6.09.2013

summer time is cousin time

The morning after we got home from Cancun, Will had is school dance performance. He did such a great job and it was so cute to see all the little first graders doing their dance! Will has had a great year in first grade. Even thought it was a difficult transition for him to go to school all day long, I think he did an awesome job. Worked so hard, made lots of good friends and did so great! We are so proud of him!

This past weekend, we went up to Logan for a mini-family reunion with Scott's family. His brother's family is here from Michigan so we wanted to see them. We took the kids to the American West Heritage Center. We love that place, it is always a lot of fun for the kids and never crowded so the kids get lots of attention and get to do all the activities.

My kids love their cousins so much! They are best friends and love to be together. This is all the Mortensen grandkids except JD (who was being shy), Gabe who was home napping, and baby boy in Kari's belly due in August. Owen got to join the cousin picture so that Lila would get in it too. :) Such cute kiddos!!!
 Eli LOVED the train. Especially riding with cute Jane and Ellie!

 Petting the goats....


 Before Eli rode his horse, the girl was talking to him and said "Give me bones" with her hand in a fist holding her candy bar. Well, Eli didn't give her bones, he just snatched her candy bar! And then just started eating it! It was hilarious. She was nice and let him keep it.

Scott and mini-Scott on the train. I love these two. They are so much fun and I love my family of boys! We had a fun time with family at the farm. Afterwards we went to Wes's house for some yummy food. The kids played on the bounce house, jumped on the trampoline and the boys played football with all the kids. It was a great day and we were glad we could be there!

anniversary trip to cancun

 To celebrate our 10 year anniversary we took a trip to Cancun! It was so great and just what we needed.  We left early (4:30am!) Sunday morning to head to the airport. Grandma and Grandpa Hopkins came to stay with the boys. We flew from SLC to Denver and then Denver to Cancun. We arrived in Cancun at 3:30pm. It made for a really long day of travel and by the time we got there, we were exhausted and HUNGRY!
Our resort was actually in Playa del Carmen, about 40 min south of Cancun. So by the time we got to our hotel, checked in and took luggage to our room, we were really starving. We chose to eat a brazilian restaurant. It was like Rodizio grill and tasted so good after a long day of travel. Then we of course had to walk out to the beach. It was beautiful, even though it was getting dark.


Our trip was so relaxing. Pretty much all we did was relax. We just relaxed at the beach and at the pool, it was exactly what we needed and was so much fun. The resort was all inclusive, so we would wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, go to the beach, eat lunch, go to the pool, eat dinner, and go back to beach. It was awesome! We read, listened to music, talked, and slept. Oh and our favorite part? People watching!! There are some crazy weird people in this world! It was so hilarious.
One morning we woke up at 5:30 to watch the sunrise. While we were waiting we saw them raking the beach. They do it with this tractor every morning and get all the stuff the surf drags in so the beach is pristine. It was actually pretty cool. We also saw the resort staff lining up the beach chairs perfectly and measuring with a string to make sure they were all perfectly aligned. They really go to a lot of trouble to make your vacation perfect. It was actually really neat to see. The picture above is from my beach chair, waiting for the sun to come up. Below is the beach tractor.

 Still waiting..... watching the birds dive for fish....


Here comes the sun!





 I know it seems like a lot of pictures of the same thing, but it was just so pretty I couldn't help it!





The sunrise was amazing. It was so quiet and peaceful, we were pretty much the only people awake. It was SUPER not while we were there. The humidity is crazy, so it felt really hot. One day I left our hotel room with my hair wet and it never dried!
 Our grounds at our resort were really pretty. And there were several areas where there was water and TONS of turtles! Our boys would have loved it.




One day we rented a car and took a trip to the ruins at Tulum. They are ancient Mayan ruins. It was really awesome to see. There were iguanas ALL over the place. Again, our boys would have loved it.



 We had a little tour and walked around the ruins. It was so hot this day, I thought I would die, it totally drains you of all your energy. Not to mention we both got really bad sunburns our first day there so we were really sore and tired.





 The most amazing thing about Tulum is that it sits right on the ocean. With the blue sky and the gorgeous turquoise water, it is an incredible place. It was so beautiful, I loved it.






 Look at that water!!!!! Seriously, it was incredible. And I don't even think my pictures do it justice. Plus the water was perfect. We walked down from the ruins to the beach to get our feet wet. It felt amazing. The water is just cool enough to be refreshing, but not so cold that you can't stand it.

 So, right before we took this picture, a girl was taking the same picture and got nailed by this giant wave. So that's why I'm making a weird face in the second picture, I could hear the waves behind me and I was sure I was going to get drenched. The waves were pretty big here and my pants got soaked.... good thing they were white! NOT!! So when we got back to our car I had to change into my swim suit shorts. :)




 Scott was our mexi-navigator. It was such a fun day trip. After Tulum, we drove down the coast a little bit and found this little "village" type town. It was right on the beach and had a bunch of hotels that were more eco-friendly type places. Lots of hippies :) But it was SO awesome. They looked like amazing hotels and little bungalows. Then we stopped at this beach called Playa Paraiso. It was beautiful too. And no one was there.



 Check out how clean the water was! Those looks like rocks in there, but they were little red plants. The water was so clear and pretty, we loved it. Except that we were dying of heat.



After our trip to Tulum, we just drove back to the hotel to eat and do some more relaxation. It was a perfect trip and we had a blast. We were missing our kids, but we were also grateful for the time away! We will definitely be making a trip back to Playa del Carmen again soon!