We didn't really have any big plans for today. We thought we would just go shopping and check out the city a bit. Right when we entered into Mazatlan we were being pulled in many different directions from everyone wanting to give us a taxi ride, go do this, go do that but one guy got Jared to stop and listen to him and tried to convince us to go with them to a resort and listen to a one hour time share presentation and they would pay for the taxi. Right then Jared figured, why not. Me, on the other hand, I was to nervous, how did I know they weren't going to drive me to some deserted street corner and kill me and take my cash and cameras?! I get nervous when I am in unfamiliar territory. They saw my hesitation and then said they would throw in a free taxi ride for an hour to take a tour of the city. Jared was still on board but I was still hesitating. Finally they said, one hour presentation, free one hour city tour and $30 cash. OK, I will go I guess.
The man doing the presentation was very nice and not a pushy salesman at all. We were done in 1 hour and we were allowed to use their pool, their beach, shower after, etc. Sadly, we didn't bring our swim suits so we just walked along the beach for a bit and then stopped and ate our lunch. (Let me tell you how cheap/smart we are, my cousin told me to bring zip lock baggies and order room service the night before and get sandwiches, chips, fruit etc and take that with you on the days you port so that you won't get sick from the food on shore and then you won't have to spend more money on food - so we did and it was quite delicious and fun!) After that we hopped in our VW glorified golf cart and hit the city!
A 200 hundred year old church.
The 2nd tallest Lighthouse in the world.
We thought the city seemed so big until we saw a picture of the city and our cruise ship along with another one - they made the city look so small after that.
I would like to point out that I have the video camera in my hand in this picture. I had to take it away from Jared. He has a little bit of his father in him and got carried away video taping everything. When he watches home videos sometimes he laughs at the stuff his dad would tape well guess what, he just did the exact same thing. So, to spare his feelings from his kids laughing at him at all the stuff he taped, I took the camera for a bit :) Kids, you are welcome....Jared, we still love you!
That night was probably one of Jared's favorites. I got a little sick and just wanted to lie down for a bit before we went to dinner. We went back to the room and I crashed. I am not a nap taker. Jared was able to just chill on the bed and watch TV while I slept for a bit. Funny part is, for the first time ever, he wasn't able to sleep and when I woke up I caught him watching Twilight. Ha Ha. (I will say in his defense, you don't have a wide selection of TV and that was the best choice on at that time.)
After I woke up, I asked Jared if he wanted to skip going out to dinner and just have dinner in. He jumped on that idea. We ended up having pizza and salads in some cherry cokes in our room. After that I perked up and we pulled a late-nighter.
We went and saw a show called "Piano Man" filled with singing and dancing. It was pretty good. We really appreciated the dancers a lot more having to see what Emma does all the time.
Then we went to another comedy show. This time it was Steve Moris who has played backup with the Beach Boys for 20 years. During his show he plays a lot of music on his guitar and the audience will join in with him. He plays music from several decades and several different artists. During the Beach Boy songs, Jared would ask me, "how do you know all these songs?" My reply was, "how do you NOT know all these songs? It's un-American to not know." (lucky for him, we have some good friends who have a Beach Boys greatest hits CD and burned us a copy on Monday and its been playing in the Armada ever since! My kids will learn to love Beach Boys by the end of the week.)
Seeing how it was Cinco De Mayo, Princess had a Mexican Fiesta late that night and had a dance party out on the pool deck and we went out there for a while. It was very fun and the food was pretty good too. I have to say I was excited to be in Mexico for the first time ever on Cinco De Mayo but the people there don't seem to celebrate it, or at least not during the day while we were there. There was no signs of the holiday anywhere and whenever I had Jared ask people about it they were surprised of the day it was. Oh well.
Here is the conversation I overheard my 3 yr old having with my 23 month year old twins...
2 hours later they were in the last city they would hit before they got to the campsite so they stopped at McDonald's for dinner. After they were done eating, Eli was ready to go home and tell mom about it, he was already thrilled with his day so far.
Eli was scared on the way up and looking out the window and seeing how far down on the side of the mountain he would land if they fell off the road so he kept reminding daddy to drive safe and no going over there.
Jared said he loved going hiking and exploring all around. He would run from campsite to campsite talking to all the boys and pretending to play Capture the Flag with them. After it was dark he took his own flashlight and his dad and wanted to go exploring some more but once he realized that he was surrounded by the pitch black he picked up his pace and wanted to go back to the campsite (the kid has a great imagination but sometimes the lions, dinosaurs and monkeys get the best of him and he is pretty sure they are coming to get him).
He and the Goodman boy had a great time gathering up rocks and making a huge pile of them (the simple things ya know).
Eli crashed hard at night. After they watched a movie for a few minutes in the tent Jared asked him if it was OK to turn it off and he actually said yes! He slept like a log all night long. He woke up at 5:30am and asked if it was time to get up and once Jared saw what time it was he told him no and to go back to sleep. Finally Jared had to wake him up at 7:30am because he was in the middle of fixing breakfast for the ward and didn't want him to freak out if he woke up and didn't see him.
The rest of the day Eli continued to run around with all the boys and had to have his soccer ball with him. The only way Jared could get him to leave was to tell him we were going to go home to see Mommy. Yes!
