Hoyal Happenings: Hola, Mexico!

Having studied Ancient Worlds this year for school, with an emphasis on the Book of Mormon, what better place to end the school year than Mexico! We planned this trip with a few of our favorite friends last August. Tanner was not doing well at the time, but I knew he had to get better before May, so we went ahead with the plans. Three weeks after we paid for our plane reservations, the US issued a travel warning to that part of Mexico. I was getting nervous. Then, Tanner had surgery in December. Should we even go? Knowing Tanner would be less than 6 months post op and hearing about all the decapitations going on in Mexico, I was getting even more nervous. But Tanner recovered so well and quickly from surgery and is healthier now than he has been in years, and the more I read about the trouble in Mexico, the more I realized it wouldn't effect us and where we were staying, so we continued through with our plans. Even though I was still a bit nervous, we headed out on this adventure. I am so glad we did! Everything went so well! No problems with anything- cartels or ostomies. I feel like this trip proved to us that we have control over Tanner's health and nothing can stop the Hoyals now! We stayed in Puerto Aventuras, about an hour south of Cancun. It was a great, safe, family friendly, gated city. We felt so safe walking around, doing whatever we pleased in this quaint little town. If we ever go back, we will definitely stay in Puerta Aventuras!

A Day of Traveling

Our day started at 4am in California and ended about 9pm in Mexico. It was a long day of traveling! But we made it with very little hiccups...

This little one was most excited about flying, but after about an hour of our 5 hour flight kept asking, "How much longer?" and finally, "I don't like airplanes!"

The boys were perfectly content though, what better way to travel than with some of your best friends?

Landed in Mexico! First time on a foreign land for these kids!

We were very happy to finally get to our hotel that night!

Our first day consisted of a full day tour including Chichen Itza, Cenote swimming, and Ek Balam. We used "Alma's LDS Tours" and were very impressed. It was a great tour! So interesting to hear all the connection with the Book of Mormon and these ancient Mayan ruins. The Book of Mormon peoples were certainly influenced by these ancient civilizations, and vice versa. I love being able to picture more accurately in my head now as I read my scriptures since I have been there, seen it, and experienced it. If you are LDS, and go to the Riveria Maya, please use Alma's LDS Tours. I highly recommend it. They even gave us a free ride to church on Sunday for booking a tour!

We started at Chichen Itza. We got there right as it opened and there was hardly anyone there. It was great!

Chichen Itza...

Our annual end of the year line up by age picture, so cool we got to do it in front of Chichen Itza this year! Some of my favorite kids!

We are missing Julie's 3 youngest, Felicity, and the whole Hatch family (who couldn't make the trip this year) :(

Our excellent tour guide, David...

Charity was very impressed with this snakehead. Once a year, on April 6, the sun lines up (at sunset or sunrise?) and there is a slithering lighted snake body that matches up with the head. Very cool!

These columns they believe to be a memorial to warriors. There were about 1600 found...

This is the stadium of the ball game Mayans used to play. The first people to play a game with a ball. Kind of like basketball, but you can only use your hips. Amazing. If your team WON the game, you were sacrificed to the Gods but your family would be taken care of for the rest of their lives. What an honor? This court at Chichen Itza was like the championship arena. Much bigger than all the other ball courts found. See that yellow, red, and blue shirt down there. That's Hunter, Spencer, and Tyler. Andrew is in orange trying to catch up to them. If we whisper something towards the wall that was behind us (the one Charity is standing by), they could hear it. Mayans were great at acoustics!

This was a side wall on the ball court that has engravings showing how to play the game.

Lots to learn and see at Chichen Itza!

Cenote Swimming

Next, we headed over to a restaurant that had delicious Guatemalan food. It was probably my favorite meal of the trip. Right next to the restaurant was a beautiful Cenote that we could swim in. Cenotes are like sink holes in caves that are filled with 60-70 feet of water. Perfect timing cause it was hot, and the kids needed to cool off before our next ruin! I decided to stay out and take pictures. All during our stay at Chichen Itza, they talked about how babies and virgins and ball players were sacrificed in the cenote. I just wasn't interested in swimming in it. We weren't swimming in the cenote right next to Chichen Itza, but I seriously couldn't bring myself to hop in as I had a funny feeling all cenotes were used as sacrificial grounds. But no one else seemed to be bothered by it and here are the pictures...

