I had another picture in my mind...a quiet flight filled with five sleeping kids. Wrong again. As the kids rotated seats, I cleaned up spilled milk, found movies on ipads, took kids to the bathroom, and passed out snacks. I read a whopping five pages in a magazine.
We arrived by lunch...
...and to the pool we went.
Eventually 3.5 hours of sleep, a 90-minute drive, a four-hour flight, and swimming caught up with her.
Our first full day was spent poolside. The kids swam and swam and swam.
The Shirley Temples flowed all week.
More swimming.
Finley's swimming was so much better than last year. His confidence has definitely grown. He happily wore a swim vest in the big pool (100% FINE by me), but he'd cruise out on his own (unlike last year when he panicked if he couldn't reach an adult). In the kids' pool, he easily swam underwater. Oh, and he is SO proud of himself.
Hadley's swimming resembled Finley's from last year. She was cautious, but that's 100% OK with me too, around water I'd rather my kids be timid than too-brave.
Hadley & I visited the beach.
Pool games.
Every afternoon Hadley asked Grandpa to take her upstairs for a bit. She didn't sleep, but needed some downtime.
Everyone needed a little downtime.
Our kids were the perfect age for participating in the kid's activities, it was a good sun-break for all of them.
Painting t-shirts.
Making pinatas. Or I should say, starting a pinata to be finished by the adults.
In 2009, Spencer turned one on our last day in Cancun.
In 2015, Spencer turned seven on our first day in Cancun.
The kids like riding the bus.
Bubba Gumps, here we come! Dinnertime with 15 of us is somewhat crazy.
Happy Birthday Spencer!
The WI Badgers had two big wins, we happily sported red-white and filled the lobby bar for both games.
Heidi's kids continued to refuse pictures for me. Nothing new ;)
Beach time.
No clue what she spotted in the ocean.
Catching air...
More beach. Vacay is soooo rough.
My favorite kids.
Beach games...
...lunch break...
...face painting. Our resort does a nice job with kids' activities.
Sometimes attitude showed up. And she loves having her picture taken mid-stink.
There was a Grandpa-given timeout for Spencer & Finley. They went to lunch with Grandpa, Mike, & Simon. While the bill was being signed, they had directions to wait on the steps. When the guys got there, they were gone! Little sh!ts had run back to the pool area. Grandpa was not happy. I took a picture of that too ;)
I had a record-breaking THREE kid-free dinners out. The ladies one night.
And two group dinners.
Patrick had a giant steak (that's my steak next to his)...
...and Ryan had a giant dessert.
One night the kids had a fiesta with Grandpa & Grandma.
Another night Peter & Simon agreed to babysit while the adults ran across the street for dinner.
More swimming.
Thanks to my parents, I've been going to Cancun for 21 years. For the first time, the beach wasn't postcard-worthy. We were disappointed to see an insane amount of seaweed along the water's edge. Because of it, we didn't spend as much time on the beach as usual. It was smelly and known to have jellyfish in it :(
But it didn't completely stop us.
There was a lot of seashell-digging.
Back to the pool.
Lunch break. Finley had a cheeseburger every single day.
The kids painted pottery.
Pool cocktails.
This salesman had an awesome trick - he put necklaces on the kids. How can the parents say no?! $50 later, each kid had a new necklace. For which we insisted they pose for a picture.
Trying to get them to line up isn't fun.
There were a few sleepovers.
Easton easily earns the sleep-in award.
Water balloon fight!
Pinata party!
Check out their swings!
Candy chaos!
For seven days, we enjoyed this view...
...and before we knew it, we were packed up to go home.
Our flight back was a little quieter.
All 11 of us made it back safely.
A giant THANK YOU to my parents for providing us with another fun trip to Cancun. We enjoyed having Mike, Suzie, Peter & Simon with us, they are so good to our kids. The kids had so much fun. I had fun watching them have so much fun. We love you!
Our resort photographer snapped a few pictures, they are posted below.
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