March 2024

There's really not a whole lot more that happened in March!  This picture is from the iFit treadmill.  This is mom and Tom from trailfest 2020.  It was a couple years ago when I first found this, but I don't have iFit anymore so when I was at the gym I started the Bryce Canyon run that I knew had them and took a couple pictures.  They were on the screen in front of the iFit instructor for a full 6 minutes.

We got so much snow in March.  It was kind of depressing.  We missed some of it while on Spring Break though.

I made homemade pizza for our family and Kylee was babysitting the Nelson's kids so she brought them over for dinner.  I was so impressed with how perfectly round and pretty these pizzas turned out, lol.

I got an email telling me that Kaden was receiving an award at an assembly so I was invited.  I didn't really know what it was all about.  But I guess they are doing this every trimester and they give awards for music, library, PE, along with the regular reading and math.  Kaden's award was for PE.  He loves sports so I'm sure he works hard in PE.  

Kylee had her dance banquet.  Her coach really does go all out and works really hard with the girls.  She had photo books made for the two seniors and all the girls signed them.  Rachael actually won coach of the year out of all the district (voted by the other coaches).

 She has loved dancing with these girls! (All of them, not just in the picture).  I think that's the main reason she kept dancing this year.  

Spring Break- Cruise Photoshoot

 This needed it's own post because it is so random and there's so many of them.  But they needed to be saved for funsies.  Royal Caribbean has photographers posted in different spots and they will sell you the photo package but it didn't seem worth it to buy since we had plenty of people to take pictures for us.  Anyway, I guess the photographer was bored and pulled these girls into the most awkward photo shoot ever.  But hey, they had fun.

Spring Break- Cozumel Mexico (Playa Del Carmen)

We ported in Cozumel, but there really wasn't much to do in Cozumel so all the excursions were on the mainland.  We had to take a ferry, but it was only like 40 minutes.  Then a bus for like an hour, then back on the bus for another 30 or so, etc.

 When we were planning excursions, I really wanted to do cenotes.  Sara's family was going to do the ruins at Tulum because they hadn't done ruins before.  I consulted with my kids and asked if they would rather hang out with cousins even if that means going to see ruins again (last time we saw Ek Balam).  They all agreed that was fine.  But man, ruins are not that fun.  It is soooo hot.  And we were on a tour with a bunch of people, like 40 or 50 I swear.  I hate that.  We had to wait around for everyone to use the bathroom and then all walk together.  He stopped often to let people catch up and in the meantime would tell us about plants or something else we don't care about.  I really just wanted to walk around and explore on my own.  I'm not sure I can remember a single thing the guy told us that mattered.  There is a cool spot in one of the buildings where the door aligns with this really small window and the sun will shine through it exactly lined up on the summer solstice I think.  

Anyway, Tulum is unique in that it is on the beach.  And the white stone is pretty.  The beach is beautiful and I was hoping to go down to the water because that's the draw.  But apparently they have closed the beach and nobody can access it anymore.  There isn't much information online about why or when it was closed.  But I think it was around Covid time.  I feel like I heard maybe it was the staircase down to it needs repaired.  But then I also think they just wanted to preserve the beach.  My thought is they closed it during Covid because everything was closed.  And maybe they saw improvement when people were not going there so they decided to just keep it closed.  Anyway, it would've been nice but oh well.

It really was so hot.  We didn't stay long once the tour guide let us go on our own.  We were looking forward to cooling off at the cenotes.  We got lunch quickly before we loaded the bus and some cold sodas with that so that was nice.

I love the cenotes!  I had looked up this place online and I thought there were more than just the two that we did, but we also made our way over to this spot with the heart and I think that may be considered a separate one so who knows.  I was just thrilled we got to do the cave one.  It was so cool, though less cool with 100 other people.

