Your Mom would have said NO!

On one of our days in Mexico…


Yeah, yeah… I’m way behind on writing anything, but I just haven’t been into it with the broken bones and the office workload.

On one of our days in Mexico we decided to pack up the crew and head to Xel ha for a day of looking at animals, swimming, and goofing around. We weren’t sure what to expect, and the first raft ride we went on was really weak. Eric and I were looking at each other and laughing a bit over the lack of anything, including tour guide dialogue, on the tour. It was pretty half baked, but fortunately for all, it got better.

We went through several aquariums and saw loads of fish and sea turtles, which the kids really liked. Regarding the title of this post, here is one moment where I looked back and saw Bryce climbing through the display turtle shell. NO! There, I said it…a bit belatedly at best. It was hard to say it when it was happening because I was laughing.

Nope, I’m not going to get a gold star for my parenting on that one…

After lunch at the beach restaurant, the kids played in a salt water pool that had several schools of fish in it. The kids splashed around and tried to catch them for half an hour. I have no idea how they can work that hard for so long. Again, I should have probably said that they shouldn’t have been disturbing the fish, but honestly I didn’t care. NO! There I got that one out of the way too…

The highlight of the day was the cenote. We donned our somewhat poorly-fitted life jackets and waddled over to the entrance to the river. Two things we noted at that point but only one was of immediate concern. The water was in the 70’s since it was an underground spring-fed river which, for us tourists, is cold. I don’t care what you say. When you are used to 120 degree showers, 88 degree pools, and warm ocean waters on hot days, being in a cave in 70 degree water is chilly. We all stood on the precipice trying to decide what to do or who to push in first as a sacrificial offering to the cold. I opted for the “rip the band-aid off method” and dove in. As you can see, everyone else aside from my partner in crime, is still there on the steps when I fumbled around and got the camera shot.

The other part we realized was that we were going to be swimming in this underground labyrinth for an hour. We figured that they must be overstating how fast we would get through, so off we went. We floated and swam through tunnel after tunnel, and it was really a cool experience…quite literally at times…

Bryce and Ansley both had their goggles and snorkels, but within 3 minutes, they were off and Mom and I were carrying them. By the end Eric had lost his, and unbeknownst to me, I had dropped Bryce’s to the bottom as well. I had to take off the life jacket and dive to the bottom which was most likely only 12-15 feet, but in semi-darkness and with large jagged boulders littering the bottom perhaps it wasn’t the best of ideas. I could hear my Mom in my head…you guessed it… NO!

The funny thing was that I was diving down and looking for Eric’s mask when I found Bryce’s.

Thanks E!

We all finally, and thankfully, found the end of the river and clambered out. On the way out of the park, Bryce wanted to go look at the hot chicks that we had seen on the way in. I of course said… YES!

What? A bunch of baby birds in an incubator wasn’t what you were thinking?