Afternoon fun in the sun

Which pool shall we choose?? There are certainly lots to choose from! We hung out here in the kid's zone the first part of the afternoon.  

The water slides are short but they land in about a foot of water which makes for some good splash pics!

Yes, that is Em crashing into Ben!! Hahaha. Have a look at my beauties:

From here we headed to the AquaBar pool while daddy worked on his matrimony speech (he is ordained and will officiate the wedding). I didn't get a pic as my phone was charging. But we did get this rare Mommy pic of her swimming in our private pool (mommy no likey chlorine...)!

We got cleaned up and headed out to dinner. First stop appetizers at the sports bar:

Then off to the outdoor seafood place for more YUMS!!

After dinner we met everyone on the beach for a bonfire and roasting marshmallows. It was windy but still FUN! This is the groom, Joey. 😍

We finished up the night with a dip in our private jacuzzi. After we put the kids to bed, daddy and I ordered cheeseburgers from room service in honor of our 10 year anniversary coming up...but that's a story for another day. ❤️

Day 2 am FUN

We've had a busy morning! Refreshed after 11 hours of sleep, we ate some yummy breakfast and set out to once again explore the resort and the surrounding beaches. 

This is the stairwell in the main building from the lobby entrance down to the resort area and the lounge in the lower lobby. 

There are multiple wedding spots on the campus, this one is just up from the beach and very private and welcoming. 

We took a two mile round trip walk along the beach to a man made jetty. It was windy this morning and that kept the heat and humidity at bay. 

You could walk out to the end of the jetty - it was IGUANA land! Daddy let the bad dad puns fly! "You are a part of the reptile alliance and a traitor!"

Sing it with us, "Dead Iguana from Mexico!" (Ugh)

The end of the jetty:

We took a dip in the ocean after our walk:

Then a swim in the pool in front of our private pool in front of our room! ❤️

Then it was off to lunch! All that swimming makes the Batter Bunch HUNGRY! Ben was in Heaven - pizza AND sushi!

Oh, and some ice cream for dessert before we head out on our afternoon adventure!!😍

Cancun day 1

Our business partners and good friends are getting married on Friday in Cancun. We decided to make this trip our family vacation for the year and WOW am I glad we did. The resort is paradise and super kid friendly. 

We woke up at 3:45am to catch out 6:55 flight out of JFK. I was concerned that early wake up call would make for whiny kids later on but these kids are old enough and traveled enough now to tough it out! It's an hour ride to JFK so we listened to the book a Wrinkle In Time on audio on the way. It's awesome! It was a rainy drive but not too many cars on the road at that time (another reason I chose that flight) and we made it to the airport and thru security in a timely fashion. We grabbed some breakfast to go, walked up to the gate and immediately boarded. Talk about good timing! 

I always fly JetBlue when possible - the leg room is spacious, each seat has a tv and always FREE wifi. It makes such a difference when flying with kids! We landed at 9:30 Mexico time giving us the entire day to explore. I arranged a private transport service to drive us to the resort - only $40 for the four of us and the driver was awesome!! 

The resort, Finest Playa Mujeres, is north of the city - very tranquil and well built - exclusive feel to it compared to the last resort we stayed at. As it was so early in the day, our room wasn't available yet, so we stashed the luggage and went exploring. 

First stop early lunch! We were hungry! We all loaded up on seafood, except Ben - pizza and rice! Ha!

After lunch the kiddos popped on their suits and took a dip while we waiting for our room to be available. All Ben could say was the pool has an AquaBar that you swim right up to and get drinks!! (Kids got ghastly sugar syrup smoothies and of course were thrilled!)

We got word our room was ready so headed there to unpack! Daddy surprised us with a room upgrade - we had our own private pool and jacuzzi!! It didn't take the kids long to test the pool out - woohoo!!

After unpacking, we headed to the beach to test out the ocean with our new snorkels courtesy of Gramma Lou in the beautiful blue water. It was windy so the water was a bit churned up and cloudy, but it still made for great swimming and playing on the resort raft! 

Nothing stopping us yet, we headed to the kid's zone around 3:30 to check it out. Water slides and pool tables and ping pong and air hockey - kept us busy until dinner!

We were starting to get hungry for dinner but wanted to test out our private jacuzzi first!

It was awesome and the perfect segway into our evening. We got showered up, dressed up (I didn't get pictures!!! Ugh!) and went for dinner to the Japanese restaurant. It was delicious Ben ate lamb yakitori and Emma had pork pad Thai. We all shared some sushi but the winner was a ginger seared ahi that we ordered seconds of! 

We left the Japanese place and Daddy decided we should hit the seafood place because, you know SECOND DINNER!! He had lobster, Ben at shrimp, I had scallops and Emma had a pork burrito! (So much for seafood!) It hit the spot, and put us all in a serious food coma. We were all asleep by 8pm and didn't wake up until 7am. 

