Mexican Cruise Pics, finally

I am feeling good right now. I am on top of school work, only a couple weeks left of the semester. The house work is on that good predictable schedule. I feel like I am finally getting a firm grasp on things again. Just in time for school to get out, right? Although, I already signed the kids up for Y camp, yeah!

So, the point of this one, is that I finally have the time to sit down at the computer and upload the pics from the cruise. And try to empty my email inbox, boy that was not pretty.



Here we are after a good full day at Cozumel. I did all the good shopping there. We had some real fun there. We didn't do any of that tourist excursion stuff that they try to sell you on the boat. We totally winged it all day. We walked off the boat and looked for the first place that we could find to rent a moped. We then drove around the island. Stopped at a beach that looked promising. That's where there was this guy that rescued animals and he let us play with his monkey, so cute. Then on the beach were these couple guys who had a boat and they took us out snorkeling. It was really beautiful, we saw eels, rays, and a ton of reef fish. While we were out we saw one of the excursion snorkel boats, it was like 25 people all in one spot, all having to wear life vests. There are very few things less appealing to nature than a whole boatload of white overweight Americans trying to commune with a reef en mass. I really liked the way we did it, it was just Dan and I and the local guy occasionally pointing stuff out to us. Without the jackets we could also dive down whenever we wanted to. After that beach, we continued to drive around the island and then found some completely empty beaches and enjoyed walking and exploring there. Then drove back to the boat with one fun little romp through the downtown area that included us driving the wrong way on a one-way street. We did Cozumel up right, let me tell you. The rest of the pics to go with the story...











The next stop was Progresso, that's when we did do the tourist thing and bought an excursion to Chichen Itza, which is the thing we were the most excited about. We were a little bummed to find out that you can no longer climb up it. Later in the day at another part of the ruins there was this thing of steps, maybe like six or seven, and climbing it burned. The climbing down part though was so scary. The steps are small and steep. I know that I would not have gone up to the top, I would have gone about ten steps up, freaked myself out and called it quits. It was really cool to look at though. We got to walk around the almost the whole grounds. We saw the arena where they play that game with the sideways hoop, you can sort of see it in one of the pics. There is this one thing called the cemetery, I'm standing there in the front of it, its a rectangular block thing just with skull after skull in relief, totally awesome. There is one picture I have near the arena with a little Mayan women selling handkerchiefs, she is normal size for her people. It was a really amazing place, even if we didn't see any drug lords.









That's about it, I don't really have any pics from when we were on the boat. We didn't really do anything but sleep and eat. And I mean eat. I am still paying for that one. Here we are a month later, I am just getting back to the gym, I need to work off about 8 pounds from these past couple months, totally worth it.

The Talk

Last week, while Punx was home from school Dan thought it was the perfect time to have "the talk." I was just very happy that I got through the deployment without the question and could field this one over to Dan. Dan took him up to his room and they had their discussion. It all went pretty normal. Dan was trying to be as vague as possible but we all know how that goes. Finally Punx asked a question that needed to be given a more direct answer. After learning what I am guessing was more than he wanted to know or had imagined, his response, "Dad, I didn't think it was like that. Why didn't you wait to tell me until I was thirteen?"

All Punx, all the time

Between Punx and the paper I have due today I finally have a moment to myself. It's spring break this week and rather than do something like fun, Punx had surgery. On Wednesday he had his tonsils, adenoids, and a cosmetic procedure done on his ear. So the lead up to the surgery was what kind of fun can we have today since he is going to be miserable soon. We played with friends, went to the movies, and played on the trampoline a lot. It's a new purchase so the kids are on it all the time, that was a really good buy for us.

The 7am surgery time was not so fun. Punx chose me to take him and Dan stayed home with the other two. They gave him a sedative about 30 minutes before they took him back. Let me just say, drunk Punx is an awful lot like regular Bug, that was surprising. Before they doped him up, he was just laying on the bed, all nervous, but a nervous Punx is a very quiet one. Once he was all loopy, he got this really weird grin on his face that wouldn't go away and he wouldn't keep still. I had to keep making him lay back down because he was trying to get away. He wouldn't answer questions, just look at me with that goofy grin.

Then they took him back and it took about two hours. The doctor then told me I had time to go to the pharmacy before he woke up and then I could see him. He woke up while I was at the pharmacy and by the time I got back he was really upset and crying. It just about broke my heart when the nurses brought me back to where he was, to see him with his head all bandaged up, crying out like that. They let me get in bed with him to calm him down. The nurse came back a little later and commented that his heart had slowed way down. That made me feel good. That I serve a purpose to my children. He was so hurting and just asking to go home. It took another hour or so, but once we got home he was better.

Under the constant care of Tylenol with codeine and the computer which he swears makes him feel better, he is doing alright. We go to the doctor today to check on the head dressing and see if he can get a smaller one on. He will still be out of school for a while but so far, he is doing well on his diet of pudding, popsicles, and ice cream.



This is how I know he is doing better, he couldn't even be bothered with the camera. He sort of looked at it, waved and went back to his game.