School Days and Peach Days

It's been a busy couple of days.  Who am I kidding?  It's been a busy three weeks.  We came back from Mexico and I feel like I have hardly sat down since.  (I know, I know:  Waa, Waa, you got to go Mexico.      What do I have to whine about right?  I am seriously grateful that Matt and I had some R&R in Acapulco because we needed it.  Post to come some day.)  Anyway, I digress.  

I really don't have time to be doing this at all.  I need to be asleep because I have to get up in 6 hours.  But I saw these pictures and I had to share them with you.   Someone has to see the precious faces here.  Granted, no one else will probably appreciate the cuteness here like I do, but as I have learned over the course of rearing my children:  Motherhood makes you Shameless.

For Family Home Evening on Monday, we decided to slice up the gallons and gallons of peaches and make pies to take to friends and neighbors. 

  The pies needed to set in the refrigerator for a few hours, so distributing them had to wait for the next day, which was The First Day of School for Tori and me!!    She was so excited about her new tennis shoes.  I don't know if you can see them, but they are sparkly, cheetah print AND have pink bows on top.  I think that is some sort of Trifecta of Cuteness, don't you think?

 This is my seventh year teaching in the Children's School at Weber State University.  It is Victoria's last year of preschool and the last time I will ever have my own child as a student.  I cannot tell you the joy I have had being able to share this experience with my children as a mother and a teacher.  The Children's School is like an extension of our family now.  

 Here we are together, my Tori and me.  Actually, I should say Victoria.  She decided she wanted Victoria on her name tags at school this year.  Hee Hee!  I love that girl!

At dinner tonight, Matt asked Victoria about her day at school, and she being the ultimate Ham, replied, "I had a great first day, blah, blah, blah."  She always makes us laugh, that girl!

So tonight, after a rip-roaring crazy hectic and good first day of school, we loaded up our pies and took them to the children's Sunday School teachers, a few neighbors we were wanting to meet, etc..

We kept a few for us, too.  It's one of the few desserts I have seen Matthew really enjoy and after all, we Hunters are pretty PEACHY keen, too!

I promise I'll blog again some day, but don't hold your breath!

Acapulco Baby! Part 3

So... all over the Resort, they would advertise special activities, like Ladies Night and Dancing Night.  So... Matt and I thought we would drop in at Karaoke night.  Turns out, all they really wanted was to lure people in to drink, but we stayed anyway!  Unfortunately, 90% of the music they had was Spanish.  Not like Enrique Iglesias Spanish, but like mariachi Band Spanish.  Thus, our options were pretty limited.  Therefore, we decided to Karaoke ICE ICE BABY.  Yes, we did. Traditionally, I'm a better singer than I am a rapper, but we thought we'd expand outside our comfort zones.  It was awesome.  Everyone else was drunk, but I swear we had the most fun of all the people there.  I don't know, there was one guy who took his Mariachi music very seriously.  He really liked to hear himself sing.  He might have had more fun than us, but it was definitely a close contest.  It was crazy dark, but here's a picture Matt took of me singing.

Since we were up late acting crazy, we decided to make the next day super lazy and hang out on the beach. (not that we had been particularly productive anyway. I mean,we were taking a once daily trip around the 1/2 mile lazy river.  And that lazy river will wear a girl out, I tell you! ) 

Matt was feeling a bit more productive than I, however.  He decided to try his hand at Boogie Boarding- and he was quite good!  

I, on the other hand, laid on the beach and watched him and read my novel.  It was heavenly!

 And Matt just kept running in and out with his Boogie Board.  It was like my own personal episode of Bay Watch!

Panoramic of our view that day:

Now, in all seriousness, you would think that laying on the beach and reading a novel without my kids interrupting every 2 minutes would be utter perfection.  But... the stinkin' salespeople would interrupt me about every 4 minutes.  It got really old.  I hate to sound like I'm complaining, because we were having a wonderful time.

 But as soon as Matt got tired, we moved back up to the resort to relax with a slightly different view:

So Matt and I lounged together.  I read and he rested.  Ahhhh....

This was the first time we have ever had so much uninterrupted conversation time in all our married lives.  Or at least since we had children.  So, before we left, I printed off a few lists of questions and conversation starters like the ones you can find here.  Whenever we went to dinner or had some time to just talk, I would pull out and we would ask each other questions.  To be truthful, it was a little corny at first.  Matt said that he thought the idea was lame at first.  But after a while, even he loved it!  We were laughing so hard.  We were often re-telling stories we had told one another before, but we had forgotten some or all of the details.  It was like getting to know each other all over again and I highly recommend it for a vacation together or even just a date night! We definitely learned things we didn't know before and remembered things we had forgotten about one another.  And we laughed- a lot. 

