Cancun 2nd trip

James Celebrates his Birthday in Cancun!!!



Shannon eating Yummy Crab!

May 2008 is our first trip to Cancun and we did a condo/resort that we rented rooms in. We had to shop for our own food (WalMart- and cart our own food home on the bus-always interesting) BUT I have to admit we got out a lot more because there was not a buffet to park our butts at.. .

We love Cancun (OK truth is it's SOO cheap that we just have to choose Cancun everytime we want to travel with kids) Kids stay free (2 in our room, 2 in grandma and grandpa's room) all food and drink included for $1,100.00. Before the credit card companies wised up Angie was racking up enough free miles to get us there for only the award redemption fees (about $50 a person) So, long story short its a cheap beach vacation with ALL the amenities. Did I say ALL THE AMENITIES? (I love food, especially when someone else is cooking and serving it)

May 2008

Cancun in May was very hot and inland at Chichen Itza it was pretty brutal. Our three little guys were not thrilled with the sights and history of the ancient Mayan and the meaning of the archaeology. Mom and dad loved it and we had a great tour guide, Helaman, who gave us his "LDS" perspective.

Cancun is full of "cenotes" which are fractures/caves from the crater impact and so there are springs and deep water pools. We went swimming in one and it felt like going into the earth, you hike down in.

Our kids were so hot and whiny during our tour of Chichen Itza that our tour guide finally bought them popsicles to shut them up. (they were seriously annoying).

They got the hang of bodysurfing and had a great time riding in on the breaking surf with their boogy boards.

Shannon stayed busy surfing or catching crabs or whatever wildlife he could find.

Building onto our existing home

This is the inside of our house, mostly finished now, YEAH! Shannon cut the concrete designs and we stained it with acid
We like nature themes if you can't tell, I love the flowers and plants
What do we do with hundreds of fossils, well how bout a wall of fossils?

Shannon slapped them onto the wall that connects our old and new rooms

Shannon didn't make the bed this morning (ever) before taking this picture
Shannon incorporated fossils into the tile work in our bathrooms too

These boys are spoiled-a hanging swing, lofts, cubby's, and a big room.























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The Last 2 1/2 years have been crazy at best, but after the chaos... . an awesome house custom tailored to us. Shannon is amazing and he has no fear (I won't say no planning) ;) He just dove into everything and learned whatever he didn't already know. So, We had LOTS of help (all free of charge) (or is it really free?) Just Kidding. So THANK YOU! You know who you are. We couldn't have done it without you. Our parents, brothers, cousins are the BEST in all the world!

So, 2006-7 Shannon's first priority was a Ginormous garage to house all things seed, homebuilding and otherwise storage (no cars allowed I'm afraid). So, monster garage finished, we started tearing into the house, Shane and Shannon tore off the roof and that was an interesting winter with the tarp for the front of our house. I wondered as we poured the concrete pad (which would be our indoor floor too) what it would look like and we were putting leaf imprints in as we went and not really knowing exactly what would be where etc. We got very cool leaves and also our cat (kitty he's usually called) got his cute little paw prints in the GreatRoom too. There are too many pics to post it all now. Let me just say this first year of building chaos was crazy, but mostly for Shannon and his free helpers. Shane (brother) did a great job on the electrical and Shannon's dad did a great job of building our stairs. We hired out only the dry wall! Shannon is SO LUCKY to have the winter off to build during. Oh, did I mention Shannon also designed the house plans all by himself. What a man!

Pictures of the finished product (well mostly finished) coming soon.

BTW the kids loved the domolition of the walls ( what was the back walal in our kitchen got knocked out where the window was and below it, but the header had to stay above it so it's kind of an arch/entryway into the new part of the house. Shannon did the coolest fossil wall--pics to come!