Barbara and Scotts house was great. It is right in the downtown core of Austin so it's central to everything. It is a 2 bedroom apartment on the 7th floor. The building they live in is great because it's built up around a courtyard, in the middle is this great swimming pool. Their is also bbq's set up around the courtyard, so it's a great place to meet people. We had a great time with them. We parked the rv in a parking lot across the street and took full advantage of the space in the apartment, which to us, felt like a mansion. Im not sure Barbara and Scott thought that we would actually stay in their home with them the whole time, but we proved them wrong.!!! I mean, they had laundry and a bedroom with a very comfortable bed, even if we had to share it with the two youngest kids. They had internet and cable, water that you could drink right out of the tap, a bathtub/shower with hot water and great pressure, we felt like we had won the lottery. Barbara proved to be a fabulous cook, im sure we all gained 2lbs in just one week. They were both such wonderful hosts we didn't want to leave. We saw many sights while we were there. We checked out the parliament buildings, Barton Springs, and this great river that was teared like Aqua Azul. We did some shopping for Vegas, and had a couple nights out on the town where we were lucky enough to catch some of Austins local talent. .We also tried to get Teaghens nose peirced. (an early birthday present) but that voyage was unsuccessful because you cannot pierce a child under the age of 16.( I cannot say i was that disapointed about it) The city itself was beautiful. We are so greatful for Barbara's and Scott's gracious hopitality and their patience. It was a great thing that both of them are so wonderful with kids!! Thanks again you guys.
After Austin we headed to Carlsbad New Mexico. We drove straight through and stayed the night at a Walmart. The next day we checked out Carlsbad Caverns. WOW, this place is crazy. You need to google it because i just can't do it justice. The decent into the caverns is 750 feet. There are 2 ways of getting in, you can walk down a switchback paved path all the way down, or you can take an elevator. We decided to split up, Mark and the older girls went down the switchback path and than came up the elevator, me and the little ones and we headed back down the elevator. Now, those of you who know me are probably wondering if i freaked right out, well let me tell you, i was freaking out inside, especially when that elevator door opened. I had to take a moment and decide whether i could really do it.....but i did. It was unbelievable down in the caves, there were stalagtites, and stalagmites everywhere. It was all limestone and it was awe inspiring. I had to part ways with everyone when we came to the shortcut back though, i mean i couldn't escape that voice in my head that kept telling me we were 750ft below the earths surface.!! After the caverns we went to the living forest. This is like a zoo, but all the animals are outside in a natural environment. We headed out on a mile loop to look at all the animals. We saw cougars, elk, prairie dogs and snakes. We saw links and porccupines, badgers and hawks. Lots of different animals, it was great. The day was a hot one so we headed to Bentley Lake(?). It was a state park just back from a lake, we took a swim and had a bite to eat. There were rabbits everywhere, it was pretty cool. In the morning Mark and i went for a 6km run in the desert while Rryla and Teaghen put together a great breakfast of scrambled eggs, beans and toast, thanks girls!! We then took a high summit road that reached heights of 9000ft, on our way to White Sands. What a spectacular sight this was. It was white sand dunes. Amazing, we hiked around abit and took some fabulous pictures. From there we went to camp at Three Rivers, we wanted to investigate the petroglyphs. They were very interesting, unfortunately we lost our pictures from this site. After camping in Three Rivers and listening to the coyotes howl as we fell asleep under a sliver of a moon, we drove to Santa Fe. What a beautiful artsy city it is. Everywhere you look you see art, from the downtown architecture to the many shops we browsed through. We also had a great dinner out at this rooftop pizza place, so nice to not have to cook! Tomorrow we head to Sedona AZ and than onto the Grand Canyon. I am personally counting down the days until i see my girlfriends in Vegas on the 28th, the only one i'll be missing is shortcake.!
This trip has been full of good times, it has been full of adversary too. We have learned alot from the places and the people we have met as well as each other. We have discovered that life has some unforseen things that happen, that you cannot control or predict. In saying that i would like to share with you that our beloved dog K'yoosh died recently. He suddenly got sick and after taking him to a vet he was unable to recover. We have had him cremated and Barbara will bring him home to us in July. We were heartbroken and shocked. We all look at things alittle differently now. It's funny how a situation like that changes you inside forever. Its like the lenses that you've stared at the world through have been tinted ever so slightly. Time will heal us all i know, but i miss that dog, we all do.
I am sending you all K'yoosh kisses on the wind tonight. He loved to give kisses. May you sleep soundly under the clear sky, may the moon shine brightly apon you all.
With love always.
US

