We finally survived our last vacation of the summer. We spent a whirlwind week in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico with the whole Seibert clan (Sally, Kevin, Molly, Nick, Jessica, Jordan, Andrea and Cory). It was quite an experience! Even though this may completely bore you to tears, I'm going to go through the vacation day by day mostly so I can remember all the things we did. Stop reading now if all you care about is that Max was horrible on the plane rides, it was a million degrees and super SUPER humid, we played on the beach and in the pools, ate great food, stayed at a beautiful resort and came back with glowing tans.
{day 1 -- Thursday}We left on Thursday morning too early for anyone to want to be awake. Max was terrible on the plane. He had just had his 1 year shots a few days earlier, came down with a head cold and hadn't had his nap. Max + plane = MY WORST NIGHTMARE. It was a super long day and after much bouncing and rocking I finally got him to fall asleep. The lady sitting across from us kept asking if I wanted her to try and rock him to sleep. My mouth answere politely no, but my head was swimming with insults and jeers (she thinks she can do a better job than me? what is she crazy? etc, etc). We finally arrived at the airport in Cancun and had to wait hours for the rest of the family to get there (they were flying in from San Francisco).
Finally our luggage was loaded onto a van and we made our way to the resort. The van was so ghetto that the back door where our luggage was stacked popped open and almost spilled all of our precious cargo onto the Mexican highway.
The resort was AMAZING. I don't think anyone expected it to be as nice as it was. It's called the Barcelo Maya and it was spectacular. The rooms were big and air conditioned, the pools were huge and inviting, there was a fabulous kiddie pool with slides and sprays and a white sand beach to die for. They also had a great buffet with tons of variety and delicious foods.
{day 2 -- Friday}We spent the day at the resort swimming and playing. It was really hard for Tyler and I to do anything in the morning with Max because if he doesn't get his morning nap he turns into a little monster. So the afternoon consisted of lounging by the pool and going back and forth between the water slides and the beach. Max LOVED the water slides, until this power-tripping life guard stood across the baby pool blowing his whistle at Tyler to make him stop going down because Maddox was too little and Tyler was too big.
Tyler and his dad went to check out some Cenotes (caves that you can go rock jumping at in the jungle across the highway from our resort). I stayed and played with the baby.
{day 3 -- Saturday}
This was a mommy and Max day because Tyler and the rest of the guys went scuba diving and Sally and Andrea went snorkeling. Molly and I and all the kids were left behind at the resort to fend for ourselves. Neither one of us was that happy about it, but we made it through the day. Nap schedules for all the kids made it difficult to spend much time together, but Max and Jessica did play a little in the pool together.
{day 4 -- Sunday}We had ourselves a Mexican adventure this day when we tried to go to church. We woke up and rushed to get ready and fed (now that Max only eats table foods he takes about 6 years to eat). It was very dark and cloudy and you could hear distant thunder all morning. We walked out to the highway (about a 10 minute walk from the lobby of the resort) in the disgusting heat and humidity, making sure to get nice and sweaty for the 45 minute ride to where the church was. Sally, Kevin, Molly, Nick and the baby girls had left a little before us and Cory, Andrea, Tyler, me and Max took a separate collectivo. Collectivo you say? A collectivo is a janky van type vehicle with seats and air conditioning (thank GOODNESS) that the natives take up and down the highway to the various resorts where they work. Most American tourists don't know about them, but they are pretty convenient for getting around. The only problem is, you have to ride Mexican style, meaning you are squished in as many people as fit (if a seat is only supposed to hold three people there wil consistently be 6 people shoved onto it) all sweaty and smelly sitting together going about 90 miles an hour between stops. Not to mention that you have to run across a highway to get to the stops.
Anyway, we finally got to the place where the church building was supposed to be and to our dismay the church was in a heap of rubble and bricks with no sign of a Sacrament Meeting anywhere. There was a very confusing sign that was supposed to tell us where to find the new meeting place, but we couldn't really figure it out. The collectivo just dropped us off in the middle of this little village. We started walking, towards what, I am still not sure, and it started raining and thundering. (Now, to remind you, we are doing this all with a squirmy and extremely tired one year old). Suddenly a taxi pulled up and said he had taken the rest of our family to church and he knew where it was and would take us there, too. So once again we squished in and he dropped us off at this falling down dilapidated building with no
doors and a roof that was leaking the torrential downpour outside. There were maybe 25 people inside and that included the 8 of us. It was quite humbling to see the circumstances these faithful people had church in. There was no air conditioning, no microphone, we sat on uncomfortable metal folding chairs and wiped away the rain that was falling in through the cracks in the walls and ceiling. It was QUITE an experience, to say the least.
