Mehhhico

Chase and I decided we had earned the right to take a vacation after never leaving our children for more than two days in over 8 blasted years.  If you think about it, we got married and had about five peaceful months of bliss before I got pregnant and turned into a nauseated crazy lady, then law school, then baby and then LIFE!!  After our honey moon nearly 10 years ago, we pretty much stayed put.  The only time I remember leaving the kids was when we came to Austin to find a house and that was NOT a vacation.  It was 106 degrees, we worked all day with a realtor, and every night pretty much ended with me in tears because I was so exhausted!  

So when some of our friends invited us to go to Mexico with them, we at first declined because we've just never done anything so "reckless" before.  Who leaves their children for a whole week to a destination full of fun, relaxation and bliss?  Not us!!  I'm so glad our friends were persistent because the more they pushed, the more we realized that the stars were actually aligning in our favor, which happens rarely for us Cannons.  Sadie was getting baptized the 17th and our friends were leaving the 18th.  We actually had child care because we would have two sets of grandparents and Uncle Curtis to choose from to watch our chiddlers if we decided to go.  My parents already had a trip planned to England but Pops and CC mulled it over and finally agreed to stay an extra week.  They were kind enough to put off piano lessons and other obligations back in Utah to spend some quality time with our little nuggets.  Uncle Curtis offered to watch them too.  Not only would the kids be in great hands if we went, but they'd actually be in far better hands with one adult per child as opposed to Chase and I who are always outnumbered.  So we called the travel agency and put our reservation on hold.  Just in case we wanted to go.  A trip like this has always seemed so out of reach for us, for many reasons but mainly because we've never had childcare.  After a few days of going over how perfectly this situation was working out for us, we finally just called the travel agent and booked the trip!!  Wahoo!!  Peace out kids!!

Sadie got baptized, we celebrated her amazing decision, kissed them all goodbye and hopped on a plane to Playa del Carmen, Mexico.  Even the small event of being on a plane without children made us giddy.  It was like we were college sweethearts again!

Our hotel was amazing, the grounds were incredible, but the rooms were disgusting.   My Spanish came in handy as I was able to complain about our accommodations after reading that the hotel was supposedly "5 star." After three room changes, we were finally in a comfortable spot, but it took a little work on our part.  Our first room had a cockroach in it and was right next to a pool where a man was on a microphone screaming some sort of gibberish. Our second room not only had dirty sheets (I always turn down the bed to look for bugs after traveling in South America), there was also rust dripping down our shower curtain and more rust all over the shower, sink and toilet.  It was disgusting.  I don't think I would have made such a stink if the hotel didn't claim to be 5 star.  This was making a Motel 8 look glamorous! Finally after taking pictures of our room and speaking to the manager of the hotel, we were set up in a very nice room farther down the path from the main hotel (and our friends) but still, WAY more comfortable and accommodating.  So after four hours, we were finally checked in and ready to party!!

We finally met up with our friends on the beach and then headed to dinner.  The trip was all inclusive, including food and drinks.  So whenever we felt like eating, we just went to the buffet or restaurant and ate.  Chase couldn't believe he could have as many "virgin" pina coladas as his heart desired.  It made the trip totally worth it for him. Our first night after dinner, we went to a "family friendly" (or so we thought) show in the main lobby that looked semi-entertaining.  The host asked for volunteers and still feeling giddy that we were traveling without children, I volunteered Chase and me and then some of our friends followed.  There were four of us couples on stage and we were pretty excited!  Then the guy tells us we are going to have a "battle of the sexes" between the couples.  How bad could it be right?  First he brings out some beers and explained the game where we would have to guzzle our drinks faster than our opponents.  Ya, that wasn't going to fly.  The show ended up being REALLY boring for the guy and all the spectators because after presenting every event, we had to tweak it a bit because of our Mormon beliefs.  I felt bad for the guy and wishing I had never volunteered but it was a good memory to say the least!

Chase and I were a bit hesitant to go on this trip with 5 other couples mainly because we were worried that we wouldn't get get to see each other enough, especially if all the guys wanted to do something and the girls wanted to do something else.  We decided before we went that we were going to stick together and just chill.  We didn't want an agenda and really wanted to spend the week just relaxing and doing whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted.  If the others wanted to go somewhere and see some sights, we'd go if we wanted to.  One such sight was going to see the ancients Tulum Ruins that were once occupied by the Mayan people.  Our friends wanted to do a tour with a Mormon dude who could tell them all the awesome facts relating to the Lamanite people. Chase and I have never really been into tours, so we just did our own thing.  That's what Wikipedia is for!

The ruins were right by the sea and port of Coba.  What an amazing place for these Mayan people to set up camp.  We loved seeing all the buildings and the wild life around.  While climbing up some rocks, we ran into a very large iguana that wouldn't move out of the way until we were about a step  from jumping over him.  We also loved the Coatimundis.  They reminded me of little monkey/racoons and had the sweetest faces.  They would hold up their little hands and take food from us.  I wanted to take one home with me by the end of the trip.  