 We did some swimming in the pool, which overlooks the ocean.  So, you can have the ocean view without the sand and salt and ick.  I mean, I know I'm a total priss, but I think this is the best idea ever!

Those vendors weren't completely useless... we did get this darling hat for me! (See below)  I love it so much. I brought it home and wear it to soccer games and stuff.  I know it's not really the style but I think it's adorable!

 After a nice long day at the beach, we went back to our room and got all cleaned up for dinner.

 On our final morning there, we had a little time between check out and our flight, so we stopped at a nearby restaurant for a late breakfast.  The menu was entirely in Spanish, so we were trying to figure out what to order.  Matt ordered an omelette and then the waiter brought over a special menu and described it to us. Matt said, "Oh that sounds like something you would ike, Laura!"  So I ordered it.  We were waiting and waiting and then I said, "I'm not even sure what I ordered."  Matt said, "I know.  I wonder what it is."  Matt said, "Yeah, I'm not sure.  I know he said tortillas and guacamole, and.... Oh, no."

"What?"  I say

" I think he said something about grasshoppers.  You don't think that was part of the dish, right?"

"What?!!  Did I just order grasshoppers?!"

Just then, along comes the waiter and he serves me this:

Grasshoppers.  

For breakfast.  Not that they would have been any more appetizing at lunch or dinner. But really?  Grasshoppers!?!

It is at this point that everyone says, "Did you eat them?"

And my first response is, "Have you MET me?  Of course I didn't eat them!  That would be disgusting."

I just couldn't do it.  We sent it back and ordered an omelette for me as well.  The staff wasn't particularly thrilled, I think there were some egg shells in my omelette.  It took us a while to stop laughing, but we finally made it out of there and to the airport safely!  

We absolutely LOVED the Mayan Palace!  We had so much fun together and it was such a good experience for us to get to spend time just with each other.  Another big thank you to Marsha, Natalie and Raegan for helping us out and making our anniversary trip so wonderful! 

Acapulco, Baby! Part Deux.

On our third day in Acapulco, we took a tour of the city with our trustworthy guide, Baldomero.  He goes by Baldo, which is awesome on so many levels.  He was also like 3 or four inches shorter than me, but we didn't mind because he knows so much about the city, was honest and genuinely helpful to us.  He drove us all over the place and we had a blast.  Our first major stop was the Capilla de laPaz, or the Chapel of Peace.    It's one of the highest points in the city and sits atop a cliff overlooking Acapulco.  Here we are by the Mexican Flag just outside the Chapel:

Inside the Chapel of Peace; it's rather small, but beautiful.  Most of the black you see is either wood or onyx and frankly, it's hard to tell the difference unless you touch it.  

The cross that stands on the grounds reaches over 130 feet high... 

Matt' stellar panoramic of the view.  Click on the pic to see it larger-  the view is so magnificent!

Here's a pic of Baldo.  Hes aweseome.

“Las Manos de la Hermandad”, “Hands of Brotherhood”, two hands asking for peace to heaven, made by the the famous carver Claudio Favier.  You'll notice (if you are super observant to detail like Matt) that they are two right hands.

Apparently the family who built the Chapel of Peace was struck with a great deal of tragedy and death all within a few years.  So, one of the main purposes of the Chapel is to serve as the resting place for the bodies and ashes of those family members.  Other random people pay a great deal of money to have their ashes kept here as well.  

The Chapel is located in an exclusive and extremely expensive residential area known as Las Brisas.  Like so exclusive that Enrique Iglesias and Anna Kournikova own the house right across the street:  

(I have no idea if they are actually still together)

And just outside the gates of Las Brisas  is Sylvester Stallone's Acapulco Home:

One of my favorite things about Mexico is that they are smart.  NO ONE drinks Pepsi here. (cause it's gross)   It's all about Coca Cola.  And you can get coke for dirt cheap.  Yay!

After driving around the city a bit, we headed to the: 

Why do you ask?  Well, apparently John Wayne and some of his friends owned this place for their own personal hideaway back in the day.  one of those friends was Johnny Weismuller, who  played the original Tarzan.  Baldo seemed a bit miffed that we had never heard of him before.  

At first, it seemed like a quaint little hotel and restaurant, nothing particularly remarkable.

