Viva Mexico!

Alas, the Doke boys have shamed me into writing my trip report. A girl can only take so much, you know!

I recently returned from Mexico, where I spent a wonderful week in the sun with my mom, Neil, Michael, and Mikey. We left Christmas Eve and came back New Year's Eve. I highly recommend running off on vacation that week. It's not like much gets done work-wise because most people are off anyway, and it's such a great way to end a year.

My parents rented a three-bedroom house that's about five miles north of Tulum (which is south of Playa del Carmen). The house itself was gorgeous, and there was a Christmas tree up in the living room, which proved to be a very nice surprise. My mom saved a couple of small gifts for everyone to open Christmas morning. That day, we went to the Mayan ruins that are in Tulum. They sit on a cliff over a gorgeous white beach. I didn't wear my bathing suit on that excursion, so I was extremely jealous of Michael and Mikey's frolicking in the water.

We (being mostly my mom) cooked the majority of our meals in our gigantic kitchen. The food was great, and it's so relaxing to not even need to leave the house. The days kind of ran together. One day, we couldn't figure out what the heck we did all day. It turns out our one excursion was to a nearby town for lunch. We all spent many many hours reading the books we'd brought with us, in addition to kayaking, snorkeling, and lazing around in the fantastic hammock chairs that were hanging from the covered back patio that faces the beach.

The girls in the family once again exercised their fishing dominance over the guys. My mom and I each caught a fish on our half-day fishing trip, and the boys were skunked. The McCall genes worked their magic for us that day. Mom caught a grouper (they're ugly fish!), and I caught a lovely tuna.

I had read up on the area before we got down there, and the one thing I really wanted to do was go to Xel-Ha. It's kind of like an ecological preserve crossed with an all-inclusive Sea World. It was just a few minutes down the road from our house, so we set out early one morning and staked out some good lounge chairs. Mom was sick that day, so she relaxed while the boys and I went snorkeling. There were some HUGE fish in there. Neil said one looked like it was going to take a bite of my rear end...thank goodness I didn't notice! I later found out that Jason was bit on the hand by a fish at Xel-Ha on his honeymoon. I'm glad I didn't realize that before we went! Mikey did jump off the "Cliff of Courage" a couple of times, so it seems I am not marrying a wuss. Good thing. However, he is marrying one because I didn't do it! They did have a "swim with dolphins" program at Xel-Ha. I didn't do it, but we did watch the dolphins frolic when they weren't performing, and it was amazing to see how much fun they seem to have when they aren't even putting on a show.

My little brother has become a snorkeling fiend. He's 11 years old, and on all our previous trips, he's been too scared. This time he was the first one in and the last one out. It was really fun to see him having such a great time in the water.

I have not been as relaxed as I was there in many years. That's probably what I'll remember most from this trip--no schedules, no hurrying, no deadlines. Just a lot of quality time with the fam. And I didn't even get tired of them!

I was definitely happy to come back to see how much Buster had grown in a week, but it sure was hard to leave the gorgeous, peaceful surroundings of Casa Playa Azul.