Hi everyone, lets play catchup shall we......ok,so after we left Pilanque we headed for the Emerald Coast where the beaches have black sand. We picked an rv site from our book and hooked up. It had a pool and water slides for the kids. It was right on the beach, a great location. It was not near as nice as the yucatan though, and we were once again wishing we would of stayed longer in Paa muul. It being what it was though we enjoyed ourselves. Unfortuntately we didnt have internet service there. The weather was hot, and the pool was warm and it was very buisy because it was cinco demaio (sp) (the fifth of may). We had several young boys lingering around our rv lurking after our older girls, it was a little concerning.!! They kept asking to borrow our soccer ball and showing off for our girls. Mark and i rode our bikes into town a few times to grab a coffee and check things out but for the most part the little town we were staying 4 miles out of was very small and quite uneventful. We stayed here for 3 days and carried onto Cuidad Victoria. This was a bussling city, just about 3 hours from the border. We stayed 2 nights here and did some shopping and a shit load of walking, holly cow. Again walking anywhere with our older girls was a challenge. Mexican boys and men, don't have any dignity, they just stare and gauk and shout, its disturbing and crazy all at the same time~!~ Mark enjoyed half a day shopping out with us than he graciously took the little ones off my hands so the older girls and i could finish the day off. While we were gone he McGivored up a sprinkler for the little ones out of a two ltr pop bottle. It was ingenious!! We all had a little run through it when we got home. We left bright and early the next day, at around 6am and headed for the border. We crossed at Pharr on the US side. It was a breeze coming through the border actually which was a relief, we had to get out of the motorhome while it got searched but it was only for about 10 minutes. (We could of smuggled that little kitten in after all!!) The first thing we noticed after crossing was a sting operation going down at a motel, after that we saw another one going down at a gas station. WOW, scary!! The next thing we noticed as we stopped for "Peter Piper Pizza" was how heavy people were, which made me feel a whole lot better because when you are sitting in an rv travelling around from place to place like we are you don't get a whole lot of exercise and i am sure that if i havn't gained weight, my mussels have disapeared at the very least. Anyways we got our pizza and headed towards Austin, to where we could hang out and relax with our good friends I think a little out of place is an understatement, but oh well. There was a grad photo session going on while we were soaking in the hot tub. We took turns picking our favorite gowns, it was great, it was like we had front row seats at a fashion show.
After we rehydrated in the pool and hot tub we went back to the rv and fed our kids. We than had them hang out in the hotel, which they were so happy to do. To have the space to lounge and have a shower and watch tv. Us adults went out for dinner to the restaurant, which was Scotts treat. It was great. Not only to visit and get some adult time in, but to eat a meal that was cooked by someone else! Thank you so much Scott, it was so greatly appreciated. We slept in the parking lot that night and than hooked up the next morning with Scott and Barbara to go out onto a Pontoon boat which they had rented. It was so cool. We had a blast, even the dogs enjoyed it.! Scott brought out the fishing rods and had the little ones fishing with him. They caught so many fish which they released, even the big girls caught some. We saw pretty much the whole lake, it was beautiful.....again thank you so much Barbara and Scott, it was a mothers day that will stay with me, thanks. After parking the boat we headed up towards the motorhome. i was carrying Aidan and he pointed out this huge creepy crawly, it turned out to be a giant centipede! It was about 7 inches long and it was black, yellow and red. We discovered that it was a giant desert centipede. It has sharp, poisonous claws and venomous fangs, it is scary fast too. It can reach speeds up to two feet per seconds!! Yikes! Im so glad that when it hid in the rocks it didn't come back out when we tried to poke it with a stick!
We were now on our way to Barbara and Scotts.

Forgotten post

1. OMG i forgot chicken pizza......i mean Chichen-itza! We actually went there after Cancun. See what happens when you get behind, you forget. I can't believe i forgot this actually because this part of the trip was pretty beautiful. We headed first to check out a cenote. Holly cow, it was amazing. It's hard to describe it actually. When we first arrived we payed a small fee than walked about 100meters to where some stairs went down down down into the earth. Finally you came to an opening and it was a massive open round cave, with stallagtites and stallagmites everywhere. Their was an opening in the roof no bigger than a well and the sunlight streamed in to where the water was. It was at least as big as a bball court in there. Mark and Rryla went for a swim, while the rest of us just waided in. The water was cold and murkey. Birds flew all around the ceiling and you could hear them calling to each other as it echoed about the cavern. After seeing that cenote, we looked at another one, that was a bit smaller and had a much wider opening and not much water, but still spectacular. From their we continued on to Chicken-itza. We parked at a motel that housed a hundred cats. It had a pretty good pool and again seemed abandoned, which was fine with us. It was close enought to the ruins that we could bike there. We had heard of a light show that was going on at the ruins in the nighttime. We thought we'd check it out. It turned out to be very boring, especially for the little ones, Aidan actually fell asleep, and im sure it gave Brooklyn nightmares. They really shouldn't even call it a light show because it was more of an information night and they shawn different colored lights on a pyramid while they talked (in spanish) . We did have head phones that converted it to english, but still it wasn't very great. The next day Mark and i went the the ruins together and left the kids to play in the pool. They were pretty good, although you couln't climb up any pyramids which was too bad.
2. It was after this that we made our way to Campeche.
3. Love to you all.

