Christmas Shenanigans

We really dove into the Christmas festivities this year, but we changed it up quite a bit from how we normally do it. My work went all out this year with a Toyland Theme and Santa for the kids. So instead of braving the cold at The Village to see Santa there, we opted for indoor, with free cookies and hot chocolate, as well as a bunch of other goodies for the kids while visiting with Santa. It was such a fun night!

Of course, we still wanted to get over to The Village to see all of the lights, and the huge tree, and Santa's workshop, so we strolled around a bit one evening after seeing Avatar 2.  The tree never ceases to amaze me, and the fountain with the synced music. Such a fun place to see during the holidays.

Even though we weren't feeling 100%, Kendall and I still got a ton of Christmas goodie baking done this year.

The softball girls got together for a big pot-luck and cookie decorating party. These girls.....holy smokes. What a FUN group! I am so glad that Kendall has this group of friends, and all the moms too! It's definitely been a highlight of my year having this group.

And then a sickness like no other had most of the family within its grip for most of December. So it was a day filled with good food, lots of laughs, and even more coughing.  And then more coughing....and more and more. Ugh! 

Tulum Adventures - pt 5

Friday was the last full day of our adventure. We decided to ride (seriously....but it wasn't as bad as the previous day) to the Tulum ruins (only two miles away versus the 11.8 miles we clocked Thursday). We were bombarded with various tour offers all the way up to the ticket counter. We didn't feel the need to have a specific tour guide for these ruins, which ended up being a good move as we were able to get in and around everything we wanted to see in a fraction of the time. Plus, we stopped and listened in to a couple of formal tours. Kendall, again, hated this tour as the ruins really did not interest her at all.

After leaving the ruins, we were able to access the public beach area. It seems like all of the hotels/resorts have bought up the beach-front locations, so finding a public access area (free) was somewhat of a challenge at times. Thankfully, we landed at the most well-known public beach in Tulum, Playa Paraiso (Paradise Beach, appropriately named). We were immediately approached (see the theme here?) by a guy who was renting out umbrellas/table/chairs and we jumped on that opportunity as we didn't want to sit and bake in the sun all day without some sort of shade reprieve. It was the best purchase we made the entire trip. They also brought us drinks and lunch, and it was truly the best way to end our vacation. We easily spent half a day there, relaxing, swimming, playing beach football, repeat. 

After the beach, we rode back and turned in the bikes. On our walk back to the house, we scoped out various restaurants to decide where we wanted to eat for our last meal. We opted for Siete Fuegos, mostly because they had a smoker out front that had an entire pig on it.

After dinner, we played around a bit on an e-scooter.

Tulum really was a magical place. I would go back again in a heartbeat. I know it's growing like crazy, as evidenced by all of the construction (commercial and residential) going on, but it's definitely worthy of another trip. We had such an amazing time!