friday and saturday.  jan.  29/30.  2016

i feel like we are living the life of surfers…sleeping in, the girls get some school done and i do some reading, we pack food, head to the beach, play and lay around for a few hours, head home and eat dinner, watch movies…it’s nice.  days i get a few things done though actually feels great, it’s a nice feeling being productive.

friday morning i sat and listened to music out on the patio with the girls while we colored in these awesome creative coloring books…they even make them for adults to be more creative:)  i didn’t have much of a childhood, so sometimes i try and do creative kid-like things.  it’s so good for us to remember to be creative in some way.

jarom has been traveling while we are in mexico, for work, and flew home yesterday and went skiing today.  on the way home, he hit a pothole, and got a flat.  geico came and fixed it, but now we need to buy two new tires.  which doesn’t sound too bad, except while we have been in mexico, in the past two weeks, one car needed $2,000 to fix some things, and the other car needs $2500.  so the flat tires today was the icing on the cake.  they say bad things come in three’s…let’s just hope it’s true and we can get a break!   but thank goodness for being in places that we have been able to visit(guatemala/mexico), and we are so very blessed for what we have.  thank goodness for the perspectives we have gained, and seeing how people live in other countries, and knowing the struggles some people have just gathering food for the day.  so grateful for what we have, and for our problems.

ps-starting week three of the anti-candida diet.  no sugar, no gluten, no dairy.  here’s to taking my health into my own hands.

thursday.  jan. 28.  2016

walking through the biosphere was awesome.  ruins, marshes, a tower to climb, a lagoon, and seeing where 10 villages used to be thousands of years ago.  this area dates back to 300bc, and now is a reserve thanks to unesco.  it was fun walking through with the girls.  half way through i told them to be quiet so we could listen and see things all over, but we really didn’t see any animals…we did see some fish in the marsh and the lagoon.  so as we  were coming back down the trail towards the car, we decided to have a bit of fun laughing as the girls were making vines to post on the internet.  these girls have a great sense of humor.  it was fun exploring a new place today.

after we got home, alex headed over to the wellness center to get more homework done.  the other girls and i made dinner, and walked it over to alex for our evening walk.  look at this awesome kid working so hard!

photo credit-alex took picture of madison at the end of the dock-great picture!

wednesday.  jan. 27.  2016

so today was the day we decided would be a good day to go to playa del carmen(30 minutes from us)to walk around the mall, get a few fruits and veggies at mega, and break up the routine from the beach.  it was so bloody hot, it felt like georgia in the summer, except it’s winter in mexico.

the mall here is gorgeous.  it’s an open outdoor mall, with a pretty cool design.  and it’s near bio natural-the organic store to find a few things we need here and there.  the girls got an ice cream-a special treat they don’t get very often, we got groceries after the mall, and made our way home to eat and then jump in the pool.

i was thinking how fun it is, and sometimes a bit stressful, but a great feeling of accomplishment, just driving to new cities and places and getting around like we live here.  i love being in with locals, shopping and doing things, buying groceries, and feeling independent.  we have a lot more options food-wise here than in guatemala, and even france.  larger stores, more variety, more fresh fruit and veggies, and it’s cheaper here in mexico.  even though we don’t have all the same things as home, we come pretty close.  we love these adventures.

tuesday.  jan 26.  2016

uhhhh, was i supposed to get out of bed today?  ok-i did to get food and use the bathroom.  but that’s about it.  the girls got their school done, and we read, researched stuff, watched movies, and repeated.  it was pretty fantastic.  running with 4 kids is fun, but dangit, i needed a down day.

it would have been better with yummy chocolate sitting about to munch on…but since i’m on a no sugar deal for two months…apples and cinnamon, eggs and avocado it was.  it was still a great day.

monday.  jan. 26.  2016

today was a windy day-but we still hung out at our awesome beach.  the girls would run back and forth from the swings to the beach, getting in some great exercise.  managed to get some sun today too-the feeling of the warm sun on your skin is the best!

it’s interesting how so many people in the world think you have to be rich to travel.  i have learned how to travel for much cheaper than most people understand.  and even then, there’s even cheaper ways than that of course.  bob our neighbor, was telling us about an amazing website-trustedhousesitters.com.  owners leave for a trip- for any period of time, and need someone to take care of a pet and housesit.  in exchange for doing this, you can stay for free.  they don’t charge you, and you don’t charge them for housesitting.  i’ve been checking out the site, and seriously-my mouth was drooling.  three months in the country of france to take care of some dogs and horses-beautiful home and countryside-and it’s free!  we’ve wanted to plan a trip to england this year for my 40th…so we are going to see if this site ends up working out for us-but what a bonus for the kids at the end of the day to have a dog or cat to play with when we get home from site-seeing.

