Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Cancun Mexico Jan 2009

David & I had a great time in Mexico this last week.....Neil & Caroline Briggs, from our ward here in Syracuse, joined us on our trip! We had alot of fun, exploring the Cancun area...
The weather was not great for going to the beach or sitting by the beautiful pool...but it was absolutely perfect for hiking and climbing around ruins !

Below are some of our pictures from our Jungle Crossing Tour! Kayaking at one of Mexico's beautiful beaches!

4 Wheeling (or at least Mexico's version of 4x4) in a Unibog!

Actual proof that I did go underground, snorkeling in a cenote cave!

You can tell that I was alittle nervous, I am holding on to David for dear life.....this was actually the best snorkeling I ever did, I was so nervous about being underground in a cave, that I actually forgot to worry about breathing through a tube!

Our tour group!

Chichen Itza- Mayan Ruins
This was facinating for me to see the ruins of the Lamanite people....and be able to walk the lands of the Book of Mormon. The massive buildings, and intricate cravings were amazing....we had an LDS guide named Lemuel (yes Lemuel-a Mormon Bishop from Cancun)..he made the pages of the Book of Mormon just open up to us!

Our LDS group-all from Utah!

In front of the Temple of Chichen Itza!

Above is the Temple of Ek Balaam- we were actually able to climb up to the top of these massive steps....it was very, very steep! It was difficult to go up, but even scarrier to come down! Neil and Caroline and David are the three people on the right.

At the top of Ek Balaam!

This is our guide, Lemuel in front of Ek Balaam, which was one of the more ornate ruins.

Here we are over-looking the beach at the ruins of Tulum
The outer walls of Tulum were something like 12ft high and 18 ft deep for protection from invading armies....we had to walk through this wall to enter Tulum!
The fourth city of ruin that we saw, was Coba....once again we were able to climb to the top of the temple...the stairs here were even scarier because they were so uneven, and crumbling! Some steps were 6 inches high, some as high as 18 inches, so it made climbing back down even more of a challenge.

I took this picture of David on our decent back down the steps of Coba....you can see how uneven and how steep the steps are!

The view from the top of Coba!

Coba was so spread out and sometimes miles between the ruins, that our guide rented these rickshaw like bikes for us! It was amazing to see young boys and old men alike riding the tourists around for miles in these things! I think it was like 65 pesos which was less than $5
I would have paid double that....it saved our legs for climbing the stairs!

Friday, January 9, 2009

Christmas Eve at Grandma Teeples!

The kid table.....most of our grandchildren were at the other families this year, so the
kid table is rather small this year! Grandma's great food....as usual!
Sage helped me make our ornament this year...much to Grandpa Davids joy!

David was telling his traditional "Twas the Night Before Christmas on Sesame Street"

Mom's new leather coat!