Mexico Vacation

As much as we've enjoyed our "staycations" over the past few years, we decided it was about time for a tropical vacation.  So, we headed down to Mexico for a week in the sun with my Dad & Jared.  My Mom was originally scheduled to join us, but a few weeks before we left Dad decided she wouldn't travel well, so he found a place for her to stay while we were gone.  This meant that we had an extra seat, so Cecily got her own seat on each of the flights (which was a HUGE help).

Flying with two small children is no picnic, but if you must do it, I'd recommend taking along four adults, and checking all your luggage...and not flying AeroMexico.  We nailed the first point, not so much on the last two.  We had one layover in LA, which was scheduled to be about 4 hours; our flight out of Seattle landed late, so by the time we left the terminal, walked 20 minutes to the other terminal, stood in the check-in line for 90 minutes, went back in through security, and found our gate, we had only 15 minutes before they were scheduled to start boarding.  Fortunately (?!) they started boarding an hour late, so we still had time for lunch.  This was without question, the most annoying part of the trip and we were very glad that Dad decided to keep Mom at home, the travel would have been really difficult for her.  The kids were troopers, but we were all glad once we got to Mexico.

I was nervous about flying with Cecily, but she did surprisingly well. 

Not a bad place to spend a week.

The view from our condo:

We spent most of the trip at the pool or at the beach, so I don't have a ton of photos, but we did take one trip to town:

Lareto is a really cute little town, there's only the one resort, and a few hotels, so it's much quieter than a lot of the Mexican destination towns.  They also have a great boardwalk along the waterfront that was a really nice walk (even with the stroller!).

Normally, when you go to one of these resorts, they are completely filled with sun-burnt Americans, but the weekend we were there was a holiday in Mexico, so the resort was almost completely filled with Mexican families (which is a vast improvement over drunk-Americans).  Our first day there, Cecily had a gaggle of about 8 Mexican kids following her around the swimming pool the whole afternoon.  It was adorable, although I think Cecily would have enjoyed it a little more if they'd been able to understand her when she said she needed a little "more space".  The whole group was also on the bus ride with us the next day when we went to town.  On the trip home, they shared their "Mexican Candy" with Parker & Cecily, so now they're best friends for life.  From what I could tell from the amount of sucker C wiped across my face, they were a chili-watermelon flavor lollipop, I wasn't a fan, but the kids seemed to like it.

The kids found the car seats in the closet and thought they were a fun place to sit.  Or, at least, they were a fun place to postpone bedtime:

We had an enormous bathtub in our bedroom that the kids enjoyed.

We built a pillow fort with the couch cushions, and we were in Grandpa's room, so then we went to our room for naps & left the mess for Grandpa.

We got an hour free boat rental every day, so Keith took the kids out in the kayak one day, and the next day Keith, Jared, & I tried out the stand-up paddle board.  It was fun, but there wasn't much to see in a big, shallow, sandy bay, although we did see a few small stingrays.

It took a while for the kids to warm up to the sand & water, but eventually they loved it.  And once they were sick of the sand, we'd head back up to the resort and spend the rest of the day in the pool.  Not a bad way to spend a week.

The last few days Parker became obsessed with playing volleyball in the sand.  He & Keith went down to the beach while Cecily napped.  (I got a ton of reading done, since Cecily took some rather amazingly long naps most days)

We had a great trip, but now it's time to head home!

I don't know when we'll do this again, but the trip as a whole went way better than I'd expected (except maybe for the part where Cecily got sick & I spent all night up with her to make sure she was breathing).  The kids had a great time, the pool was perfect for their age, and no one got (too) horribly sun-burnt.

Cecily's First Hair Cut

Keith & Parker needed a haircut Saturday morning, and since I'm super-cheap and stupid, I thought I'd trim Cecily's hair as well.

Before:

After:

Yeah, she's not such a fan either:

Like every mother before me, I ended up cutting her bangs way too short.  It's remarkably difficult to cut a straight line with a 20-month old squirming in your lap.  So, rather than make my Mother's mistake of cutting & cutting until the line is straight purely because the bangs are only 1/4" long, I've just left them super crooked.

I did better with this guy:

The look mellowed out after a bath & a good sleep.  Maybe we'll just go with the hair-in-her-eyes look in the future.