Emma and I tried to make the most of our weekend. She had dance pictures, then we ditched the twins with Aunt Caryn and Uncle Cade and went to dinner together and then her friend came over and spent the night so that she could actually play without Eli following them.
Maybe because this was Eli's second time he felt like he didn't need to follow his class to the back row. He decided to take it upon himself and sit in the front!
To bad his teacher had other plans for him.
E: "OK, first chair in the 2nd row isn't too shabby."
E: "Hey mom, how about I don't really sing the songs that I have been learning and I smile and stick my tongue out at you instead!"
E: "OK mom, I will put my tongue away but I still see you in my "noc-lurs" (binoculars)."
E: "Happy Graduation to me, can we go get some french fries now, please?!"
SAS you really let me down this year with Em's Hip Hop costume, but I still think she's cute!
Ballet Tech. (Looking at her face in the picture and for the first time I realized how old she is getting, sob).
Tap.
Emma is dancing 7 times in each recital with a total of 9 different dances she has to learn. I don't know how she does it!
We got a fact sheet filled with how much food they have to bring aboard for a 7 day cruise. Here were some of the things:
After that we headed up for our last time to lay out in the sun, read our books and eat the yummy hot dogs in homemade buns, drink our last milk shake, eat our last ice cream cones - you get the idea - we pigged out.
That night we went and ate one last time at our favorite restaurant and made reservations this time so we could have a table for 2 by the window. We took our time and ate the bread on the table, our appetizer, salad, main course and 2 yes, 2 desserts! Let's just say we enjoyed ourselves.
We went to see the Farewell show by Steve Moris and then went out to go watch the Pop Star finale, got bored with the boring singers and headed back to our room for our last night alone.
The cruise ship is so big it has to park out in the Sea of Cortez and we have to tender to shore.
On the tender boat the couple sitting behind us were trying to take a pic of themselves so I told them I would take it for them. Then I asked them to take one of us. He kept messing around with our camera and trying to get it just right and told us he was a professional photographer so he should know how to work the camera. You might not like the picture as much as we do, but it is one of our most favorites from the trip.
Since this was our last day in Mexico we decided to go shopping. Shopping turned out to be a bust. Then I really wanted to take a glass bottom water taxi out to Lover's Beach. This came highly recommended from Randi. Jared found someone to take us and off we went.
He took us over to the beach and agreed to come back in one hour (we didn't have very much time in Cabo and I would have enjoyed some more time on the beach). After we hopped out of the boat, literally, he said, "don't swim in the pacific, you'll die." We kinda laughed at that but I am pretty sure it wasn't a joke. This is the coolest place. You stand in the middle of this sand and look to one side and it is the Sea of Cortez and it is very peaceful - Lover's Beach. Then you look to the other side and the waves are slamming in on the shore and that is the Pacific Ocean and they call that side, Divorce Beach. It was pretty amazing how both sides stayed calm and rough but yet you could walk to either side within 30 seconds. Its the tip of the Baja where both waters meet, pretty amazing and beautiful.
Divorce Beach
I wanted to write something to the kids in the sand and since Caryn had just told me how it bugs her when I use the word, "kiddos" I used that word. (It kept getting washed away but by the 3rd attempt I was able to finish it.)
Jared couldn't help me make it because he was busy. Doing what you might ask, well, see for yourself...(surprise, videotaping).
Sadly, our time was up. We got in the water for just a few minutes but then our taxi came back. Have you ever tried jumping out of the water into a boat while it is moving up and down, back and forth?! We don't recommend it :) We have 45 minutes left before we had to be back on our Ship so we asked the driver to show us some other sites and he took us to this little sea lion colony
"The Window to the Pacific." (you can see the pacific ocean splashing through the hole in the rocks)
and to the place that you see in all pictures representing Cabo...
It was a great day in Cabo. That night back on the ship we had another formal dinner night and afterwards we went and watched the Marriage Game Show. It was pretty funny. We loved the couple that had been married for 65 years, hopefully in 55 years from now Jared and I can still be the same way as they were!
A 200 hundred year old church.
The 2nd tallest Lighthouse in the world.
I would like to point out that I have the video camera in my hand in this picture. I had to take it away from Jared. He has a little bit of his father in him and got carried away video taping everything. When he watches home videos sometimes he laughs at the stuff his dad would tape well guess what, he just did the exact same thing. So, to spare his feelings from his kids laughing at him at all the stuff he taped, I took the camera for a bit :) Kids, you are welcome....Jared, we still love you!
That night was probably one of Jared's favorites. I got a little sick and just wanted to lie down for a bit before we went to dinner. We went back to the room and I crashed. I am not a nap taker. Jared was able to just chill on the bed and watch TV while I slept for a bit. Funny part is, for the first time ever, he wasn't able to sleep and when I woke up I caught him watching Twilight. Ha Ha. (I will say in his defense, you don't have a wide selection of TV and that was the best choice on at that time.)
Seeing how it was Cinco De Mayo, Princess had a Mexican Fiesta late that night and had a dance party out on the pool deck and we went out there for a while. It was very fun and the food was pretty good too. I have to say I was excited to be in Mexico for the first time ever on Cinco De Mayo but the people there don't seem to celebrate it, or at least not during the day while we were there. There was no signs of the holiday anywhere and whenever I had Jared ask people about it they were surprised of the day it was. Oh well.
