Update...

"Dad? Dad. Hey Dad. Daddy? Dad."

"Yes Drew?"

"Hey Dad. Daddy? Um... Dad? Hey Dad."

"What's Up Buddy?"

"Hey Dad. I was going to... Hey Dad? Daddy?!?"

"AAAARRRRGGHHHHHH!!!!!"

SO this is Drew's current phase, actually underexagerrated. HE constantly strives for attention from either one of us parents, and even when he has our full undivided attention, he still tries to get it. It is exhausting and it is driving us CRAZY! He is also eating us out of house and home. I am expecting a big time growth spurt, starting about now.

On a happier note, I have some new pics of Drew from the past couple of weeks. As you can clearly see, Spring has sprung, and we are spending more time outdoors. Drew has been spending more time with the neighbor, Isaac. He now rides on his scooter to either corner from our house all by himself.

Drew is following Isaac.

Still following Isaac.

Drew's first Gatorade. He loves it. That's my boy!

This was earlier today in the front yard. Drew brought one of his tubes outside, and showed it who's boss. Here, drew stares down his victim.

Take THAT!

Drew get his kicks.

Drivin!

After I got home from work today, drew wanted to hop in the truck and pretend to drive. He had me buckle him in and everything. I haven't updated the blog in a while, so I busted out the camera and snapped a couple of pics.

"Close the door, Dad!"

Rollin' down the window

Through the front windshield.

Rock Star!

A couple of days ago, Drew got some books and a shirt in the mail from Jen in Reno. The books are awesome (anyone remember the Mr. Men and Little Miss series by Roger Hargreaves?) but the shirt was definitley the most fun. Drew was walking around all day saying "I'm a Rock Star" and striking a sweet air guitar-esque pose.

Popsicles!

After horrendous Spring Break weather, the sun came out for the weekend. Today was 73 degrees and beautiful. In between washing the cars, Drew started walking out to the street to wait for the ice cream truck. We kept telling him that it wasn't going to happen because we haven't seen it all winter.

A couple of hours later, Drew heard the truck coming down the road. He FREAKED out and we ran outside to make a purchase. Drew waited patiently at the truck as the other kids made their orders, then he ordered one for himself. "Spiderman" he said. The guy in the truck handed over the popsicle with the gum ball eyeballs as Drew gave him the $1.50. As you can tell, Drew enjoyed it very much.

You can't quite tell from this shot, but Drew was wearing a lot of this popsicle on his face.

Drew has a kick-ass sun hat, too.

Cozumel: What about Drew?!

While we were vacationing, Drew got to hang with his Grammy and Nana. While we were gone, we certainly kept Drew in mind as we did our souvenir shopping.

Here is Rey Mysterio Jr. A Mexican wrestling mask with a cape. He is also wearing the light-up Superman shirt that his Nana got him while we were away. Drew loves it.

Here is another Mexican wrestling mask. Spiderman!

Drew's Mexico soccer jersey!

Cozumel Day 3: Tulum!

The next day was the last full day in Mexico. The plan was set. Take a 30 minute ferry ride from Cozumel to Playa Del Carmen on the Yucatan Peninsula. Once there, rent a car, and drive south to Tulum. Then, reverse the process, hang out in San Miguel for one more night, and head home the next day.

Once on the ferry, we had a new view of our hotel. We wisely found seats on the outside of the boat, as it travels over open ocean and rolling seas. These aren't your Puget Sound Ferries!

From the ferry we saw the same flight landing that we had been on only days before. From here it looked like the plane was going to land on some shops downtown!

My beautiful wife Jill looking back toward Cozumel. We found it best to focus on the horizon to prevent seasickness. While we were at Coconuts a couple of days prior, we heard of some people who had just come from the ferry during high winds, and they were describing a lot of people throwing up all over the place.

Finally across the sea, Playa Del Carmen and her bright blue waters greeted us. Here is a cool looking hotel near the ferry terminal.

Once off the ferry, we are greeted by nice big welcome signs, and tons of people selling tons of CRAP. mildly entertaining and annoying at the same time, we only wanted to find a place to rent a car.

So after we found a rental car (Dodge Avenger with A/C) we drove the 30 miles or so South to the ruins at Tulum. Rumor told of some cliff side ruins overlooking a nice sandy beach. We were SOOOOOOOOooooo looking forward to swimming in some nice clear, warm water.

Here Jill follows the path to the ruins. I know there must be a beach at the end of this path!

There was not a beach at the end of the path. The temperature did seem to increase, nearing 85 degrees by my estimates, and also quite humid. Once we entered the ruins, we made a beeline for where we thought the beach must be. Here we found some cool looking ruins overlooking the sea.

We seem to be getting closer. We found a nice sandy beach, but it was fenced off. Dammit, doesn't it look inviting?!? What cruel people designed these ruins?!? Must... go... swimming!

Still looking for the beach, we found a totally sweet photo opportunity. This is the biggest building at Tulum. We have no idea what the building was used for, we were pretty much exclusively looking for the water at this point. I am surprised we took the time to take this picture!

