Emily's Riding Lessons

Emily has been taking riding lessons at a local stable for the last few weeks. She has one lesson left to go. She is doing really well and loves going!Along with riding lessons, Emily is taking violin (actually fiddle) lessons once a week, Caravans (church scouting program), Girl Scouts (but that is on hold for now!!), and Upwards Basketball will begin in January! The Mama Taxi is getting tired!

Emily-1st Day pics

These are pics from Emily's first day of 3rd grade. She is still at Discovery and has Mrs. Johnson. She really likes her teacher again this year. Emily is getting (well continues to be...) very tall! She turned 8 this summer and is really into reading "Geronimo Stilton" books. Instead of going to bed, it is usually...just one more page!

Our hotel

We stayed at the Secrets Capri Resort just outside of Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. It was so beautiful there! After our first day we weren't sure how we were going to leave at the end of the week!

We spent time in the pool everyday. Kevin enjoyed playing volleyball in the pool and I liked just laying by the pool reading a book.


When we arrived, this is how we found our room. There were rose pedals on the bed, champagne chilling, and a beautiful flower arrangement waiting in our room.













The view from our room was really nice!
We had our own balcony that overlooked a grove of trees and the ocean.

The Beach

When we arrived, Kevin went straight for the water! It was really warm and we liked being on the beach. We even had the chance to swim around a large school of white angel fish.







I enjoyed walking on the white sandy beach.
It was relaxing to lay in the shade of the palm trees and listen to the waves.

The last night of our trip, we had dinner served to us on the beach.

It was beautiful to watch the sunset and we ended our dinner by candlelight.

Excursions

We went to Chichen Itza to visit the ruins on our first excursion. It was amazing to see what still remains at the site. We were disappointed not to be able to climb up to the top of the ruins, but still enjoyed our day there.




Cassy from the top of the observatory at the ruins.








Kevin was standing in front of the ball court area.








Okay...so I can't figure out how to turn this picture!! But, this was taken on a different day when we headed to the island of Cosumel to go snorkling. We saw some beautiful fish that day including rainbow parrot fish and a barracuda!

Dinners

This was taken on our first night heading to dinner at the Italian restraunt at our hotel. The dinner was wonderful and Kevin even had a chance to try out some of his spanish on our waiter!

This was later in the week when we went to some seafood/steak. We sat on a balcony overlooking the ocean.
Kevin laughed at me for taking pictures of the food, but it was all so beautiful, you almost hated to eat it...almost.