#22

I have to get a picture of her in her uniform.  

And another of her on the court.

Yeah, I was trying to get her with the banner of her school in the background.  I'll file this one away for when she has her graduation party.

Kristin's Playing Volleyball Again!

Kristin decided to try out this year for her schools volleyball team.  Here she is playing in her first game!

Way to go Kristin! 

A Hot Day

Today after school Megan and I went over to the park for a little while.  When I say a little while I mean a little while, it was HOT.

Just look at Zach when we were ready to go home!

I really did bring drinks but it was just that hot.  I think from now on we'll stay home and enjoy our air conditioner on days like this.

1st Days of School

It's that time of year again, the start of another year of school.  Zach was the only one that started school yesterday.

Paul, myself, Kristin and Megan all walked Zach to his bus stop on his first day.  He's waiting for the bus to take him to his first day of 2nd grade.

Kristin and Megan both started school today. 

This will be the last year that Megan has to wear a uniform to school.  Well, unless the high school starts with it next year which I highly doubt. 

Can you believe that I don't have a first day of school picture for Lauren?  She's too old now for me to keep taking pictures of her, how sad.  :(

Look, No Teeth!

Zachary lost his first front tooth about a month ago and lost his second during VBS.  Here's my toothless boy!

What kind of mom would I be if I didn't serve corn-on-the-cob to him.

He acted like it was not a problem but it was pretty funny watching him!

Zachary's Birthday

It was Zach's turn to pick a restaurant to eat at and he chose....................(drumroll)............................................Friendl'y's!

We tried our best to get him to choose any other place but he insisted on going to Friendly's.  Not that I have anything wrong with Friendly's but we can do that anytime.  But it was his birthday so he got to have the final say so off to Friendly's we went.  He had his kids meal and then for dessert ordered this Vol-cone-o Sundae.  The picture in the menu had chocolate sauce drizzled over the top of the cone however this is what it looked like when he got it. 

He still ate it though and didn't complain.  I guess the candy cups on the side were enough of a distraction!  

Of course once we got home we had to open presents!

Then we had to sing Happy Birthday to him so he got yet another dessert.

Birthdays sure are a lot of fun!

Coconut

Okay, this was an impulse buy when I was at BJ's the other day.  Amongst the fruits and vegetables was a 3-pack of coconuts for $1.99.  I've never opened up a coconut before and thought it would be fun for the kids.  So we took them up to the pool today and Paul opened one of them.  

The coconut water was pretty good.  We played pass the coconut to taste it.

Everyone tried a little piece. 

And that was that.  I guess I can still say that I've never opened up a coconut since Paul was the one to do it.  Oh well, maybe next time.

VBS

Zachary attended VBS while Megan and Kristin helped with it.  Today the parents were invited to see what the kids learned.  They started off by telling jokes.  I really need to teach Zach some good ones, the one he did was pretty lame!

Then they sang some songs. 

After eating pizza and having all the kids leave we stayed to help clean up.  Megan (and her friend) were being silly with the hats.  I love how Kristin photo bombed!

I'm really hoping that next year Kristin can drive everyone and then I can really enjoy myself.  Either that or I have to get Lauren to volunteer again! 

Paul's Birthday

The birthday boy got to pick the restaurant and Paul chose to go to Joe's Crab Shack down at the Riverfront.  Lauren just had to model her bib.

We can't go anywhere without some kind of goofy picture! 

The waitress saw that I was taking pictures and volunteered to take one of our family.  Here we are with our steampots.

Zach got an awesome looking ice cream dessert with make-your-own toppings.

And lastly a video of the waitresses singing Happy Birthday to Paul. 

Riviera Maya, Mexico

As a graduation present/family vacation we went to the Riviera Maya in Mexico, just south of Cancun.  Our flight left on June 29th at, get this, 6:40 am!  We got up at 3:00 am and Kelly drove us to the airport for our flight. (Thank you Kelly!)  As soon as we got dropped off we stood in the long line to get our boarding passes, then went and stood in the long line to go through security then when we were finally at our gate we walked right on to our plane.  There was no down time at all for us but I guess the 4 hour flight was down time enough.  I sat with Megan and Kristin...