That's what I call a perfect start to VACATION!!❤️

The boy is 8!

My sweet little man turned 8 this weekend! EIGHT! For whatever reason, it makes sense to me that Emma is getting older, but Ben? Nooooooooo. ;)

Daddy and I got to hang out and celebrate with him in his classroom Friday afternoon. The kids sang happy birthday (which he participated in by singing out loud to himself!!) and afterwards when they did the "Are you 1? Are you 2? Are you 3?" chant, he screwed up and stopped at 7! Hahaha! So they did it again and he nailed it on 8. Phew!

Always extra special when Daddy gets to join us... 

We brought in a book to read. Ben requested we split the reading time 50/50. Here is a cute pic of Daddy. (heart swoons)

Santa blessed us once again with tickets to see a Broadway show. (Last year, Wicked.) This year... Can you guess by the picture? :)

We went with our BFFs once again and WOW! What a great show! (I'd seen it in LA years ago...but watching it through the eyes of your children is really something quite special.)

Ben was a bit wiggly here and there, but finished strong and had some positive things to say about the performance. It's truly amazing how they brought the characters alive on the stage! At the end of the show, the actor playing the adult Simba stopped the crowd during the curtain call and gave a short speech. He said that performance we attended was the 8,000! We were so excited hoping that meant we would get free t shirts or something. NOPE! LOL. But it was fun to know we were apart of something special.

After the show, we hit up a famous NYC BBQ joint. Ben enjoyed his birthday dinner - lucky ducky - who gets to see a Broadway Show and eat yummy BBQ on their birthday? This kid!

After dinner, we walked to Rockefeller Center - as per usual, the boys hit up the Lego store and the girls went to the American Girl Doll store. We met up afterwards for ice cream where we all serenaded Ben underground near the ice skating rink. He once again joined in on the singing loud and proud to himself and once again screwed up the "Are you 1? Are you 2?" this time going all the way to 9. LOLz. 

We headed back to the hotel then and hung out in our rooms which were right next to each other. We played some serious 5 Second Rule Jr and had a blast before putting the kiddos to bed. Didn't take long for the snoozing to happen. At one point in the middle of the night, Ben was dreaming and laughing so loud I jumped up out of bed thinking he was playing on his kindle or something. Ha!

We woke up around 8 and had a lazy morning in the hotel, and then went out for breakfast at a local diner. We then hit up the M&M store, took out a 2nd mortgage on our home to buy a pound of M&Ms (can you say EXPENSIVE - when just outside the store was a newsstand selling them for $1?? hahaha, we are suckers!) before heading home. Super fun weekend!!!

Daddy and Ben finished up the Millennium Falcon when we got home. It was quite the project! I'm excited to put their hard work on display. Next up, Kylo Ren's shuttle... Wish Ben luck!

Random Fall Fun 2016

Mommy got wrangled into designing a pirate themed PARP board in November. I was actually very proud of the final product. Turns out you can find step by step "how to draw a pirate ship" instructions on yout*be! Who knew?

We submerged the children into "culture" this fall watching all the Rocky movies! They loved them. We also made it through all the Harry P movies - Ben was a bit freaked out here and there, Em enjoyed them immensely and is now plowing through the books. She is halfway through book 4 already.

She has also been excelling at the stand up bass - nothing like practicing her scales while watching the football game on Sundays!

The pic below warms my heart! Ben was wide awake early one morning and "bored". I told him to go fly his homemade kite in the backyard. Next thing I know, Im looking out the window to this gorgeous site - the sun is rising and my 7 and 3/4s boy is in his pjs and bathrobe running around the yard. Pure Joy, this kid. :)

Ben's class had a "thankful" party for thanksgiving. We made center pieces for our table writing what it is we are thankful for on the orange strips. It was a clever craft! No party for Emma this year - I guess 4th graders are getting to big for parent participation. :(

I got to Grandpop sit in Florida the week before Thanksgiving while Daddy went to San Diego with Uncle Raul and Abuelita for her convention. Gramma Lou saved the day and hung out in PJ with the bunch. It takes a village to run a family business!

Halloween 2016

Daddy loves to get creative on the weekends with our dinner. This concoction was enjoyed by Emma and Daddy... Ben and I gave it a pass! It simmered all day long while we carved pumpkins in the back yard.

We had a nice mild October again - love taking advantage of our giant backyard well into the Autumn.

The finished product! We ran out of time and didn't get the 2nd pumpkin carved. The good news is that when you don't carve it, it lasts until mid December and is a nice decoration for harvest festival!

Darth Vader and a Nerd in the Halloween parade at the school. I took Emma and Anna to the thrift store and they found matching outfits - totally adorable!

We hit up the President's section this year - always good picking. (I'm writing this in January and I think I just threw out the last of the candy over the weekend!) We wandered the 'hood with our besties, as per usual, and had a great night.