Max is 17!

 

Max turned 17! And not much happend :). Having a December birthday is rough. He's been gone every night in December for a choir gig. So the day before we had his friends over for a breakfast and then a couple days later we finally sang to him and gave him his presents. But we love Max. He's hilarious and keeps us grounded. He helps keep Sam in the realm of reality. He's super smart and I can't wait to see what he does with that. He's crazy good on the piano and organ. He's managed to make some pretty great friends and all the girls love him. Love ya Max! 

He finally got his pan of brownies he wanted. Too bad Toby forgot to put the eggs in it!

Tulum & Cenotes

The other highlight of the trip was swimming in cenotes. They're everywhere down there. Someone told me there's no rivers down there, it's all these underground cenotes. Don't know if that's true but it sure seems like it. The kids loved finding the hidden caves and then repelling into one - super fun! And if you're wondering why I'm not in the pics - I was busy having a massive allergic reaction to my sunscreen. I couldn't open my eye and my nose was running like crazy. So I had to sit out this one but luckily I was good enough to watch the repelling

This is me trying to get my eyes to calm down

We had to go down this long sketchy road to get to the cenotes. I love Mexico!

We wanted to take the kids to some kind of ruins, but weren't willing to drive very far - so Tulum it was! They're actually not that old and it was blazing hot. So we went through there like we do in museums - very fast! I think the kids liked looking at all the iguanas more than the ruins. But it was still cool

Ice cream after was a must

 

Mexico Part 2

I don't know why but they had to compare quad muscles. 

Being together made me so happy! I loved that I put my phone away most of the week and was just able to enjoy my people enjoying each other. Best feeling ever.

Sam was going crazy waiting for everyone get ready to go so I told him I'd time him while he ran to the beach. This is him coming back

Sattelite view of our condo

Every time Sam got on this circle he started dancing. It was my favorite

We went into the city a couple of nights to shop and eat dinner. Sam got to see and touch this formula 1 car - he was so excited

So pretty

We played in the ocean for days

Dinner in the city

Our car Nancy for the week. She had less guts than Philip but we had a lot of laughs in that thing

Our condo for the week (the front)

How we drank our water for the week!

Sam wanted to look cool

The sun felt so good

Night swimming!

Toby loved his early morning swims in the pools that go for days

Dinner. El Fogon

It was so hot but the food was amazing

Souvenir shopping

Our condo had cool fountains

Max won for this dinner

 

Adios Mexico

We spent one last glorious morning in Mexico. We left on Thanksgiving day so we had a delicious Thanksgiving breakfast on the beach before we went back to real life. Good bye Mexico! You were good to us! Things I don't want to forget: driving around town (always an adventure!), Sam announcing the name of the girl he's going to marry, Megan's hair being special, Sam always trying to compete with Max and Max always winning, bobbing on a tube in the ocean, stranger things - we got caught up on the trip.

One last dip in the pool

Sam and I woke up early and went to beach and played frisbee

One last run on the beach