Our Trip to Playa Del Carmen

This is the entrance to Grand Velas Resort. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it looks pretty impressive when you first drive up.

Below are the beautiful views from our suite.

The greenery and flowers throughout the resort were so beautiful.



We spent the majority of our trip playing at the beach, collecting sea shells, and swimming.

This is Steve building his dam or "damage" as the girls called it.

Cadence getting her daily dose of sand.

Kaitlin working on her "damage"

A kind couple passing by offered to take a family picture for us.

We spent 1 day at Xel Ha; and it was beautiful. It's where a fresh water river and the ocean combine. They have so many activities that you could easily spend a couple days there. While tubing down the river you can stop and cliff dive, rope climb, and go on the zip line. I was proud of myself for being brave enough to zipline into the water. I'm usually such a wimp, so I'm trying to be more brave so my kids won't grow up to be wimps.

Kaitlin loved holding the inuana. She did it a few times. Cadence was content to just be next to it.
We wanted a family picture with Kaitlin holding the parrot, but the photographer talked me into holding one also. Once again not something I would usually do. I must be getting more adventurous. The big parrot was kinda heavy for our little Kaitlin so he decided to put it on her head. I thought that was pretty cute. We tried to get Cadence to hold the iguana, but it didn't happen. Our next adventure was swimming into an ocean cave. They had a photographer taking pictures in the cave and one taking pictures from the hole above the cave. Then we swam out and spent some time playing in the warm turquoise water. We tried to take a little hike to a cenote, but Cadence decided she needed to go potty so we had to turn back. It was so pretty and just a fun, relaxing day.


While shopping at downtown Playa the girls each got a dress and a necklace, we had ice cream then walked to the beach and were surprised by a topless woman. Needless to say we didn't spend much time there, but we thought it was funny and thankfully our girls weren't aware of it


Cadence had a sinus infection while we were there and we had to get an antibiotic for her. You can tell she if feeling better at this point...

Meanwhile poor Little Kaitlin was starting in on a cold which turned into a sinus infection. Her sad tired eyes and rosy cheeks make me feel so bad. When she is sick she is so sweet and cuddly, quite opposite from the fiesty girl she normally is.

Taking a break from the hot sun. It was around 90 degrees that day.

Cadence gets her ears pierced!

On March 4th Cadence whispered in my ear that she wanted to get her ears pierced. I was kind of surprised and told her I would think about it after their nap. When she woke up she told me again. I told her I would have to talk to daddy about it, but she wanted to surprise daddy. So secretly I called Steve to make sure it was okay. He said it was. I decided I better make sure she was ready, so I pinched her ears pretty tightly with my fingers nails. She didn't even flinch, so I tried it on myself, and it really hurt. Judging by her reaction I decided she was ready. Kaitlin on the other hand didn't like her ears being pinched at all. When we got in the car Kaitlin was so excited, but still couldn't decide. She wanted to watch Cadence first and then decide. We got to Claire's and Cadence chose a cute pair of Hello Kitty earings.

It took forever to get the placement of the dot correct, but finally it was satisfactory, and the first ear was done. Cadence's eyes got big and I could tell she wanted to cry. I asked her not to because Kaitlin was watching, and I reminded her that we still had to pierce the other ear. So she pulled herself together and didn't cry for either ear. She is such a brave girl! She was so excited that we had to call every girl we knew on the way home to tell them. Everyone we talked to then told Cadence how old they were when they got their ears pierced. I guess it's a right of passage that no woman fogets.
On the way home Kaitlin decided several times that she wanted to go back and get hers done, but ultimately decided to wait until she is 5.

Talese aka Kaitlin

One day Kaitlin asked me what "t l e s e" spelled, so I said "Talese I guess." She then said I don't want to be Kaitlin anymore I wanna be Talese. So for the next few weeks she insisted on being called Talese. It made Cadence pretty upset that Kaitlin wanted to change her name. One day Kaitlin asked Cadence if she wanted to change her name. Cadence responded "no, I just wanna be plain old Cadence." The whole situation made us laugh. Thankfully she got over her Talese stage and is back to being our sweet little Kaitlin.