there are so many sites of people who travel the world for free-yes they blog it, advertise it, and it’s really a job.  i don’t want that-my full time job is my kids.  but at the same time, there are ways to save money.  there’s a professional travel guy(thepointsguy.com) who has like 26 credit cards to get all the bonus miles, and keeps track of when to dump a cc or which ones to keep as time goes on.  my mind would explode trying to keep it straight.  maybe its easier that he isn’t trying to travel with a family too.  we have found just having a low limit southwest cc to use for things here and there and paying it off each month, has been beneficial to reap the benefits of adding more points monthly.  also, hubby travels about once a month, which helps keep his status on southwest, and our status with marriott.  we used marriott points when we were in rome for 4 days(double rooms) a few years ago, didn’t even pay to stay there-it was fabulous.  we just have stuck with one hotel chain, and one airline, and keep collecting.

flying down here to mexico was free, we just had to pay the taxes on the airfare, which was something like $11/person.  then i usually like to go to vrbo.com to find a place to stay instead of a hotel for a couple reasons…we are a family-and a hotel room is too small, we need a kitchen, hotels are too expensive for long term stay, and usually you can find someone who can accommodate a good deal for a longer period of stay on vrbo-like a month-instead of a week.  another reason, as we have rented apartments in paris($125/night with 2 bedrooms and full kitchen-amazing deal!), and a large townhouse in the south of france($1200 for the month), a home in guatemala($1500 for the month), and a condo in mexico($2000 for the month-over half off during high season), is being in with the locals.  we love being with the locals, instead of the tourists.  what a different perspective!  a better perspective!  since we like to stay longer than a week, but no matter what the timeframe of the getaway, i always ask the owners on vrbo if they are willing to accept a lower offer than they have listed for our timeframe.  so far, it’s worked in every place we’ve been. it’s been cheaper than three days at disneyland!

as we are hoping to go to london this year, and southwest obviously doesn’t fly to london, we figured instead of paying $1100-$1500 ticket per person, which i would never do, and have always found good deals below that(especially since we like to travel when everyone else is in school-and icelandair frequently has good deals), we figured out that flying southwest to the east coast using points(so free), and then flying from there to london, would save us at least half the cost.  we have seen tickets for as little as $430/per person.  then to stay, we will do either vrbo, or this new site trustedhousesitters, which would be great if it worked out, because then we wouldn’t have to pay for a place to stay-and the kids would have a pet to play with.

a friend had asked for me to write about how to travel for cheaper, so i wanted to share what we do.  maybe people already do this, and i’m not saying anything new.  i know people have figured out great inexpensive ways to travel besides us-we are newbies on the scene-but it blows my mind how many people we know pay full price airfare and hotels when they travel-crazy!  our system so far has worked great for us-and you can always travel cheaper staying in hostels and camping too. also, traveling for one week somewhere is never enough-especially after paying for the flight for 6 people, usually your largest cost.  so we make it worth it by staying longer-which we can do since we homeschool.  we also don’t care for lines and hoards of people, so traveling in low season is perfect for us.  less lines, the weather is better, prices are cheaper, it’s a win-win-win.  we love to go in april/may timeframe, or september-october timeframe usually.  we’ll see this year what happens as we will be getting our oldest ready for college in the fall.

hope this helps somebody get out there and travel, while doing it a bit cheaper.  cheers!

sunday.  jan. 24.  2016

today we went to the tulum ward in tulum.  there were so many other gringo visitors there, so it was fun visiting and finding out where everyone was from.  we met the mcknight family from wisconsin-they have seven kids and homeschool.  and a couple that now live down here after retiring from the military-the drapers.

they had an english sunday school for us, and the drapers were teaching the class-and the mcnights and i were in there.  the lesson today was on lehi’s dream and the tree of life.   the rod of iron, mists of darkness, tree of life, the fruit on the tree of life, the muddy water, the tall and spacious building-all of it’s symbolism. lehi’s dream is so symbolic for our life, our choices, and where we will go based on those choices.  it’s about coming to Christ.

i love david a. bender’s talk-

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2011/10/lehis-dream-holding-fast-to-the-rod?lang=eng

the girls and i had a great time-love these adventures with our girls.