{day 5 -- Monday}This was supposed to be the day we all went to XCaret, this theme park with tons of dolphins and snorkeling and other amazing wild life. Well, we attempted to go in the morning before Max's nap because it was only a few minutes up the road and we figured we could come back and put him down for a nap and then return when he woke up. Boy was that the mistake of the century. It was disgustingly hot and humid that day and by the time we got there Max was already losing it. The collectivo we took dropped us off at the top of the exit ramp off the freeway. We started walking towards the park and a van pulled up and asked it we wanted a ride. He told us it was really far, and he was NOT lying. It would have taken us FOREVER to get there. We went in the park against our better judgment, saw some cool birds and some manatees, and found Cory and Kevin who were swimming with dolphins. At that point Max was beyond crazy tired and so we left. We waited for over half an hour for a bus to take us back up to the road so we could catch a collectivo and it never came. Finally a man in another tourist van took us to the top of the road and we waited another 10 minutes for a collectivo to come. None stopped. Apparently they were all really full that day. Another guy in a delivery van saw us dying on the side of the road and stopped out of pity for us. His van did not have air conditioning which is pretty much a necessity there. We finally made it back to the resort and put him down for a nap. We decided not to go back in the afternoon because it was such a nightmare. It was disappointing because the park did seem really fun. It was just too hard with Max.
{day 6 -- Tuesday}Tyler and I once again decided to stick around the resort instead of going to a beach by the ruins in Tulum. We thought it was too far away to survive with the baby. We had tried to go the ruins on Sunday, just the three of us, something Tyler and I had been dying to see. We made the long trip all the way there, getting there at 4:30 only to be told that the ruins close at 4:30 and we wouldn't be let in. We seriously got to the gates at exactly 4:30 and they would not let us in. We tried to get in through the out gate and they wouldn't let anyone through, so we got a quick glimpse of them from outside the huge wall and had to turn around and go home. It was pretty devastating. Apparently these Mayan ruins have an amazing view of the Caribbean. Anyway, on Tuesday everyone else decided to go to the beach down a ways from Tulum. We just stayed and played with Max at the resort.
That morning Tyler, Molly, Andrea, Cory and I took a windsurfing lesson. It was really hard!! The sail is super heavy. I maybe stood up for about 3 seconds and rode about 2 inches in the water before eating it hardcore and getting smacked on the top of the head (twice!) by the sail.
{day 7 -- Wednesday}We once again stayed at the resort while the rest of the family went to a different beach to snorkel. Since Max doesn't nap anywhere but in a crib it would have been too hard to do anything outside of the resort. I did take a sailing lesson though and learned how to sail a catamaran (although I'm still confused about the whole wind direction thing). Later that day I took Tyler out on the boat but we didn't have that great of a time because there was absolutely no wind. We even had a hard time getting back in because of the wind. A few hours later Kevin and Cory went sailing and they accidentally went out into open water and couldn't get back because of the wind and had to be rescued by a motor boat. I wasn't there to witness it, but Cory vows to never to sailing again.
{day 8 -- Thursday}In typical Seibert family style, some of the group went snorkeling and sailing mere minutes before we had to catch vans to go to the airport and fly home. Since our flight was later Maddox got a morning nap. We rushed through lunch, got on our van, took the hour drive to the airport and finally boarded a plane to go home. Max was much better on the way home. The second leg of the flight he slept for about an hour and tried so SO hard to sleep for the rest of the trip. He would pick up his little blanket and move it from my shoulder to Tyler's and try to fall asleep then about a minute later he would pick it up and move it back to my shoulder. It was so sad and pathetic. He never really cried, just couldn't get comfortable. It was good to be home, that's for sure but sad to leave such a beautiful place.
And did I mention that Max ate little sausages every morning for breakfast? He LOVED them. He would spit out his pacifier for them, and that is really saying something.
We had a great time in the Caribbean. I didn't realize how absolutely gorgeous it really is. Thanks so much to Tyler's parents to getting us all on this great trip. Although now I think we need a vacation from our vacation!
Take a look at our album of pictures to get the full experience.
We took a family outing to La Jolla Cove one Sunday afternoon and we had a blast. Max of course loved the ocean -- especially the slippery rocks with lots of jagged edges (those were 
mom's favorite, too -- RIGHT). The water was freezing but he wanted to walk right in and go for a swim. But this is one of our favorite family things to do together.