Then I walked out to the balcony and Matt had a hard time pulling me away:

For some reason, this view was the most beautiful of all to me.  It was so peaceful.

We didn't get a good still shot, but if you look over the edge, you can watch the waves crash into the rocks and the water is such a remarkable blue.  The whole place was incredibly secluded and tranquil.  I kinda wish we had stayed here for lunch.

But... instead we went and had lunch while we watched the Cliff Diving Show!  

These crazy people climb up these cliffs multiple times a day to jump off the cliffs into the water.  (Which was rather choppy)  It was all a little overwhelming to me!  Look in the top right of this pic and you can see the guy doing a flip:

And here's a guy flying through the air.  It's totally nuts to me.  There is even a little kid that does it... he looks about 9 or so.  The whole time, I just keep thinking someone is going to get a traumatic brain injury.  But-   it was a pretty incredible way to have lunch! 

Here's a few videos of the divers:

On our way back home, we stopped to see some of the artwork of Diego Rivera, who lived in Acapulco:

Pretty incredible mosaics:

Stay Tuned for Pics from our Last Few Days in Acapulco!

Acapulco, Baby!!

Did I mention that Matt and I were going to take a special trip for our anniversary?  No?  That’s ‘cause we were actually planning on taking a family vacation, but it didn’t work out.  It's a ridiculously long story, but basically, we bought a Groupon Voucher for a week long resort stay last Summer (as in the Summer of 2011) and we were planning on taking a family vacation to Mertyl Beach or Florida or something, but we couldn't find a place to make it work. The longer we waited, the less resorts there were to choose from and eventually it got to where we could either go to Park City (LAME) or about twenty places in Mexico that were off limits to Matt because of his work.  When the Acapulco resort popped up, we jumped on it because it is in Guerrero, which is one of the safer parts of Mexico. But it wasn't a resort where we could bring everyone.  So....

After all of the drama, it ended up that just Matt and I would be going to Acapulco together to celebrate our 12^th anniversary.  I was SO excited to have a whole week with Matt and SO scared to leave my babies!!  Matt and I have never left them for more than a night or two and we have certainly never taken a trip like this without them!  We never really had a honeymoon, even.  We spent two nights in a hotel in Page,  Arizona during our drive from Utah to Texas. It was like 110 degrees, there, so we pretty much just stayed in our hotel room the entire two days.  (At least that's the excuse we've always used! :)) So, while it would be hard to leave our kiddos, we felt like this would be a really great opportunity for us!  We planned and planned and prepped and prepped and suddenly, it was time!   The kids were to spend two nights with Matt’s mom, two nights with their aunt  Raegan and two nights with aunt Natalie.  The last night would be a special all boys at Raegan’s house night and All Girls at Natalie’s house night. Thanks so much to all of you!  You are such angels to us! 

Our first two days were mostly about getting acclimated with the resort where we stayed, which was INCREDIBLE!  We stayed at the Mayan Palace in Acapulco.  

Here are some pics of our first couple days at the resort:

I really wanted a picture in this spot (and we took several) but we never could get a good one because of the back lighting.  But it's sooo beautiful!  Behind us is a pool/pond with fish in it and it stretches out to where you can only see the sea beyond.  Gorgeous.

These are just kind of random pics of the resort:

There were two different water park areas that would have been so fun for the kids!  Part of me wishes we could have all gone!

Beautiful little spaces by the pool where you can rest:

That's ocean behind me.  Sigh.

Random iguanas all over the place:

Me running away from the random iguana:

Look just to Matt's right-  there's an iguana on the tree right next to him!

We just kind of walked on the beach that first day, we didn't have our suits or anything, which was kind of a shame because that was the one day that was pretty darn hot. It was the only time I was uncomfortably hot when we were there.

Now.  Note to the traveler:  Everyone in Mexico drinks.  And when I say everyone, I mean everyone.We probably were offered alcohol an average of 6 times a day.  So... when it was happy hour we just went ahead and got some..... Virgin Daiquiris.  I know.  We seriously know how to live on the edge.

No doubt you're now looking at the picture below and thinking, "Sure.  Sure they are virgin daiquiris.  Sure,, Laura.  We believe you."

Actually, in that picture, we were trying to get a shot of us together and a bird flew like right in between our heads. Right in between our heads. It was nuts and we started laughing really hard while Matt was taking the pictures.

They really were Non-Alcoholic.  Promise.

That night, we went to dinner at my favorite restaurant on the resort.  The tables overlook the edge of the resort and the ocean and it is unbelievably peaceful and beautiful.  And romantic.

How cute are we?