Paul, Zach and Lauren were across the aisle from us.

We arrived in the Cancun airport at 9:25 am (there was an hour time difference) and made our way through customs and immigration.  This was the first time we have ever been out of the country where we had to use passports so this was all new to us.  I have heard horror stories that the whole process can take hours but we breezed through it all in about 30 minutes and that included waiting to get our luggage.  So we leave the airport and the time share maniacs to find the bus that would take us to our resort.  We actually passed by the person holding the sign "Apple Vacations" and had to backtrack but we quickly found where we had to go.  Our charter bus took us to our resort where we would spend 7 nights at Viva Wyndham Maya resort. 

 

It took about an hour to get to our resort which made it a little before noon when we arrived.  Check-in time was 3:00 and the resort was a stickler at not letting anyone get their rooms until then.  We pre-checked in, got a welcome drink and got our wrist bands (all-inclusive resort) and then went and hung around the pool area until our rooms were ready.  The kids all changed into their swimsuits and checked out the beach while I stayed with our carry on (our luggage was with the bell hop.)  It's amazing how slow 3 hours can go when you're exhausted!  A little before 3:00 pm we made our way back to the front desk and finally got our room assignments.  According to our itinerary we had an "all together family room" which basically is just 2 connecting rooms.  When we got to our rooms we found out that mine and Paul's room had a king sized bed and the kids room had 2 queens.  That was a perfect fit for us!  Plus with 2 rooms come 2 bathrooms, a must with 6 people!  As a bonus we were in the closest building to the beach, only 3 or 4 rooms back. 

 

After checking out our rooms I so wanted to lay down and take a nap but I wanted to check out the resort more.  We walked around and found archery which Kristin has wanted to do.

The majority of our meals were at the buffet restaurant, La terraza.  We always were able to find a table for 6.  Here we are enjoying our first meal in Mexico Saturday night...

Just getting to the buffet that night was pretty dramatic.  Right about the time we were thinking about heading for dinner it started raining.  Not just any kind of raining either, a pouring buckets kind of rain.  We waited it out for a little while but finally decided to put on the disposable plastic rain coats, you know the kind you get 2/$1 at the dollar store, that I had brought from home.  I only brought them because I thought we might need them if we went on an excursion.  I never dreamed we would be using them at our resort just to get to the buffet!  If we hadn't used them we would have been drenched within seconds.

One other note about the buffet place.  Zach was in heaven because he was able to help himself and getting ice cream at the end of dinner was what he always looked forward to.  The coconut flavor was especially yummy.

The beach and water were really nice, the water was very shallow for quite a ways out and not rocky. The first day we spent in the Caribbean Sea the water was very calm like this...

It was perfect for Zachary and we all enjoyed just lounging in the water.  There was not one single wave all day.  That changed as the week went on though.

Who doesn't go on vacation and buy souvenirs?  I'm sure someone can do it but none of us can.  The resort had a gift shop but it wasn't the best so we headed to a little shopping center across the street.  Lots of little Mexican souvenirs and overpriced sunscreen. We didn't forget to bring sunscreen but I couldn't find the aloe vera gel that I know I had brought so had to buy some for Megan. (She got a sunburn on her first day.)  Aloe Vera gel = $17!  Yeah, crazy isn't it. 

The mini sombreros made for a good photo op though. 

With our 7 night stay we were allowed to go to 3 a-la-carte restaurants (there were 4 different ones at our resort plus we could use the sister resort which was about a 10 minute walk away).  We chose to stay at our resort and our first restaurant was at Don Diego which was a Mexican themed restaurant. (Go figure!  A Mexican restaurant in Mexico.)  At the end of our meal our waiter brought us serapes and sombreros.  It was probably the most fun dinner of the 3 we visited. 

The drinking age in Mexico is 18 which is why Lauren didn't want to go to Mexico until after her birthday.  Here she is enjoying a mango margarita.

The other restaurants we went to during the week was Portofino, a Mediterranean themed restaurant, and Viva Café, an international themed restaurant.  All the a-la-cartes were very good and a nice change of pace from the buffet.  By the end of the week we were pretty tired of the same stuff at the buffet.

