Mexico 2018 - Day 1 - Photo Dump

Last Tuesday night Steve took Presley to gymnastics and I did some power organizing and packing for us to leave bright and early Wednesday morning. We got up about 3:30, stopped by my parents house about 4 and dad dropped us off about 4:30 at the airport. Thankfully Presley was able to sleep a little on the flight to Dallas. Our layover in Dallas was short and sweet and both girls are very good about listening and hustling when in the airport. We only had an hour layover so by the time we got off the plane, found our new gate, went potty....it was basically time to get on the next flight.

Thankfully on our flight from Dallas to Cancun, there was wifi and built in TV's with movies and games and such. We are always prepared with plenty for them to do in case we DON'T have this option but this kept them occupied for the 2.5 hour flight. We got to Cancun about 1 and were in our hotel a little after 2. We upgraded our room to an ocean view....for $140 extra dollars it was completely worth it!

They were so excited to get their swimsuits on head to the water!

Presley is a water/ocean girl! She was so happy and I don't see her smile and laugh as much as I did during this time she was in the ocean and pool!

The pool is heated and feels so good!

Getting up at 3:30, without a nap, will wear a 5 year old out! By 4, she was snoring in my lap at the pool. I don't know how she did it with the loud music and people but I held her for about 45 minutes and enjoyed every second!

This girl can pull off a hat for sure. SO freaking adorable!

After swimming and such, we got ready for dinner and made some time to walk around before the nightly show they have every night.

We spent a lot of time in the lobby bar at night. The girls colored and did some activity books to keep them busy.

We had front row seats for the dancing show this night. This is one of the girls' favorite things to do at night.

At the end they had audience members come up and join them for a dance....neither one of our girls would....not surprising!

2018

So far 2018 has tested my patience. Dealing with insurance companies to get my car fixed put me in tears at work. Presley's attitude lately, makes me want to smack her.....and she isn't even 9 yet, what are we going to do when she is 13 yrs old? Steve and I have been on a quick 8 day diet for before we head to Mexico and this includes NO good food and no alcohol. We are doing the Fast Metabolism Diet and it really does work. We started on the 1st and Sunday morning when we weighed in, Steve had lost 8.2 and I had lost 7.2!  

 

Tuesday night I was able to go make wine with Sarah and her friend Gabby. This is the 2nd time I've done it and it really is so fun and interesting! http://www.eatplaylovedesmoines.com/vines-to-wines/

You make whatever wine is in the schedule for that night and then go back and bottle it 2 months later! After that we went to dinner at Roca http://www.rocadsm.com/, none of us had been there but it was really good. I was trying to be good for our diet so I got boring salmon on quinoa and kale. It was good, but I really wanted something really NOT good for me! :)

 

Thursday I took Piper to her gymnastics class, this was her first night with her new teacher. She did great and we are happy that she has Miss Sarah as her teacher.

We got home and saw deer in the backyard, they have been ALL over these days and Piper keeps wanting to go outside and catch one for a pet. She kept taking small steps toward it but I think was a little intimidated that the deer just stood there watching her. Needless to say, I don't think she'll be catching one any time soon!

When we went inside, Presley was in her room b/c of her attitude. She normally doesn't give Steve much so she must have been super snotty. Piper put on her police officer costume and said she was going to arrest her for being rude!

Friday night we did nothing! It was nice and boring. I worked on my puzzle, the girls played and fought and they went to bed early. Guess what Steve and I did? Something that we do, maybe once a year!............We watched a movie! Shocking for us! But we watched The Revenent with Leonardo Dicaprio, it was good but long!

 

Saturday morning we got up to find the girls in the hall closet. This is pretty common for Piper, she goes in there with her ipad and just chills. Presley doesn't quiet fit in there with her so she was half in and half out! Dorks.

We did take a family trip to Target, pretty exciting stuff huh? And we only spent $39! WHAT? Then we basically went home and didn't do anything the rest of the day! Laundry, playing, puzzles.

We were getting ready to watch Mary Poppins at bedtime and Presley bit into a candy bar and her loose tooth started bleeding. Oh goodness. This girls HATES losing teeth! The bleeding, the crying, the screaming. Eventually we got her calmed down enough and she agreed that we just needed to pull it! She wanted me to do it b/c I was gentle?! (Not sure there is a gentle way to pull a tooth out!) Once it was over and she got calmed down, we all just cuddled up and watched half of the movie, then it was way past bedtime!

 

Sunday we hung out, played some games of Trouble (seems to be their new favorite game) and then the girls went outside to play! Finally the weather was warm enough for them to enjoy the snow and go sledding in the backyard!

After lunch Presley and Steve were just aching to get out of the house. So we decided to go to Bass Pro Shop and walk around for a bit and if it wasn't busy maybe go bowling!

Besides Presley being pissed off that she wasn't winning. "It's not fair!"....seriously? She said the only way it would be fair is if she was winning...of course! She did end up in 2nd place so she wasn't too mad but I think Steve might have played bad enough to give her a chance.
It was a good way for us to waste a couple hours and not just sit at home doing nothing (even though I would be perfectly fine with that!)