We explored for a while until a massive and torrential rain storm came our way.  It was crazy!!  We ran under some palm trees for cover but were still getting drenched.  After a while I started to worry about our cameras and iPhones getting wet.  The rain had completely soaked us through. It was warm rain, but very wet rain nonetheless.  Most of the other tourists retreated somewhere and pretty much disappeared.  Chase and I became desperate and decided to step over the restricted, roped in area, and sat under a very small tunnel like square in the middle of a field.  We sat there for about 20 minutes, feeling very jolly about our decision and quite proud of how clever we were to find such a place of refuge.  The rain finally subsided for a few minutes and we were able to go outside again.  However, a police man spotted us before we were able to go anywhere.   

It was REALLY helpful knowing Spanish this time around because I got Chase and me out of quite a pickle. We actually almost got arrested for hiding under that 4x4 square tunnel!  Apparently, your not supposed to even touch the ruins, let alone hide inside them. I tried explaining to the mini Mexican with the walkie talkie that we meant no harm as he escorted us off the property and to the police headquarters. After several minutes of walking and following orders, I was finally able to convince him that we didn't know that we were committing such a grave offense and that we were just trying to protect our iPhones and other devices from the rain.  The man looked torn because I think he knew we were good people (I told him we were:-) but we had broken their little "don't touch the ruins" law.  Finally, he asked me where we were from.  I said "Tejas" and just like that, he let us go. A little milagro.  I was beginning to get worried and so was Chase.  He really just followed us around around while I attempted to free us in Spanish.  He just followed us like a lost puppy, not having a clue what was going on. He knew we were in trouble, but didn't have the faintest idea what we were saying.  

It started raining again when we found our friends.  We decided it was time to go, so we ran about a mile in the warm, heavy rain getting completely drenched again but feeling absolutely liberated at the same time.  It was so fun!! We then jumped into two separate taxis and went to Akumal Beach to snorkel and swim with some turtles.  We thought the iguanas were huge until we swam near the even larger turtles. Snorkeling was awesome until a massive turtle did a massive poop right as I was swimming behind him. It was hilarious watching Tiffany immediately start swimming the other way.  

Chase and I looked so attractive in scuba masks that we had to take some pictures to document our attractiveness.  

The next day we woke up at 11 and were thrilled about the idea of sitting in a hammock all day after our crazy day of ruins, rain and police men.  Just as I sat down and started relaxing, we got a call from our friends telling us they just scored a MAJOR deal that we couldn't pass up.  We needed to go down to the lobby immediately and sign up for a "switch of hotels" in exchange for free tickets to Xcaret (an amusement parks that many tourists got excited about) and a free ferry to their sister hotel on the island of Cozumel.  I was excited about one park called Xplor because it included zip lining and cave canoeing.  The other park sounded boring with Mayan dancing shows and stuff like that.  No thanks.  If they had offered me a ticket to Xplor, that would have enticed me.  We also felt that we worked so hard getting into the room we finally got, that switching to a different (under-booked) hotel just sounded like a headache.  We declined and our friends all went to Xcaret that day (the boring one), while Chase and I returned to our hammocks. 

We had a splendid day swimming, lounging in cabanas, playing tennis and drinking pina coladas, of course.  

It was exactly what we needed to unwind.  

When our friends returned, we all went to dinner and the girls went dancing while the boys played poker.  Most nights we seriously danced on our hotel’s dance floor until 1 a.m. It was so fun not having to worry about waking up to feed kids or get them off to school. We just partied all night and slept in. It was like we were dating again. One night as we were dancing all crazy (like Mormons do), this lady asked Melanie what we were drinking.  She couldn't believe none of us weren't drunk. We were having so much fun!! If only people knew how awesome the Word of Wisdom is. They too could be on a natural high all the time. 

The next day, some of the peeps wanted to go zip lining.  This ended up being my favorite adventure!  Xplor had 2.5 miles of zip lines.  It was awesome!! They also had these mini jeeps we could drive all over the place in the jungle where we saw a crocodile and a jaguar. We also swam through underwater caves and it was truly amazing. I can’t get over how relaxed Mexico is about safety. There’s no way we could do all that fun stuff in the United States. Uninhibited fun!!! Chase was practically zip lining upside down. It was hilarious!! We paid for the picture package that allowed us to take as many pictures as we wanted that would be downloaded onto a zip drive fro us to take home.  You better believe we got our money's worth.  We took the most ridiculous pictures. 

Zip lining was SOOOOO fun!!  I loved it when we had to pair up because Chase would do his silly laugh the entire way.  

Can you tell yet we were a little picture happy?

The highlight of the trip was discovering that my friend Melanie can sing fake opera like me. We were in those caves on a raft and she just started belting out all these hilarious tunes with her opera voice. I almost died laughing, but instead joined her…naturally. Another highlight was when we were walking back from the beach to our hotel rooms and a wild hog jumped out of the bushes at me. Yikes!! Oh Mexico.  You're hilarious.  From your rusted shower curtains all the way down to your wild hogs.  

I still can't believe how cool these caves were and that we were allowed to go inside them on rafts for pete's sake.  There's no way they'd let you do this in the states.  

