A Day Like Any Other

Yesterday was a day like any other summer day. It included a trip to Sam's Club.  Ken was busy with work meetings most of the day.  It was supposed to be the first day of vacation but since he was out of town right before we left he had alot of catch-up to do with his Engineers.  I didn't mind though.  Part of the deal of coming to Cancun for a month meant that Ken was going to have to work for about half of the time.  We decided that we would pretty much let his meetings dictate when he took off and when he worked.  That way he wouldn't have to scramble to make-up for things he missed.  Sadly, my husband really does spend that much time in meetings, or prepping for them now.

So like any normal summer day, I took the kids with me to run errands.

You can't have a trip to Sam's without stopping by the cafe for a snack or lunch.

Of course this Sam's Club serves ice cream cones, or Cono Helado.  Which I failed to order by saying the right words and instead pointed too.  Including a gesture with me pretending to lick a cone, exotic vacation=charades!

I've found the Mexicans to be more then generous and quite friendly.  The teller even laughed when I tried to pay for cuarenta pesos with a $500 peso bill.  That would be trying to use a 500 bill to pay for 40.  To be honest I thought she was saying 400, they didn't have prices on the menu and I thought it was steep, but what can you do when they are already serving it, right.

After our trip to Sam's we headed across the parking lot to Wal-Mart.  Where you can buy chicklets for $4.15  That's in pesos.  Or about $0.30 USD

The kids had a fun time trying to estimate what things costs in US Dollars, then they would borrow my phone and calculate it.  It's really shocking when you go to buy a life vest for $368.

See!  Just like at home!  Except there is a way awesome bakery.  They have platters and tongs and rows and rows of different pastries.  You can load up whatever you like on your tray and then you take it up to the counter and they bag it for you.  I let each of the kids choose 2 each, well 3 if you count that they "chose" ones for their Dad, which really ended up being the ones that they decided they didn't want after they saw something better:-)  The pastries are $.25-.50 a piece USD. We also get really awesome, fresh pico de gallo.  It's yummy!  And a bargain at $1.30 USD.  In the US they charge nearly $5 for that.

Our shopping trip was hugely successful!  I didn't even have problems running my Visa this time.  I did take out all the money I would need at the bank just in case though.  The language barrier is a slight problem, not really in accomplishing things but I just feel badly that I can't communicate as well as I would like.  Everyone is super nice and helpful.  I would just love to ask them so many more questions and converse freely.  I had planned on learning more Spanish all year long but I was totally slammed for time.  Hopefully next year.  It's frustrating that people will start speaking to me or our kids and we don't know what to say and then Ken has to answer for us.    

Ken was really terrified of us going into Cancun proper by ourselves.  I think it is very safe and Ken couldn't point to anything that was unsafe but as he says, "It's still Mexico."  I convinced him to let us go if we took a Taxi downtown instead of riding the bus like we normally do.  With the bus we have to get off on a side street 3-4 blocks away and walk to Wal-Mart.  Ken also called or texted me like 4 times while we were gone just to "check-in".  My goodness, can my husband worry!  Which is sweet.  I'm probably way too adventuresome for his taste and sometimes in situations like this I will concede maybe I should be more concerned. That was NOT the case this time, but sometimes:-)

After we unloaded and ate lunch we went out to the beach, then the pool.  And just like any other day Ginger and Rose totally surprised us in the pool!

Our girls learned how to snorkel!

Seriously, it feels like they aren't even supposed to be old enough to swim let alone snorkel.  Or dive down to the bottom of a 4 foot pool to pick up diving sticks.  It just blows us away!

Ginger made it around the expanse of the pool in about 10 minutes and she only surfaced once.  It was crazy!  I was slowly walking her around so at least she didn't have to concentrate on where she is going or to keep kicking.  Really, isn't 4 years old a tad too young to be snorkeling???  Then again I guess snorkeling makes learning how to swim easier.

Rose took about the same time but she surfaced 3 times.  Which is still totally impressive!

The girls were just playing around with their brothers snorkel gear and trying it out.  The masks are way to big (heck, these goggles they borrowed from their brothers are too big:-) so they just plugged their noses the whole time.

It looks like we need to make another trip to Sam's club to pick up snorkel gear for the girls.  They had the cutest little pink flippers.  When I saw them last time, I was like no way can a little girl use those, but I guess I was wrong.

We normally take the girls snorkeling with us anyways (see here), but this year is going to be a whole other experience for them.  I'm so excited for Rose and Ginger!!!

PS- We are loving our new underwater camera!  Pretty impressive picture quality!