Mexico for New Years!

First of all, you must know that we did a short little hike in 20-degree temps here at home on New Year's Eve so we could really appreciate the warmth of Mexico the next day! Ha ha!

Well, we were crazy and we flew to Mexico with a 4-month-old baby (Cora) to meet up with Mike's family for a very nice and warm vacation at an all-inclusive resort near Playa del Carmen. Overall the trip was a mixed bag for us: fun and relaxing but stressful at the same time since we had Cora with us.

The plane ride . . . well, it went a little better than expected but still about how we expected: Cora was not inclined to fall asleep in our arms but she eventually did while laying across my lap (as you can see in the picture below).

Grand Palladium White Sands Resort was a great place! Even despite the mishaps with rooms: Marty and Drew got a room with only one bed, and Christine and Jeremy's room had some plumbing issues. We lucked out and didn't have much trouble with our room so it was really nice.

Caught in a major downpour on our way to mini golf.

First time playing in the pool.

We enjoyed the food quite a bit and in this order: the a la carte restaurants were the best, the buffet was good, the free room service was fine. We went to the Brazilian, Thai, steakhouse, and Mexican a la carte restaurants. The steakhouse and the Mexican restaurants were our favorites food-wise. Dinners at the a la carte restaurants were hard with Cora because she was just so tired by the end of the day and just kind of cried the whole time while the wait-staff took their time serving us dinner. So . . . after the first two nights of trying to do dinner as a whole group, we decided it was probably best to split up and take shifts going to dinner and caring for Cora.

We went to the buffet for breakfast everyday, and it was good! We had freshly-made, custom omelettes, various smoothies to enjoy, and myriad other breakfast goodies. And then later on we discovered the yummy mixed drinks they make at lunch time.

Grandpa Marty has some super powers to get Cora to fall asleep in his arms.

Mike, Cora, and I left the resort only one day to go snorkeling with everyone at Akumal, and we are so glad we did despite Cora shortening our stay there. Mike and I were able to snorkel together for an hour, and while we were out we saw a stingray and two turtles! It was amazing. Shortly, after we came in to the beach to Cora and Mike's family, Cora woke up and was inconsolable - we think she was too hot. So we left early to get her back to our air conditioned room at the resort and a good nap. Thankfully, Mike's family had already been out snorkeling before all that went down.

All the other days we filled our time with hanging out on the beach, snorkeling just off the beach, lounging by the pool, swimming in the pool, and playing mini golf, soccer, ping pong, and badminton. I totally stomped Mike at badminton! :) I also spent a fair amount of time sitting in our room reading while Cora napped - which was actually very relaxing for me.

Had to document our fun time playing badminton - and me stomping Mike at it.

See the sweat beading up on Cora's nose? Poor hot girl.

Hanging out in the tent at Akumal, shortly before the big break down.

One of the days, Marty, Christine, Jeremy and their kids all went to the Xplor park to do all their high-adventure activities. They said it was a lot of fun, but definitely was not baby-friendly.

Cora did pretty well overall. She got a bit of a heat rash for the first few days (I mean, it was 65 degrees warmer in Mexico than it was back home). She slept well in the pack-n-play in our hotel room with us, so long as we covered up the sides of it so she couldn't see us. In fact, one night she was so tired that she slept the whole night through! We took her into the pool for the first time on this trip. She squealed and arched her back pretty big when we first put her in the water, but then she took it a little better later on since we very slowly inched her into the water.

Last morning on the beach before flying home.

Getting home was the biggest adventure of all. First of all, our plane was delayed an hour due to some unclaimed baggage on the plane so they had to find it and take it off the plane. Cora was not as agreeable on this flight since it was later in the day and she was more tired than the other flight, so . . . basically I ended up being the human pacifier since she won't take a regular pacifier. While we were gone, we supposedly had two feet of snow dumped back home. So when we landed, Mike was wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and a fleece jacket to go get the car in . . . so we clothed him with my knee socks and some makeshift gloves so he could dig out the car and drive back to get Cora and me. Then we also noticed the low-tire-pressure dash light on and worried about that the whole drive home. Then when we finally did get home, we discovered a 3-foot berm of snow from the snowplows blocking our driveway. So we high-stepped it through the snow up to our house with Cora so I could put her to bed and help Mike dig out the berm. But . . . Cora had a massive blowout so she was screaming bloody murder while I changed her and then still screamed after when I put her to bed. I still helped with digging out the berm even though Cora was still screaming. Once done, I fed her and put her to bed and she fell asleep after that.

Home sweet home. 

(This post was backdated to January 8, 2017, but it was written on March 22, 2017.)