The next day all our friends were moving to the sister hotel on the island of Cozumel.  Chase and I decided it would be fun to see another part of Mexico so we turned in our room key and took the two free tickets to Xcaret with hopes that we would be able to sell them before the ferry left.  Here's another time my Spanish came in handy.  While I was getting the tickets at the front desk, a travel agent came up next to me to talk to the clerk.  A lightbulb went off.  This guy sold the same tickets we were getting for free to people at the hotel.  Why don't I sell him ours for less and we'd both make a profit; him selling them for more and us getting money for free tickets.  I sold them for $70 each (they were worth $90) and we were $100 richer!!  Wahoo!!  Now we felt like we were getting a pretty good deal moving hotels because we got to go to the "fun park" for free and didn't have to watch those boring Mayan dancers all day.    

The 30 minute ferry sounded really fun, until it started moving.  Holy moly!!  I got soooo sea sick and so did a lot of our friends.  This sweet woman handed me a lime and told me to sniff it.  It actually helped.  Who knew?  Another distraction I was grateful for was a sweet family from Valparaiso, Chile that I was able to talk to.  It was fun reminiscing with them about my travels there when I was working on my Spanish minor back in 2004.  

Once off the ferry, we got our rooms and hit the beach!!  We didn't have as much time to finagle our way into getting a nicer room, because our trip to Cozumel would be a short, two day trip before we had to go back to Texas.  Surprisingly, our room was pretty nice (I was worried, especially after our first two rooms back at the main hotel).  

The beach was dreamy!!  We just snorkeled, drank pina coladas, and read our books all day!!

We had very talented cabana boys too:-)

That evening we walked down the beach and hit a tiki bar selling fish tacos.  They were delicious!

I was skeptical at first when my friends decided to move to a different hotel, but was grateful they did because it was so beautiful and felt like a real, authentic Mexican experience.  I loved the buildings we stayed in.  The Spanish tiled stairs and all the mini frogs jumping all over the place just made me happy.  

We stayed at the beach as long as possible knowing it was our last day of relaxation before we had to travel back home.  

After we got all the sand cleaned off, we went to dinner and then partied until 1 a.m. dancing at the discotheque.  Then we went searching for frogs.  They were soooo loud.  It was amazing.  Our hotel was literally surrounded by jungle.  This was when the wild hog jumped out of the bushes.  So many funny animals and critters.  Melanie was deathly afraid we were going to run into some snakes.  

The un-highlight of the trip was when I got followed by a creepy guy from the discotheque to the hotel lobby.  All our friends were in the bar for dancing but the music hadn’t turned on yet. I asked the bar tender when they would turn it on and he told me to go talk to the front desk. I should have told Chase I was leaving, but the front desk was so close, I didn’t worry about it. As I was walking from the bar, this creepy guy dressed in black with blond hair brushed by me going the opposite direction and gave me the look of death. Piercing eyes I tell ya!! I thought “that’s weird” but ignored him and walked in to talk to the front desk. When I turned around to go back, I walked outside to go through the beautiful jungle grounds back to the bar. He was walking back towards me from the bar. Something told me to turn around so I did and pretended like I had something else to say to the front desk. When I turned around, he was still there, kind of waiting for me, but he was outside lurking in the dark tunnel of trees. I finally decided I couldn't go back to the bar unless someone was with me. Clearly this guy was either crazy or drunk and was most certainly following me. I approached a couple and asked them to walk me to the bar and told them why. They were super nice and walked me there. I immediately went up to Chase and told him what happened and he said “tell me what he looks like and we’ll go find him.” There was no need. The creep walked in right as we were talking about him. He followed me, even with my escorts!! Chase put his arm around me and held me close. I begged him not to say anything because I didn't want confrontation. The guy walked in and stayed for literally 2 seconds and then left. Geez louise. It was scary!! 

Wild hogs and wild men. What a party!

I had to endure one more ferry ride back to Playa Del Carmen and then we shopped around for the kids.  We found an awesome hammock seat for George, a spider man mask for Jack, and a lava lava for Sadie. Back at the hotel we lounged around until our shuttle left to take us to the airport.   

Chase wasn't at all impressed with the Red Skin cheerleaders who happened to show up that day to shoot their annual bikini calendar for all the pornos out there.  Good boy.  

More lizards and coatimundis to obverse and gawk over.  

At this point in the trip, almost everyone was having bowel issues but we all were gratfeul for a really fun trip with some of the best people I know.  We couldn't have picked better traveling companions.  The fact that they would dance with Chase and me until the wee hours of the morning was enough to make me want to do this annually!  What a great week of non stop adventure, fun, relaxation and laughter.  So glad we decided to be "reckless" and go.  

 When we got home our kids all came to the front door with their little faces in the glass window. I was just bursting with love for them. I didn't really miss them all that much because we were having such a great time but I was so happy to see those precious little faces.  George wouldn’t let me out of his sight for a few days but is pretty much back to normal now. Sadie told me she liked practicing with CC on the piano WAY more than she liked practicing with me, and Jack ran all over the house with that silly mask on for days and actually weeks.  We haggled our way into some fun gifts for those kids.  I'd say my Spanish came in quite handy there too.