Mommy and Daddy's visit to our "neighbors down south!"

While Chris and I took a (wonderful) five day vacation in Playa del Carmen (thank you to Saba and Nana for the time share week!), Kendall gracefully endured her first extended period of time away from Mommy and Daddy with her Saba and Nana. She is in a major "mommy don't leave my line of sight" phase so I was a bit worried, but she handled it like a pro! My mom said she was a bit confused and looked at a lot of pictures of us, but really didn't cry or throw any fits and carried on with her daily routine. This is more than I can say for my heathen dogs. Two of them (Ralphie and Rehn) decided they would pretend they belonged to Michael Vick for a while and my mom and dad had to deal with a nasty fight that was almost impossible to break up and resulted in about $1,000 worth of vet bills. The good news is Ginger (the dog I'm typically worried about starting fights) was an angel! We owe A LOT to Saba and Nana for keeping Kendall happy and healthy as well as for keeping our idiot canine children alive!

Chris and I have officially joined the geezer club. I was awake and out of bed BY 7AM every morning (sometimes as early as 5:30AM) which enabled us to get a good front row cabana on the beach with the other old folks ... AND right next to our "favorite" (and really old) European couple. I should add that the female portion of this couple insisted on sunbathing topless and the male portion of the couple wore a ridiculously tiny weeny bikini. I should also add that neither individual was attractive and they were both quite large and hairy. SO GROSS!!

We were also in bed by 9:30 every evening and did absolutely nothing during the day except sit in the cabana, drink fruity cocktails and beer, cool off in the ocean and read. I managed to plow through the first two Twilight books in 3 days and am now an official addict. Chris managed to keep his work habit under some semblance of control but did keep the Blackberry close at all times (insert heavy sigh here).

All in all, it was a wonderful vacation and we came back tan and relaxed to a baby who, despite our fears, did not forget who we were and was thrilled to see us! In fact, I am no longer allowed to put her down without a serious protest. Mommy got away with leaving Kendall once but Kendall is going to see to it that Mommy does NOT do that again anytime soon!

Here are some pics from our vacation:

There are my very relaxed (and burning) feet on our very relaxing cabana!

Resort snack bar

The friendly resort raccoons. I insisted on feeding them while Chris insisted on calling them rabid varmints and fantasizing about playing an active role in their demise. They really were cute, though!

I was NOT as thrilled with the giant lizards on the resort as I was with the raccoons, and the lizards were not nearly as friendly!

And, of course, a trip to Mexico is not complete without a concert from a Mariachi band!

Beach cabanas ... be thankful I managed to get this picture sans fat, naked, hairy Europeans (there were a lot of them there!)

This is now my "happy place," to which I have already had to go several times since returning home!

Here is Kendall "missing" (???) her parents!

This expression now very regularly appears on Kendall's otherwise cute little face, typically as a protest of some sort. I call it her "John Belushi face."

And I am now thoroughly convinced that EVERY baby needs a set of maracas in her toy collection. Kendall was FAR more thrilled with her $2 maracas than she was with her $20 teddy bear we brought back for her. Go figure! Lesson learned = cheap toys from now on!