Campeche and Pilanque

We arrived in Campeche and stayed in a dynamite rv site. It was right on the ocean and it had a huge pool. It was called the Nautico club, and it was practically deserted! We took full advantage of the emeneties such as the pool, the washrooms, showers and sauna. Their was a tv room and a games room, an outdoor soccer space, which Rry and Mark used to kick some balls around. Their was a great playground area for the little ones as well. It was great. We decided right away that we would stay 2 nights. The second day Mark, myself and the little ones went to go check out the town. Rryla and Teaghen opted to stay and play. The town was really interesting. It was an old colonial style town with a spanish flare. Four Hundred years ago their was a stone wall buit up around the city to protect it from Pirates that kept attacking it and raping and pillaging.We checked out a museum as well as a couple of amazing churches. The town square was lovely. We did abit of a walk around, hung out on the seawall and took some pictures. We than hit a super market, got caught in a rainstorm and went home to the girls. Apon our arrival we learned of a young cat and her kitten that had hidden themselves in a rock crevase close by our motorhome. We went and had a peak at them, but the momma cat was growley. We left her and went back to the motorhome as a big storm was coming in. The lightening and thunder was unreal. By far the most amazing lightening and the loundest thunder i had ever seen and heard. The dogs were freaken out, especially Keesha. Teaghen and Rryla ran out to check on the cat and her baby. They discovered that the baby was left by itself and ran back to tell us. We had decided that the mother would come back for her baby and that we shouldn' t take it. (I know you are breathing a sigh of relief right now Marie!). The next morning Teag and i went to check and both were gone. We later found out that the momma cat actually had 3 kittens, it sounds like she may of scattered them around the place. We searched and searched for her and the little ones but to no avail. I kept telling myself that it was for the best, but i don't think Teaghen or myself thought of anything else for the better part of that day on our drive to Pilanque. I only hope that the baby wasn't taken by a predator that night of the storm. I will say a little prayer for it tonight for it saddens me greatly to think of the homeless animals in this country. Their are so many homeless dogs and cats everywhere you look, it's hard to bare. I read a great little blerb in this pamphlet in Isla Mujaries about this couple who went on a trip to Isla Mujaries and wound up staying and rescueing all the homeless and injured dogs on that island. What a great story.
So i have finally caught us up here. We are now in Pilanque, this is our second night here. We spent the day driving to Aqua Azul. I had origianally opted to stay. You know to chill by the pool with the little ones, get some time away, but Mark was insistant that we all go. Really, i was imagining being stressed out on the narrow, winding road, stressed about the little ones in the water etc... etc..., but i gave in and went. Now im not sure why i don't have a six pack yet because my stomach muscles pretty much stay tensed the whole way on drives like today, and believe me we have had no shortage of them here on our trip. We first went to a 100ft waterfall, which was pretty spectacular, than drove up the road another 40km to Aqua Azul. It was beautiful, thank god, because this is the whole reason we came to Pilanque. We forewent the ruins because Mark and i have seen them and our kids are "ruined" out. Anyways the pools of water are a light blue color and they flow over these lava type formations all the way down the side of a mountain. It's so pretty. A very popular place as well. It was packed.
Tomorrow we are heading for ? Destination unknown. We will look at the map and figure it out. I just hope the roads are better than they were today.
Sorry about the lack of blogging lately folks, it's been buisy. Oh i forgot to mention that the rv site we are staying at has its own resident howler monkey. It's a male and its alone which we learned that when that happens its because the male has gotten too old and was kicked out of its family and therefore spends the rest of its days alone. Anyways he is loud, very loud, i don't think he likes the dogs very much . We had a massive cockroche in here last night, but Mark got him out. We now have a son who is totally addicted to gameboy, and it is so hot that we are all melting. Today it was about 42 degrees. OUCH! Our older girls look too old and more beautiful than when we left and our little ones are swimming and diving into pools. We are so lucky and so blessed for this family, for this experience and for this life.
Sleep well friends and family, for we love and miss you all.
xoxo
US>

