enjoy this summer since we will be spending most of it around home. Sunday morning we had the Erickson's over and worked on the packets that Jenny sent out to the family. Entertainment for the kids and me, mostly me.

This week Connor and Court had the same field trip seperately. They both headed down to Portland to hear the youth philharmonic. Julie accompanied Connor's class. I'm waiting for the trip to Franz bakery. That's more my speed.

Getting Started.....

We have finally fallen into the blogosphere. We figured it is an easy way to keep a journal for the whole family. Not much to write this first post, just trying to get started.