We have some really good water treaders in this group, it took awhile to get everyone in this picture all while treading water...

Los tres amigos-hardly apart the whole trip!

Our last stop for the day was Ek Balam. This is another ancient Mayan Ruin. Up until 30 years ago, it was covered in jungle and no on knew it was there. They let you climb to the top at this one, that's why we choose it. We were hurrying to beat a giant rainstorm that was lurking nearby, so we made it to the top pretty quick.

I was amazed at the detail that has been preserved on the etchings on the outside of this ruin. Amazing. Ek Balam means jaguar, and that is what the leader of this area was compared to, so there were a lot of intricate jaguar carvings.

At the top! Look at that view-just jungle and ocean! I'll admit being this high up on something that was built thousands of years ago, with no railing or anything, was nerve wrecking. I am usually not afraid of heights, but for some reason, I almost felt sick to my stomach with fear up there. It was a strange feeling, but we all made it back down safely!

Pondering life at great heights...

Jungle Commandos...

Here we are at the end of a long, fun, educational day!

Xel-Ha

Only our family and Suzanne and Andrew went to Xel-Ha. It was probably our family's favorite part of the trip. It poured down hard for about the first hour we were there, also the 15 minute walk we had to get to our bus early in the morning, so the beginning of the day was a little rough. It was free food all day, so we choose to go in and get something to eat till the rain passed. Charity was so sick of rain at this point, and so tired from the past 2 days, she yelled at the top of her lungs, "I HATE YOU RAIN" in the middle of the restaurant. Then proceeded to crawl into my lap and fall asleep for about an hour. The rain finally passed and we spent the day zip lining, bike riding through the jungle, cliff jumping, obstacle coursing in the water, snorkeling, cave swimming, floating down a lazy river, and eating delicious food. It was an adventure filled day and we loved it! We were in the water the whole time so only snapped this picture before we left...

The other picture I got was of this tired little girl. This is on the bus before we even left the parking lot! Too much fun for this little one!

Xplore

Just Ladd and Tanner went to "Xplore Fuego" with some of the older kids. It was high adventure, and you had to be 88 pounds to do the ziplines, and it was a late night thing, so it was kind of pointless to take the younger two. Ladd and Tan had a great time. They bought the picture package (which we should have done at Xel-Ha), so we have some pretty decent pictures from this excursion...

ATV Driving in and out of caves... I heard Ladd was quite the wild driver. Not surprising!

Swimming through caves...

Zip lining over the Rain forest...

I asked Ladd and Tanner which they preferred over Xplore and Xel-ha, and they both said Xel-Ha. Both were great fun, but Xel-Ha had more variety.

Swimming with Marine Mammals...

On Saturday, just our family decided to swim with dolphins. Ladd has always wanted to do this and it was high on his to do list for this trip. The little town we were staying in has a Dolphin Discovery Center, so it was just a 2 minute walk from our hotel. For cost purposes, just the boys were going to do it, but Ladd loves to negotiate and ended up getting all of us to do it, along with a sweet picture package for just a little more than we had planned on spending. So, we all got to hang out with dolphins, manatees, and sea lions.

Dolphins are soft and surprisingly a little squishy. They are like well trained dogs and seem happy to entertain their guests. Meet Deena and Regina...

Tanner and I have quite an affection for the manatees. They just kind of float around like barges, but are so sweet looking! Their skin is rough, with spots of slimy algae growing on it. The algae acts like a sunscreen for them. There was a newborn manatee, 1 week old. So cute! The pictures are with the hungry nursing momma- she would do anything for that lettuce! They use their front flippers to squeeze your leg and pull up to get that romaine.

You can see here the manatees flippers have little hooves on them that look like an elephants. They are the water cousin of the elephant!

We didn't get to go in the water with the sea lions, but still got to pet one and learn some of his tricks.

Charity liked the Sea Lion the best. I think because the water for the dolphins and manatees was slightly chilly and well, Charity has no insulation, so she was getting a little cold at this point. She was happy to sit on the bench, instead of hop in the water!