Back in Mexico

The border crossing was a sinch, well except for the fact that they made Mark, the kids, and the dogs get out of the rv and walk across. I had to drive the rv through by myself because it is in my name. I had some difficulty with the red light green light thing, but i won't get into it right now.....it's kind of embarassing. So we were off to Paa Mul and wow, it was beautiful. We also ran into our European travellers there. They were leaving the next day though so it was a quick hi and bye, they were heading for the interior of Mexico. The kids loved the pool. We even got in on some volleyball games that were being played by some of the lifers and some of the staff. The beach was great and we found some more amazing shells. We stayed for 4 nights, but in retrospect we should of stayed longer because it was a truley beautiful place. We toured Tulum one day and got in some more ruins to add to our list. The beach there was to die for, it was pretty packed though and the waves were quite strong. We enjoyed a kareoki night at Paa Mul, we didn;t actually sing anything but it was entertaining!! We danced and had a great time. Teaghen and Rryla met some of the locals and really enjoyed themselves. We did some bike riding up the coast and got attacked by gigantic mosquitoes. I even got a run in, it was so nice. The water in this area is so amazing the sand is white and the water is just crystal blue. It was brilliant, we really miss it.!
After reluctantly saying goodbye to Paa Mul we made our way to Cancun. The rv site we had picked out for this area was just on the outskirts, we didn't have many choices actually. Our goal was not to check out the massive city of Cancun anyways, but to take a ferry across to Isla Mujaries. We checked into our site, than tucked in for the night so we could get up for a big day. The ferry ride across was abit rocky. It took about half an hour to get across. Our ferry was not the nice looking one that they showed in the brochure, but we made it safe and sound at any rate. Once there we rented a golf cart to check out the island in. So imagine this......there was a small bench seat in the front and one that faced out the back. We had myself (driving), Aidan and Mark in the front and Teag, Rry and Brooklyn in the back, oh and the 2 dogs up front with us. We must of looked like a sight because everyone was staring at us!!! We also took this opportunity to teach Rry and Teag how to drive, they loved it and did really well actually. Teaghen was abit of a lead footer though, and about as graceful at the wheel as she is on land. Rryla was much more cautious and we all felt much safer with her at the wheel. Anyways we checked out some sights and than hit the beautiful white sandy beaches of the island. Mark even got some snorkeling in and, of course, we found some more seashells!! The day was great, we headed back towards dinner time, but this time we took the big ol car ferry back. It was cheaper and closer to our rv site. We had planned to walk the distance. Mark had been assuring us that it wasn't far......well let me just say that it was HELL! it ended up being about 5 km and we started getting eaten alive by mosquitos.! I should of realized that something was up when Mark insisted on taking Aidan from me. I think he started realizing alot sooner than the rest of us that it was going to be a bit of a slog. Oh well, honestly since we were sitting in a golf cart for most of the day, we all needed abit of excercise. Perhaps it might help us sleep through the heat as well!

Belize

Ok, so lets talk about Belize. Now, i think this country is great if your visiting the Que's, but not that wonderful if your just traveling around, of course thats just the opionion of me and the older girls. We decided that it wasn't that interesting overall, but it was great that they spoke english!! We arrived in the evening, after going through a nice relaxed border crossing and stayed at an rv park in San Ignacio. It was just outside of town. We biked in one day and spent sometime at the river. The older girls and Mark jumped off the suspension bridge while i took pictures. At first we were hanging out on the river bank across from all the locals because of all the boys oggling our older girls, it was crazy! However, we did have to move to the locals side eventually because we were informed by an 8 year old boy that we were hanging out where the pigs hang out. And sure enough right after he told us this a gigantic pink pig came strolling down to the river bank. We quickly left. I spent some time talking to the locals and taking pictures of the kids. I was than asked by a group of young men if they could get a picture taken with our girls, i agreed, as long as we were all in it. Im sure you'll see it posted on the blog, Mark took the picture. We than rode into town and had a great lunch, and than rode home again. It was a big day of riding because it was pretty hilly. The next day we headed for an rv park just outside of Belize city, but first we stopped to check out a howler monkey sanctuary. It was called a baboon sanctuary, but it was howler monkeys. The owner and operator was very knowledgeable, and extremely passionate about the monkeys and thier habitat. He was very friendly and happy to tour us around. We enjoyed the sanctuary and would recommend it to anybody traveling in Belize. We got to hand feed a baby howler monkey, and yes we have great pic's of that as well. After the tour we headed for the marina. It was great to have the breeze off the ocean for we were all very hot. The reason we chose this particular rv destination was because they had laundry facilities, which we were in great need of. The facilities included one washer and one dryer, we bought some tokens for a high price and realized that some of the tokens given to us were actually 2 peso coins from mexico, well lucky us!!! We just happened to have a few of those hanging around the motorhome and it a good thing too because we had lots of laundry to do, we finished sometime around midnight.! The next day we headed for the border, we were all excited to be getting back into Mexico. We were headed to an rv park called Paa Mul. It promised to have a beautiful beach and swimming pool! YES.....it had been awhile since we had been on a beach and on the ocean for that matter.

Belize