Monthly Archive for December, 2011

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The Lighthouse at Punta Sur: Faro Celarain

Published on Tuesday, December 6, 2011 in Cozumel and Travel. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The beauty of a relaxing vacation on the beach is that some days consisted of the following agenda: BOTH pools AND the beach. In random order. Followed by a siesta. Make sure you see the sunset.

I’m not even kidding.

One of the days, however, we set out to explore Punta Sur, the aptly named park encompassing the southern tip of Cozumel.

We had such a great day that all our adventures cannot possibly fit into one post, so I’m focusing on our first and last stop in this park: The Lighthouse at Punta Sur, called Faro Celarain.

We got to the park before the cruise ships released their crowds onto the island. The first stop was the Faro, and we decided to take advantage of the lack of tourists. (As it turned out, the park wasn’t very crowded anyway, but we erred on the side of caution.)

Faro Celarain

We signed our lives away and are ready to ascend! 133 steps!

You can see the lagoon and the sea. Beautiful, beautiful view from the top of the Faro!

Shadow of the lighthouse, morning shot

Yes, that’s our little Tiida below, just to the left of that palm tree in the center of the picture!

We explored the Mayan ruins on the grounds, too!

Then, we explored the rest of Punta Sur. (Click here to read that post!) On the way back, Claire INSISTED that we climb the Faro again.

The adults summoned what energy we had left…and agreed! (What? Relaxing and exploring can be hard work!)

The steps were steep!

...and curvy!

And there were 133 of them…EACH WAY. Yes, that’s 532 steps per person, for those of you playing along at home.

But it was worth it! (Again…) ;)

Shadow of the lighthouse, afternoon shot

The Perfect Birthday Party Idea for a Six Year Old

Published on Sunday, December 4, 2011 in Birthdays and Gift Ideas. 1 Comment

If you ask Claire what the theme of her party was this year, she’ll say, “Rosetta!”

But, the truth?

It was Run-Around-Like-A-Crazyperson Theme, with a brand new Rosetta doll making an appearance by the cake and on the Birthday Memory Book.

We had Claire’s party at The Little Gym, where the kids played solid for over an hour (with cool mixture of directed activity and free-play) before being sugared-up with an ice cream cake.

My favorite quote of the party?

A little boy took a bite of the ice cream cake and said with complete amazement, “WOW! THIS CAKE TASTES JUST LIKE ICE CREAM!”

Awesome.

After the ice cream cake, the kids formed a pyramid for me to take photos…

(I always use a group photo as a Thank You Card…it’s a great way to send people a little memento of the party AND an easy way to stay on top of the Thank You process.)

…and then they had a little more free-play before the party came to an end.

This was a Run-Around-Like-A-Crazyperson Theme, after all.

As party favors, we handed out some handwoven bracelets we’d purchased in Mexico, and the kiddos got to take home a balloon.

This year, in stead of gifts, Claire decided she wanted all of her friends to make her a picture. I thought this was a fabulous idea!!

I made a Memory Book for the pictures, and compiled it last night after the party. She has spent so much time looking over each masterpiece and truly cherishes each and every one. Speaking of the artwork, they ARE masterpieces. You can tell each person put so much into his or her picture for Claire, and the smile on Claire’s face when she looks at each one almost brings tears to my eyes.

Getting to run around like a crazyperson AND receiving a treasure like this? It’s the Perfect Birthday Party Theme for our six year old.

Perfect.

Paradise Absolutely

Published on Friday, December 2, 2011 in Cozumel and Travel. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The title of this post answers the following two questions about our trip to Cozumel, Mexico.

1) Where did you stay?
2) Would you go back?

It really was paradise.  More specifically, the official name of our island getaway was The Residencias Reef. It’s located at Kilometer 14 on the island of Cozumel. This will mean nothing to you if you’ve never been there, but makes perfect sense once you have.

It’s just far enough south to be away from the cruise ships, but close enough to San Miguel to get groceries easily. (We recommend MEGA. It was awesome and had everything…except dishwashing detergent, but that’s another story in itself!)

