I didn't have time to finish telling about all of our adventures in Mexico. Since I already covered our daily activities, I will tell you about our off-site fun. On Sunday we grabbed a taxi to take us downtown to the church. They have rebuilt the church since the hurricane. It seems to be double the size of what I remember it being in 2004. The building is really beautiful I wish I had a picture, but we forgot our camera that day. My next offsite adventure was with my uncle Richard. He left in the middle of the week and before he left he wanted to go jet skiing. The waves were breaking pretty far from the shore that day so we had to stay far from there. We had fun, and got a lot of air off some of the waves. Another day we went shopping at the mall. My favorite discovery was a little step stool at the ice cream shop. How come we can't have one of those step stools at all of our ice cream shops! I hate having to either slouch down or stand on my tip toes just to see the ice cream, that dang bar hinders my vision every time! One night the young couples got to go downtown together. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner and walked around finding crazy statues to take our picture with.
One morning we woke up and played tennis with my grandparents. We thought being the young couple we might be able to run the older around the court. It was just the opposite. It's embarrassing to say, but they killed us. Grandma would hit the ball anywhere we weren't. It was a humbling experience and a lot of fun.
Probably our favorite time off the resort was at Isla Mujeres. We woke up one morning and took a bus and a community mini van to ferry that went over to an island (Isla Mujeres). We found a small boat and crew that took us snorkling at a few spots, where we saw turtles, sea urchins, an eel, parrot fish, barracudas, and other tropical fish. Our favorite part was when the guide pulled out some crackers and left them in front of Lance's face. Lance put his head in the middle of hundreds of fish trying to eat the crackers. The fish kept running into Lance's mask. I put my arm in the middle of them and once they hit me a couple of times I wasn't brave enough to put my head in the middle of that. For lunch they grilled up some of the barracuda we had been swimming with, it was delicious! If Lance would allow me I would tell you about the beautiful shell I found at our lunch spot, but he is still upset because I used our last peso to buy it! We are lucky we had Niki and Philip to help us get back to the resort. ;) We also saw a sand shark, one of the few vegetarian sharks.
We ended the week with a birthday celebration at a fun Mexican restaurant down town. Our usual place, Pericos, was reserved for some big party so they recommended this new place. It was very similar some of the waiters carried plates and drinks on their heads and a mariachi band played to keep everyone entertained. We had a great time and they even brought out an amazing cake. Lance and Levi were nice enough to share with all of us. Levi (niki and philip's baby) turned one and Lance turned 25!
Overall we had a wonderful week. It was so fun to be with family and baby Levi was definitely the center of our attention. For those of you that haven't spent time with him, he is such a fun baby.