You can see that now there were some mini waves by the 3rd day we were there.  The waves got pretty rough midweek and then died down a little by the end of the week. The only calm day we had though was that very first one.

There was an awesome Kids Club that Zach went to on Monday.  He was very excited to go and spent the time from after breakfast until before dinner there (they took him to lunch.)  Unfortunately he never went back the rest of the week because 1) someone hit him (didn't leave a mark or anything) and 2) there were mostly girls there.  We tried our best to get him to go back because they did some really cool things with the kids but just couldn't talk him into it.  He did however join the Kids Club that evening on stage when they performed their show.  Of course he wouldn't go alone so Lauren volunteered to go with him.  Here they are in the middle of playing a game of following directions (stand up, sit down, lay down, etc.).  Easy right?  It would have been if the directions weren't in Spanish!

We took advantage of the time that Zach was in the kids club.  Our resort let us rent bikes for free so the 5 of us each rented a bike and rode into the nearest town, Playa del Carmen.  It took us about 15 minutes to arrive at 5th Avenue which is a known shopping area.  We went into a couple of gift type stores and then someone among us had to go to the bathroom (Lauren!).  We checked out the bus terminal but we would have had to pay to use the bathroom and at that moment we didn't have any Mexican coins on us.  So we went across the street to the McDonalds to use their bathroom and that guy yelled at us that it was just for paying customers.  We ended up buying a happy meal and 5 sodas because of that just so we could use the bathroom!  Of course everyone but me took a few sips out of their sodas before we realized that they had ice in them.  Now the ice at the resorts was safe but once you get out of the resort area it's not.  The chance of the ice melting that quickly and contaminating the sodas was minimal but no one wanted to take the chance and we ended up just throwing the sodas away.   After our McDonald's adventure we decided to just head back to the resort!  

 

On the way back from the front of the resort there were 3 hammocks that the kids would stop at.  It made for great photo ops!

Zach LOVED the fact that he could go get food by the pool bar and bring it back to the beach.  The French fries and pizza were always in demand.  I love this picture because Lauren is photo bombing!

The one thing that Lauren really wanted to do was jet ski so Friday morning we rented a jet ski for 30 minutes and split the time.  Since Lauren was 18 she was allowed to drive so she went out first and took Megan with her. 

After 15 minutes she came in and Paul and Kristin went out.  We were originally going to let Zach go out with Paul but the people at the jet ski rental recommended that we not do that since the water was a little rough that day.  So Kristin who originally didn't want to go was talked into going. 

It's a good thing that Zach didn't go with Paul because Paul and Kristin ended up falling off their jet ski!  I don't know, they hit a wave wrong and down they went.  Too bad I didn't see it!

The jet ski's were Friday morning, that afternoon Paul and Lauren went on a scuba expedition.  It was something like a 3-4 hour expedition so while they were doing that the rest of us hung out by the pool and ate and drank.

They came back exhausted and a little disappointed that they didn't see many (if any!) colorful fish at the reef. 

Our return flight was Saturday, July 6th at 2:00.  We had to check out of our hotel at 11:00 and that was about the same time that our shuttle back to the airport was to pick us up.  When we got dropped off we were on a big chartered bus with other people that also dropped off at other resorts so that was what I was expecting to pick us up to take us back.  We were sitting by the entrance and I was totally taken aback when a guy got out of a big SUV and asked if we were the Hunter's.   Wow!  Here we were getting a private trip back to the airport, just our family.  The guy didn't speak English though but that didn't stop Paul from asking him questions!  It was kind of comical.  It was also a little unnerving to pass the security checkpoints on the road and see people holding guns!  Not what you would see in the states.  We made it to the airport and this time had plenty of time to sit in the airport while we awaited the departure of our flight.  Our flight ended up being delayed by about an hour and was even moved to another gate.  When we finally were called to board (Kristin was the only one to have to undergo extra security screening!) we had to walk down a flight of stairs and board a bus that then took us to our plane.  Finally we were able to board our plane and that's when I took this picture...

Bye-bye Cancun!  We had a wonderful vacation and hopefully we get to return one day.