Mexico Day 2

Saturday morning brought another day of sunshine. We rented a kayak and Marc took each of the girls out for a little adventure.  They absolutely loved it.

We only had the kayak for an hour so each girl got a 20 minute ride. Sweet Brooke was having a great time, but she told her Daddy that she wanted to give up half of her time so I could go too. Because the water was so shallow we were able to let the kids play while we went out for a bit. Don't worry, we stayed very close by.

Macy's turn!

And then of course it was eventually time to head back to the pool.

Yesterday the girls were introduced to the strawberry daiquiri.  You can see below how they felt about that. And they were also introduced to the Shirley Temple on this trip. That was another huge favorite.

Of course Mama had to have some pictures taken.

LOVE these monkeys!

And LOVE their daddy!

 

After pictures we went to have dinner at a nice Italian restaurant on the resort, but we had to make another stop to see the turtle friends on the way.  Everyone loved their dinner and ate very well. I guess swimming all day makes for hungry babies! 

Mexico Vacation Day 1

I will start off these series of posts with my usual vacation disclaimer.  There will be a lot of pictures. A lot. This blog is my scrapbook and therefore I fill it up with lots of cute pictures and memories. OK, you have been warned. :)

So about 3 1/2 years ago Marc won an award from his company.  He was selected as one of 10 engineers throughout the entire company and named Engineer of the Year.  It was quite a huge honor and we enjoyed a weekend trip to headquarters in NYC that winter. Part of his award was a stock award, and he couldn't touch it for 3 years.  That's the way his company keeps employees around.  They lock up money in stock for 3 years and you can have it if you are still at the company 3 years later. So anyway, Marc wanted to do something fun with this money, and he had enough frequent flyer points for us all to fly to Mexico for practically free. Early this year we started looking at places to go on vacation and we ended up with Cancun, Mexico.  Marc and I have been twice before, and it's a fairly cheap option compared to other locations. Because we were flying on points we had some less than ideal flight times, but that was totally okay to fly for free.  We arrived in our room about 10PM (11PM body clock time), so of course we ordered room service pizza. We were on vacation at an all-inclusive resort after all.

The next day was beautiful and the girls couldn't wait to get swimming.

 

The girls found some friends and we stopped by several times a day to say hi. 

After breakfast the girls took a quick walk on the beach.

And then it was time for swimming! Our resort was in a great location.  The water was super calm and super shallow.  This allowed the girls to play without us being worried about the undertow.

 

 

 After a late night and a morning playing hard in the sun, this girl crashed and took an hour nap on the beach. That was pretty awesome.

 

After Brooke's nap we headed to the pool. The girls played hard all afternoon too.

 Back to our turtle friends.  Kayla quickly discovered that if she splashed her fingers in the water the turtles would swim over. I never saw anyone feeding them, but they seemed to be trained to come to people for some reason.

 This was the view from our room. Breathtaking.

The girls fell asleep quickly and slept hard. It was a perfect day in paradise.

"Once Upon a Time"

Our May activities concluded with the children's musical at church. Brooke was so excited to sing on stage with her choir. She found us quickly in the audience.

 

Kayla had a couple of parts in the musical this year.  She was a child of the old woman who lived in a shoe.

She was also a shoe-be-doo-wap girl and had a dance to perform during a song. She had fun preparing for these to parts, but it sure was a lot of extra practices! 

Macy waiting to sing.

Both girls in one shot on the big screen. What are the chances?!?

The girls had a great time singing and performing, but now it is officially summer break!

Celebrating Macy

We started off the birthday morning with cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I'd love to have made her homemade rolls, but that just wasn't happening this year.

After a relaxing morning opening presents and playing around we took the birthday girl to lunch at the American Girl bistro. We have never dined here and she was super excited.

She has been wanting to get Grace's ears pierced for a while, so Kayla chose to give that to Macy as her birthday present. Macy was thrilled.

Both Grace and Kate joined us for lunch.

That evening we had steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, and fruit as requested by the birthday girl.  Family came over to help celebrate our special Macy. 

Cousins. They love each other so much. What a great day celebrating a great girl.