The bus ride back was relaxing.  Then we got back on the ferry and it was NOT relaxing!  It was rocking and rolling from the start and they immediately started handing out barf bags.  I gave Jason and Kaden both a Meclizine for nausea and I put two of the wrist pressure bracelets on me.  I think if it would've been any longer I would've had a problem but it was only like 45 minutes so I survived.  We were hearing plenty of people losing their lunch though.  Kylee had to put her headphones in just to drown out that sound.  Once again we only made it back on board with a few minutes to spare!

The waters in Playa Del Carmen are the prettiest colors!  The pictures don't do it justice.

Spring Break- Roatan Honduras

I wasn't sure what to expect in Honduras.  It was pretty chaotic once we got out of the port bubble.  People all mashed together walked down the street with people holding signs for different tour companies everywhere.

We had booked a tour from a different company because Royal Caribbean are a bunch of ageists and wouldn't let us book the zipline excursion for Cheryl because she was over 65.  The company that we used was one that Camille, our travel agent, had vetted for us so I felt good about it.  It took awhile to find them though.  Once we did and got checked in, we all walked down this road about half a mile to the zipline place.

Sadie started saying she felt nauseated.  This isn't that abnormal for Sadie.  She gets headaches more than the average child.  Heat bothers her more than the average child, therefore nausea didn't surprise me too much.  However, this was morning after the incident with Cheryl so I couldn't brush her off telling her she would be fine because I just didn't know.  But what I did know is that ziplining with an upset stomach would not be fun.  So I volunteered to stay back with Sadie while everyone else went ziplining.  We sat in the shade and rested.  She even got in my head a little and made me nervous about my own stomach.  I've done ziplining plenty of times and this area didn't even look all that impressive so I wasn't that worried about missing it.  Turns out they had tons of fun.  The guy was showing them how to go upside down and stuff.  They are much more lax here than in other places we've been, lol.

They loaded into the back of this truck that took them up a steep bumpy hill, an adventure in itself.

Ryan wore his meta glasses and took some cool pictures and videos.

After ziplining we headed over to the tiny little zoo where they had sloths and a toucan and some other animals.  It was so hot.  It was really crowded.  And I felt bad for the animals.

Holding the sloth was amazing.  They are so interesting and have the cutest little faces.  I'm sure they probably don't love being passed off to people all day long, but their faces look happy so it's hard to know.

We then took a pretty long bus ride, apparently across the whole island.  It was like 45 minutes or so.  I don't know what I was expecting with snorkeling.  We were all so tired and the boys were saying they would sit out on the snorkeling.  They served us food and that was interesting.  I think everyone else had some sort of fried chicken, but Ryan and Kylee and I ordered the fish.  We were a little surprised when it came out with eyes, lol.

It was pretty good though!  We didn't love the plantains. 

They took us out on a little boat for the snorkeling so everyone had to come (I wasn't leaving any kids alone on a small beach in Honduras).  They drove us out to this little sandbar area.  It was beautiful water!  And it ended up being really cool!  Dylan and Kaden both decided to come.  Kaden didn't do too great though.  He tried using the life jacket to help but he just couldn't get the hang of breathing without getting salty water.  And he eventually got back on the boat while the rest of us finished.

There were tons of starfish and we were allowed to dive down and pick them up but just not bring them out of the water.  Most of them were giant and fat, different from what we are used to.  FYI diving down 7-8 feet seems like it wouldn't be too hard but it is kind of hard.

There was a natural current so they dropped us further away and then the boat drifted along with us and met us at the other end so we didn't have to fight the current to get back.  At the end, there was a dropoff where the water just changed color and you couldn't see anything anymore.  But before that we saw some of the coolest reef and fish I've ever seen while snorkeling.  It was awesome. 

Here we are after a very full, tiring, hot day.  The bus driver was almost late getting us back.  There was some unexpected traffic I think, and he tried a different road thinking it would be faster but it really wasn't.  We were all sweating just a little.  I figured they wouldn't really leave such a big group, but you never know.  No problems though, we made it back with some time to spare to take a picture.  We were originally with Sara's family but they put us in different buses and then different boats so we didn't really see them after the zoo.  They made it back too, no worries.