January 30 - February 1, 2018 - Isla Mujeres, Mexico (3 years 6 months) – Last 3 days.

Kadito has already learned to never turn your back on the ocean!  Either that or he just really doesn't want to leave.

Kadito enjoys a strawberry liquado (smoothie) at the beach-side restaurant.

Laughter is such a beautiful thing.  As is that cute little "tickle button"!

He is pointing to some boats in the ocean, I think.  This was when we took the golf cart around the island to check out some other sites.  

At the turtle sanctuary, we saw turtles of all ages getting prepared to be released to the wild.  This is the second stage – outdoor pools.

We bought a little baggie of turtle pellets to feed them (and the gulls).  You can see one little pellet at the edge of the pool between Kadin's foot and the turtle.

This is the final stage for the turtles before they are released – an enclosed part of the ocean.  Lots of fish and gulls and there was even a catshark in there which you can get a quick glimpse of at the end of the video.

We went out for lobster for our last dinner in Mexico and Kadito was the Lobster Monster.  Grrrh!

And Abuela Baiba was the Lobster Eater!  Yum!

Our ferry ride back to Cancun to get to the airport and start the long journey home.  He's such an awesome travel buddy.

January 26 - January 29, 2018 - Isla Mujeres, Mexico (3 years 6 months) – First 3 days

On the ferry crossing from Cancun to Isla Mujeres

At our hotel, there was a perfect little pool with a long strip of shallow water where Kadito could run, swim, and play without me holding onto him.  See video below for the live action version – "Mama, watch this!"

Arrrgh!  Inside a shark's mouth on one of the piers.  We were having a blast, pretending to be scared, and just as I was about to take the photo, of course, he covers his eyes… ¡No fotos!

The hotel had a (somewhat sad) little tank of slider turtles and Kadin loved watching them.  One waiter let us pick up the littlest one but the next day another waiter said we couldn't because one of them bit a kid once.  They aren't mean turtles so I suspect the kid wasn't handling him properly, but oh well, no more picking them up.
I love Dito's wispy hair, necklace, and bare foot in this photo. 

We had a day of rain on the Island and so Kadito and I went to the bar to play some pool. We must have spent over an hour there.  He loved hitting them, of course, but he also loved listening to them go down the tubes and running the tray to pull them out again.

At the beach… popcorn was our favorite snack.  Kadin would walk up and down the beach looking for the popcorn vendors.  I love that in Spanish, popcorn is "palomitas" which means "little doves".

The waves weren't very big on Isla Mujeres, but big enough to still have fun!  I left Kadin's blue life jacket at a bus station by mistake and found this inflatable one at a mega store in Cancun.

January 22-23, 2018 - Playa del Carmen, Mexico (3 years 6 months) - THE TOWN

On the bus to Playa del Carmen, Kadin wanted to play with my hair ties and asked me to put them in his hair.  Too cute!!!  Unfortunately, he says, "Mi niña!" now, and I had to tell him that boys can wear ponytails too but if he wants to pretend he is a girl, that's ok too!  

We stayed in a really nasty hostel only one night, but it's advantage was that it was right next to this plaza (Parque Los Fundadores), where lots of exciting things were happening.  The beach was right here as well, but we didn't hang out on the beach that much in this town.

Our first night in Playa, we watched the Mayan Dancers.  They were super colorful and fun.  You could ask to have your picture taken with them but Kadito was a bit leary of some of the dancers who were dressed up as animals and a skeleton.

Kadito liked the dancers but he LOVED the Voladores de Papantla (Flyers from Papantla).   He heard the drums going indicating it was about to start and took off running to see them fly. 

It's a blurry photo, but this is how Kadin watched the flyers, riveted in his seat, fascinated.  I asked if he wanted to do it and he said, "Mi hombre, me do it." (When I'm a man, I'll do it)

And here they are… Los Voladores de Papantla… This video is from YouTube because none of mine turned out.

I finally convinced Kadin to leave the Flyers and go out for dinner.  Here he is with a mouth full of pizza, watching the musicians play in the restaurant.  "Too loud!", he said.  My little monkey.

Another blurry photo, but too adorable to leave out and I wanted to include a photo of him wearing his surfer-boy necklace made out of a cut shell embedded with crushed blue stones.

The next morning, we left the nasty hostel and walked for about an hour to our new place, a sweet little condo I found on Air B&B.  It was already pretty hot so we got some ice cream… and even with ice cream in his hand, the little punk wouldn't smile for the camera.   He was happy, I swear!

January 19-21, 2018 - Mahahual, Mexico (3 years 6 months)

The next day, it was sunny again, and we went on another boat/snorkel trip, this time with a couple from Homer, Kristen and Fernando.  I didn't get a good photo of Kadin on the boat, but the snorkelling was awesome with lots of sea turtles and rays (I think manta rays and/or eagle rays?)

View of our cozy home, after I had a chance to clean it up a bit while Kadito was napping.

Kadito finds more friends.  The boy in the white lightening shirt was sweet and he and Kadito got along great.  The other two he'd met before and they still have a bit more to learn about sharing toys.  Dito was asking me why they wouldn't share their truck when he was sharing his car.  Eventually, we had to leave and I let the boys know it was because we don't play with kids who don't share.

Ay, que rico! 

Our last night in Mahahual and Kadito breaks open his backpack to show off all of his toys.  I found the key is to try and have more than one of everything to make sharing a bit easier.  However, Kadito made it a bit difficult because he kept losing all of his MatchBox cars in the sand!

February 1 - 7, 2017 - 2 years 7 months - Chacala, Mexico, 1st week

Getting used to swimming at the pool in Wasilla. 

Where the heck am I?  At the airport in Puerto Vallarta.  Tired and hot but fascinated by all the commotion.

At the grocery store in P.V., Kadin couldn't wait to dig into his yogurt!
The employees were laughing and taking pictures as well and then brought me a bucket of water and paper towels to help clean him up.

First day at the beach in Chacala.

Kadin was pretty nervous at first and didn't want to hold the baby turtle.

But then he was excited about it!  After this picture though, he dropped the little guy and I held the turtle for the actual release.  Kadin was right there fascinated by the whole event.