saturday, jan. 24.  2016

today was a lovely day, being lazy, getting ready, and our only thing to do today was to go to sam’s club and get some groceries.  getting a membership down here is cheaper than in the states, but you can use your membership in the states, so it’s worth it.  we loaded up our cart, in hopes this gets us through our last two weeks, besides having to get fresh fruit and veggies.  i’m not used to buying bread-we don’t eat any gluten or dairy at all, so when traveling, it’s weird buying it, and a bit hard for me to allow the girls to even eat it since we are all allergic to it.  but when traveling, it’s just easier, and i detox them when we get home.  but for now, this is all the food we got for an awesome $200.  pretty good! and these girls rock helping out, everyone unloaded and had food in the house in like 7 minutes.  and having an elevator to get to the top floor is pretty handy-we’ve been through hauling groceries across a lake and having to hike up a mountain when we were in guatemala to get to the house-so we’ve got it a lot easier here.

a little jump in the big pools after shopping to end our day, and it was complete.

ps-alex finished her application to byu idaho…here’s hoping she gets in for the fall!

friday.  jan. 23.  2016

a beach is just tranquility.  some beaches aren’t great to look at or play at, and yet, they are still tranquil with the crashing of the waves, repeating.  the sand in between your toes.  beaches are just the healing place we humans need to go to now and then.  on top of tranquility, when you find a gorgeous beach, it attends to all your senses…your eyes can’t believe the beauty of the water, the crashing of the waves, the smell of the sea, the taste of salt on your lips, and feeling the crystal clear and warm water on your skin-it all invigorates the soul.

and that’s what we found.  a beach where you feel like you are in the tropics(which we are), and you can’t believe you are actually there it is so beautiful.  this place had swing sets for kids too-which topped it all off.  we didn’t let the wind gusts get us down, it was just too gorgeous.  i even treated myself to a massage on the beach-heaven is all i can say.  the four girls bobbed in the ocean on swimming noodles for hours, and the little one buried herself in the shallow water and sand for large amounts of time.  it was pretty awesome.  and then to end a beach day with “la nave'” pizza for the girls made it complete.  i hope these girls remember all these fun days, and if not, i’ve written it down for them so they can’t forget it.

ps-being able to see the tulum ruins from the beach was an added bonus-just spectacular.

thursday.  jan.  21.  2016

i think we are in rainy season, even though we aren’t really.  but it rains 4-5 of the 7 days in the week.  not that we aren’t enjoying ourselves, we just would love a little more beach, a little less wet!  but we made the best of it-got our studies done, put together alex’s h.s. transcript to send to byu idaho, a couple movies with the girls and dinner, and then we got the ‘ol elements chart and cards out to learn about-because we would really like to memorize all 118 elements this year…hopefully!  we even got in an evening walk picking up alex from the wellness center, which is so beautiful and tranquil, i really need to do a class there.  it was a busy and productive day in.  i really love being with these great kids, they are wonderful people.

wednesday.  jan. 21.  2016

finally, a break from the rain!  we made it to the beach, and enjoyed the absolutely beautiful weather.  somedays it’s 96% humidity, but today, it was just perfectly breezy.  we spent almost three hours at playa paraiso-finally getting alex to this beach.  she hasn’t made it here yet due to not feeling well, or too much school to do-and she loved it.  we also don’t eat gluten or dairy at home-but on trips-we go with the flow, and every time someone comes to the grocery with me, they get to pick out a bread-y something from the bakery.  so, they are happy to come with me now:)  and they all got a treat for a total of under $2!  i love how cheap the food is here!

being in mexico with the kids has been such a nice retreat from the cold colorado weather. we definitely miss fun dad, but it’s nice being able to be in new scenery and a bit of a change.  its hard not getting out more with all the rainy weather, we hope to have some more beach adventures coming up.

i happened to be reading and researching about a few things tonight, and i ran across an amazing family adventure blog.  i dream of traveling europe with the family, picturing cute vrbo rentals along the way, driving along the countryside, jarom either working remotely or having a european job, and seeing how this family has traveled the world is just awe dropping!

they have four kids-lived in costa rica, bought a boat and sailed around to different countries and the mediterranean, spent a year biking across europe with their 4 kids!!! and slept in tents!  wow-i can’t even imagine how amazing and patient these parents are.  biking across europe with 4 kids?  seriously, isn’t that the most amazing and hard thing you could do?  i wanted to share their cool life and blog, because it’s pretty inspiring-and yet another family who decided to follow their dreams and have amazing experiences.  my favorite link is the link where the mom of this family shares who her favorite people are:  her parents.  it’s an unbelievable life and childhood she had, and now is giving to her children-   http://edventureproject.com/who-are-the-coolest-people-you-know/ .

wow-so inspiring.  i thought i was pretty adventurous, and it turns out, i’m just a baby adventurer.  i want to see the world, but i’m not as hard core-camping and biking as this cool family-but i hope to see the world with our little family-just in our own style of course!  i’m just in awe!