Here is the town we stayed in. It is centered around the Dolphin Discovery pools. So, as you are walking around shopping or looking for a restaurant, you get to watch these amazing mammals swimming around.

You can also see these crabs scurrying around to hide under rocks. Hunter actually rescued one from our pool! The wildlife is so different in Mexico!

Dia de Siesta...

We took a well needed day of rest on Sunday. Thanks to Alma's Tours, we got a ride to church. The church is in Playa Del Carmen, about 10 minutes from our hotel. It was a very nice building, and very well attended. There were a few other tourists there, but mostly locals. Most of the places we went were very touristy so most people could speak at least a little English. Of course there were some English speakers at church, but mostly all Spanish. I could only understand a few words in sacrament meeting. I went to primary with Charity, and I know enough food vocabulary that I could tell the lesson was about following the word of wisdom and eating healthy foods. I really need to brush up on my Spanish! The tres amigos were on their own in the 11 year old class. Poor kids don't speak any Spanish and no one in their class spoke any English. It was a long hour for them! The older boys, who all speak a little Spanish, managed pretty well. They also had an interpreter, a boy their age who spoke English very well. It was a good cultural experience to see what church is like in another country-basically the same just in a different language!

Our driver had to be back right after church because he is the ward finance clerk and needed to help with the tithing, so this crew and I left after the second hour. Everyone else stayed the whole three hours. Two hours of Spanish was enough for these younger gringos!

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying a little dia de siesta in the middle of our vacation!

Xcaret...
We spent Monday at Xcaret. Ladd and I went there on our honeymoon and loved it! We had a good time this trip too. This was another excursion where you are wet most of the time so I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked. My favorite part was floating down the river. It was so beautiful, both around and under the water. It took about 45 minutes, and was so fun. We also spent a good amount of time at the beach. There were intertubes you could float around on and kids had fun just relaxing and enjoying some sun, sand, and amigos. I took a few of the kids out around past the little bay the beach was in and we could get right up next to the dolphins that the park had for their dolphin experience. There was a momma and baby swimming around and we were probably about 5 feet from them in the water. It was pretty fun!

There was a lot of cultural exhibits here too. Here are the kids being so "reverent" next to a Mexican burial place.

Ladd and I took a picture in front of this waterfall on our honeymoon. I remember thinking how bad I looked in my swim shorts in that picture. Not much has changed in 17 years!

We paid extra to go to Xcaret Nighttime Spectacular. I loved it! Not everyone in our group felt the same. It was a little long, 2 hours, and no air conditioning. But I was very entertained. The first half was Mayan dancing and sports. They played the game we learned about at Chichen Itza, and another awesome game that was like hockey, except for a puck, they use a ball that was on FIRE! It was mesmerizing. The show reenacted the history of Mexico and ended with a few songs that the crowd went wild for. EVERY Mexican in the audience (and this is a huge amphitheater) was singing and cheering for their country. It was really neat to see the patriotism of this people. I couldn't think of a song that would rally our countrymen together like that. Yes, we have patriotic songs that make you feel proud for your country and always bring a tear to my eye, but this was more enthusiastic and expressive than anything I've seen in America. Although it was a little long and hot, I would certainly recommend the show!

Pool and Beach Time...
We did have some "down time," just chilling at the beach and pool with friends. Charity said that was her favorite part of the trip!

Building sandcastles. This one looks like Chichen Itza!

Swimming...

The C Family had a spa on their patio. I don't think it was spa weather, but some of the kids enjoyed it!

We rented a kayak for a few hours one morning... I loved going out there with just Ladd and I. (Thanks Suzanne for watching our ninos). We went out pretty far and it was still so shallow! I guess thats part of the reason the ocean there is so warm.

Here is the view from our Hotel Room. The ocean is just beyond the pool.

Adios Mexico! Gracias for the good times!

The Left Behind Baby...

Notice someone missing from all the pictures? Felicity got to stay home with Grandma for the week. She had a great time. We missed our little cutie, but it would have been a very different trip if she had tagged along! I think all of us, including Felicity, had more fun with her at home. Grandma had fun too! Lots of stroller rides, playing at the park, and keeping a nice normal toddler routine for this little munchkin! We sure did LOVE seeing all these cute pictures that Grandma sent throughout the week though!