We rented a car for the week, and I’d highly recommend that. Our place provided parking, and it was great to have a car to tool around the island on the days we wanted to explore or needed to grab groceries A LA MEGA! (Sorry, the all-caps on that was an inside joke. We couldn’t NOT say it that way.)

We were traveling with a friend, so the place we rented was a two bedroom (three bed), two bath condo. Residencias Reef has 24hr security and is gated.

This is their secondary security, if you get past the guards at the gate. This guy (and his friend) guarded our Tiida every day.

Tiida! (Ours is the silver four door.) We joked that this was the clown car of Nissan. It looks tiny on the outside but HAS SO MUCH ROOM on the inside. Totally bizarre.

View of the condo from one of the pools. This is the back, or oceanside, of the unit. Ours is on the 3rd and 4th floors, in the center, under the thatched roof. (Yes, really!)

View of the second pool, closest to the beach. Notice how crowded it is? Heh.

Elevator to the 3rd Floor

The condo was situated on grounds that were gorgeous and really well maintained. We had a “private” beach, just steps from the condo.

Claire and the guys playing frisbee on the beach

Connecting the pools was a wooden walkway that went through a lagoon-like area.

The walkway at sunset

Another portion of the walkway

This particular unit was two floors, with the main living area on one floor and a rooftop patio above.

Rooftop Lounge

View

The view was breathtaking. Waking up to this same view from our room every day for a week was amazing and made leaving really hard to do.

Which brings me to the answer of the second question. We would go back in a heart-beat. Hawaii is my true love, but Cozumel is a close second. There are parts I like better about both locations. I foresee another beach vacation in our future.

Absolutely.

Looking at the bright side

Published on Thursday, December 1, 2011 in Random Thoughts. 0 Comments

Sunset Palms Cozumel

It snowed today.  It’s still snowing as I’m typing this.  The above photo is the background on my phone right now.  This is not by accident.  It’s hard to be grumpy when you have that kind of view, even if it is on a handheld device.

I got to take the new car to school, making my commute somewhat ordinary, albeit exhilarating.  I’m amazed by Subaru.  Absolutely amazed.  I sing their praises every time I make it up our hill without breaking a sweat. I wonder if this feeling will wear off?

I got home to find out that Daddy needed Sue (the new car) to go in to work.  Normally, on days like this, he can work from his home office, but not today.  He was needed in the office.  He gave me some lame excuse about needing the new car so that he could make it home tonight.  He wasn’t amused at my advice to just pack a toothbrush and change of clothes.

His meeting started before I needed to pick up Claire from school.

My buns started getting cold just thinking about what this meant.

I let him take Sue.  (I thought about hiding the keys, but he has his own set.  Foiled.)  For the record, the heated seats are totally wasted on him.  He doesn’t set them on full-blast, and he doesn’t run them continuously.  He just doesn’t appreciate them like I do.

Before this discussion, as I was shoveling, I’d watched the garbage truck slide half-way down our hill.  ”Well, I scraped that snow off the street for ya,” the guy said as he went to grab our recycling bins. “Unfortunately, that just uncovered all that ice.”

Getting Claire from school was a piece of cake.  Malli does well in the snow.  She’s front-wheel drive, and I’m rather skilled (if I do say so myself.)  On the way back, our ice covered street got the best of me, though.  I made it half-way up before she gave it all she had.  All she had wasn’t quite good enough.  Twice.

I was in no mood to try my luck the 3rd time, for fear that the jumbled words I was muttering would reorganize into their proper format and fill Claire’s head with a colorful tale.

I could see it now.  ”Grandma, what does &$%^*ing *&#@#$%er mean?”

I got turned around and parked at the bottom of the hill.  I rang the doorbell and chatted with the neighbor that lived there.  She said it was perfectly fine to park there, but she could do one better.  She got on the phone and talked to the elderly lady that lived across the street from her.  They both insisted that I park in her driveway, off the street and out of the way of careening garbage trucks.

As we trudged up the hill, I thought happy thoughts.  I may not have the wonderful view on my phone, but I have wonderful neighbors.