The Iguana is looking at the entrance to the beach longingly. Even after we went down to the beach, swam, hung out and people watched, dried off and came back by, the Iguana didn't move. Maybe it was a prop.

Woo-Hoo! Cliffs.. beach... water!

Jill strikes a pose as we prepare to drop off our stuff and take the plunge. We picked this spot because it was in the shade, yet VERY close to the water. Beaches we saw in Mexico aren't like the cruel ones in the Pacific Northwest that make you walk 300 yards across the sand to ice cold water.

Here I am swimming. I think I was trying to body surf some small wave. Maybe I was just swimming while looking behind me. Who cares, I was swimming in the Caribbean Sea!

Jill dries off in the nice shady spot we found.

Back up on the cliff, another view of the beach. The building on the upper left is the same one I am pictured in front of in the pictures above.

On the way out. It has been a great day so far, and I wanted to get a shot of a beautiful woman in front of some beautiful ruins. Success!

Tulum, from the exit hole we found in a wall.

Back on the ferry, here is what Cozumel looks like from Playa Del Carmen. (when zoomed in on a camera... it is much smaller to the naked eye)

We saw these two every day we were in San Miguel. During the day, the dog followed a pair of cops. At night, it followed the security. It received no attention from these uniformed people, yet it always stayed within 50 feet or so. It seemed so loyal, so content and so cute!

Me at our last dinner. We ate at La Choza, a restaurant we had eaten lunch at the day before. Awesome food at great prices. Jill had the shrimp chile relleno and a coke, I had the shrimp fajitas and a margarita. Tasty.

Last night on the balcony of the hotel. Jill is looking at the view, which included a smallish cruise ship playing the worst Karaoke style music. We just hung out and listened and watched the ship leave. From the balcony, we could also hear the sounds of everything going on in the street below. Every night, a cruise ship leaves. Every morning, a new cruise ship arrives. Every day except Sunday.

When we awoke to prepare to leave, this monstrosity had arrived. Good Lord. Obnoxious.

Cozumel Day 2: Electric Boogaloo

As we said, Day 2 was a mellow day. As you can see from the first picture, taken the evening of Day 1, we were sun baked and ready for some rest. The day was warm like the rest of us, and there was a fair amount of cloud cover. Thankfully, this allowed us to get out in the town to explore.

Tired but happy, we get ready to check out San Miguel after dark.

The view from the hotel lobby looking across the main road to the sea.

Some of the local kids playing in the water in front of the sea wall.

Every time we left our hotel, we walked past this shop with the kick-ass wheelchair ramp. We saw some people on our trip in wheelchairs (all overweight tourists) but unfortunately, we saw none try the sweet ramp seen here.

The town square, with bell tower. It was a rare cloudy moment that didn't last.

The bell tower. About 1:45 it appears. This is a good a time as any to talk about the time in Cozumel. They do not observe daylight savings time, so this time of year they are only 1 hour ahead of Vancouver, WA. This makes it interesting because the island is as far west as Chicago, IL. It would be pitch black dark by 6PM, and light outside by 5:30AM. It was actually nice, because the evenings were so warm that we would spend quite a bit of time walking around or hanging out in the square with the locals.

Our hotel from the sea wall. Our room was in row 2 column 2. (of the 4 in the middle, we were the upper left one).

While Jill collected beach glass, I was on the sea wall watching these two boys playing in the water. Here one flies backwards Matrix-style and lands in the water. They looked like they were having a great time.

We were walking along past a cool looking church right before a service started. As you can see, there were a lot of people inside.

Day 2, after dark, town square. As you can see, shorts and a t-shirt were more than enough to battle the comfortable temps, even with the wind blowing and ominous clouds surrounding us. They all blew away by morning, and we didn't even get the rain storm that seemed imminent at sunset.

Jill checking out the scary looking clouds. Behind her you can see the gazebo that housed a 12 piece band the night before. A lot of people in town hang out here at night. While the band was playing, we had a great time watching people dance and simply enjoy the evening. Behind us there were 3 fire dancers with 2 drummer accompanists to entertain the ADD tourist types. AS initially interesting as it was, it got boring fast.

Here is a panoramic video of the town square a little after sunset. What I notice about this video (and why I am bothering to share it) is the sounds of the birds. They were a constant reminder that we were not in Washington anymore. They were these black birds with slightly long tails, they were loud (in a good way) and they were everywhere.

After hanging out in the town square, we walked South past our hotel and checked out Mega. We had no idea what a Mega was, but a lot of locals were going in there, so we walked on in like we knew what we were doing. As it turns out, Mega is simply a Fred Meyers. Clothes electronics, toys, sporting goods, automotive and groceries. I thought stores like this were an American phenomenon!

On the way back to the hotel with some Haagen Daas ice cream we saw some kids seem to be really excited about something on the sidewalk. They had their cell phones out and were taking pictures. It turns out that they were checking out the Mexican Redrump Tarantula below. This is the only good picture I got of it before it went too far out in the street. (The traffic in San Miguel is INSANE) so I didn't follow it out there to get more pix. As we walked away, the tarantula got run over by a motor scooter. You should click the picture to get a good look at its total creepiness up close.