After that we broke our diet and went to El Mariachi on the way home for an early dinner! :) So good and I totally gained 1.4 lbs back as of this morning. So I have two days to eat good and hopefully drop back down!

Piper was up until 10:30 last night! She slept til about 9 that morning but still, we knew she was going to be exhausted. She cried when I dropped her off at daycare! She kept saying she just wanted to be with me, and go to work with me. It was really sad, b/c she is rarely like that! Mary Beth, the director finally came to help and took her from me and within 5 minutes she was back to normal (of course). So hopefully she'll go to sleep nice and early tonight!

Happy New Year!

Presley went to my parents on Friday for daycare and then Piper went to GN in the morning and they picked her up after lunch. She really wanted to participate in the New Years celebration they have at daycare that morning so it worked out! My parents then took them to see Ferdinand! They liked it but not as much as Coco! (they get to see all the fun movies with grandma and grandpa!) Steve went and picked them up from the theater since the weather and roads were getting bad, so they didn't have to worry about driving them to our house.  

We had planned on going to Firetrucker to watch Baird that night and Piper was very excited about it! However, the attitudes coming from these two in the short 2 hours we were home, we opted to just stay home!

 

Saturday we didn't do much. Surprisingly we did leave the house! Steve took the girls to the neighbors to watch the Iowa State game and I went to Target (by myself! *gasp*) and once I got home, I did some picking up and got the Christmas decorations all put away. Our house looks so clean right now!

We did venture out and do an early dinner at Texas Roadhouse and then came home and just hung out and cuddled! It was too cold to do anything else!

 

Sunday we were able to meet some friends at the Ramada waterpark that afternoon. It was a little expensive for a couple hours of swimming so not sure we'll do that again. The girls had fun for a little while and then were cold and bored. They probably would've done better if we would've got in the pool with them, oh well.

We left there, went home, changed, got our stuff for the neighbors party and headed to Andrea and Marc's house! There were quite a few neighbors there and some other friends of theirs. It was a lot of fun and the kids played so good with all the other kids!

Megan, Andrea, Me, Angie, Sarah and Wendy

Piper, Gianna, Presley, Brody, Izzy, Carver and Becca

We did stay past midnight and I think we were all exhausted yesterday. Though Steve got more done yesterday than the 3 of us girls combined!

 

One thing we did do was tell the kids about a surprise we had for them. I put one letter on each piece of paper and hid them around the family room. They had to find the 6 papers and put them together to spell the word of the surprise! (ECMXOI)

 or MEXICO!

They were excited to learn that we are going back to Mexico next Wednesday! We hadn't really told anyone. We booked it after our friend Dean passed away in October, we had met them in Cancun last year and once again we were reminded that life is too short!

Good-bye 2017

2017- I mostly failed on this list from last January. OOPS!

 1. Run a 5K....4th times a charm?!.....- Nope still didn't happen

2. Organize our storage room, take things to Goodwill or have a garage sale. The stuff must go! This is the 2nd time on my list. - Well there was no garage sale and I never went to Goodwill. We did give some baby stuff away to my sister and bro-in-law but this was a minor dent in our storage room problem.

3. Give to others...whether it be giving baby clothes to a friend, donating stuff to a charity, sending a gift card randomly to someone who might need it, giving $ to a homeless person....anything, just to give back a little...plus I think it is good for my kids to see us doing these things also. Yep this was on 2016's list too. - this will continually be on my list!

4. Learn to let things go! I think too much and when this happens, I get bent all out of shape and get stressed out. Mostly at work. I just need to worry about myself and not worry about others. I now have a post it note on my desk that says Let it Go, just to remind me! - this will continually be on my list!

5. Teach Presley how to ride a bike (at this point we might get Piper to ride a bike before Presley will!) - DONE!!!! One of the only things I accomplished from this list!

6. Book and enjoy a family vacation to Disney World. 2017 is the year I have been saving and planning for us to go! I don't have my family reunion this year, Piper is old enough to enjoy and remember it and is young enough that we don't have to pull both her and Presley out of school! - Fail. With my job/employment situation from May to August, I just couldn't spend the money on this trip not knowing if I was going to be employed. So this got pushed back, hopefully we can do it in 2019.

7. Cutting back on social media time! Especially when the kids are awake. It's so easy when they are off playing to just grab my phone and see what new and exciting things are going on....and usually there is VERY few things that are really that new or exciting! I did remove this app from the home page on my phone so it's not so tempting to check on it! - I try, I really try. My problem is that when I put my phone down, I pick up my Kindle and start reading. I can't say that is a bad thing but my kids still just see me on an electronic device!

8. Drink more water! I should be able to do this, but I go thru phases of being really good for a couple weeks and then not drinking any....similar to my workout routine! - I have been better than normal on this but I'm still not consistent in drinking water every day!

9. Squeeze in a weekend trip for our 10th anniversary in September! Couple ideas....A Packer game, Chicago, Nashville, Denver...... hmmm..... DONE!!! We went to Nashville in November and had a blast!