When my husband and I travel with kids, we take a collective deep breath and know there is a 50% chance we will wonder why we did it and a 50% chance we will be off-the-charts proud of our BIG kids. Our trip started off with a very early morning…a 4am departure for the airport…the reason for the aforementioned "deep breath".
In my "perfect trip" mom head, I hoped we could quietly transfer our sweetly sleeping kids to their car seats and they would continue their slumber to the airport. Fat Chance. They were fabulous on the first flight until walking off the plane in LA. Spider wanted to walk off by himself but at the same time, wasn't walking. (4am wake up coming back to haunt us.) So, we had to carry him kicking and screaming off the jetway.
Besides these few little understandable meltdowns, the flight to Mexico was fine and dandy. We met my family in LA, waited 3 hours for our connection and once in Mexico had a cold beverage in hand about 15 minutes later. And now that I have a chance to reflect, our kids were awesome, they were just tired!
We were at Club Med in Ixtapa. I have been going to Club Med's since I was 11 years old. It was an easy vacation for my dad to take us, 2 tween-age kids. This was the first time I had brought my own kids and it was amazing! The kids club had everything…trapeze, kiddie pool, toys, games, theater shows, sports, trapeze, trampoline, tight-rope walking…and more. Only problem, my kids kicked and screamed about going. The other problem, our nights were way too late to be getting up early for the kids club activities. It took us about 3 days to recognize we needed a change of schedule.
We arrived Thursday and after my dad's big 70th birthday celebration on Saturday night, we re-evaluated our game plan. Instead of 7:30 dinner, we tried to start a bit earlier and then went straight to bed instead of watching the nightly show. Life was still full of 3 year old behavior but we felt like better parents.
In the end, our kids soaked up every second of the ocean. They thought it was absolutely magical, exciting and at times a bit scary. They both went to the kids club and did the trapeze which I thought was amazing and even participated in the Kids Club show…Spider was supposed to be a dancing dog but instead was the sad doggie sitting on the side! :)
The kids had so much fun with their cousins and Erik and I had a great time with my family. The memories we created is what makes me smile as I write this….watching my dad teach Spider to fly a kite…watching my nephew Ryder kill it on his Skim Board..watching my niece, Scout get caught on the trapeze… and competing in the kayak race with Skye and Erik! All these memories are priceless. When you are knee deep in it, you don't appreciate it as much. But now that we are home, we can't wait for the next family vacation. Neither can Spider, he proclaims at least once every day that "He is moving to Mexico"…I guess that settles it, we have to go back!
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