Canada Trip 2011

So back in the first weekend of October, my family and I went to Canada for my cousin, Darryl's, wedding. It was soo fun. AND it was Jeff's first time finally being able to come and meet most of my family. My whole dad's side of the family lives in Canada-- on the east side of the country in the suburbs of Toronto. We were there for a short 4 days and it went by too quickly! I love my family over there and we don't get to see them often enough. It was the beginning of the fall season, so the air was crisp and the leaves were starting to change to beautiful colors.

Darryl and Meagan were married in a beautiful Catholic church! It is like 150 years old. The ceremony and setting was just gorgeous.

The happy couple! They finally tied the knot after being together for 12 years. When they were giving toasts, Meagan said, "I loved you when I was fifteen and I'll love you when I'm a hundred and fifteen." It was really sweet. 

My crazy uncle Derrick. Love him!

I seriously love my grandparents. During cocktail hour, before dinner, when everyone was up and about, they were just sitting alone at the big table so content with each other. They're adorable.

Most of the cousins during dinner.

My grandpa LOVES to tell stories. And I love hearing them. He has the best stories from his life. It's so interesting hearing about life in Holland when he was growing up and in the war and how he was so mischievous as a little boy. And how he and my grandma met. He gets so animated when he tells stories. During some parts, he literally jumps up from his chair to better portray whatever he is saying. He's so energetic. I love it. Both my grandparents still have thick Dutch accents. I love it.

This is a book that a Dutch man compiled years ago about people who immigrated from Holland to Canada. He contacted my grandpa and asked to contribute to the book. So this picture is the book opened up to my Grandparents story from when they moved from to Canada in 1957, the year my Dad was born. It was fun reading about it. 

 One night we went into Toronto because there was an outdoor art festival going on that happens annually where they block off several streets in downtown Toronto and have different types of art displayed. It was mostly modern art type stuff. Like the bottom picture of the spotlight was something they had going on where up at the top of the buildings they had spotlights shining on random people while they're walking and it was entertaining watching people not know how to react with a spotlight shining on them following them as they're walking, so they'd get embarrassed and try to run away from it, but it'd just follow them for a few minutes. It was funny.

We decided to start our own little display! We started a Leap Frog and tons of strangers joined in. It was so funny. This picture was taken at the beginning of it, but by the end there were a bunch of people! It was the longest leap frog haha. People were staring and taking pictures of it. It was fun..

 This is Yonge St. which is the longest street in North America? It's 1,178 miles long and end up Minnesota.

Eating at Canada's staple: Harvey's! LOVE this place. Best burgers ever.

 Went on a walk one afternoon. Pretty place.

This is a little out of order. This is me and my grandpa dancing at the reception. Sooo much fun. My grandpa is so full of energy! He's a really good dancer!

This is the family store my grandpa built and started in 1971. 40 years ago this year. It's on Main St. in their town of Milton. Now two of my uncles run it. It was fun showing Jeff everything.

I love this picture! It's so old fashioned looking. This is my grandpa painting some kind of wall. He still works as a carpenter, building things or painting things. He's in his 80s and isn't slowing down!

We flew out of Buffalo, NY. So on the way to the airport we stopped to see Niagra Falls, since Jeff had never been.

And that was our trip!! I always hate having to leave and say goodbye to everyone! I love hearing my grandpa's stories and eating ridiculous amounts of my grandma's famous soup and french fries. I always eat so much of it,  my grandpa has nicknamed me Soup. I love spending time with my Canadian family and I'm so glad Jeff finally was able to come and meet and hang out with everyone! 

finally.

After 2 long years I have FINALLY reunited with one of my very best friends! Lynzie came home from her mission in Czech Republic and it was the best weekend seeing her again. 

 I hate Provo for taking her away from me. 

Playing on La Playa

I really am pathetic when it comes to updating this. I guess that's what happens when you have a SLOW computer that takes 500 years to upload any pictures.

Well, let's take a time machine back to June. Actually, to back up, we got buddy passes from my brother for Christmas last year and hadn't cashed in on those puppies. June rolls around and we had all these places we wanted to go to, but we finally decided on going to Cancun. And my two brothers came with us. AND my cousin Joey ended up coming with us last minute. It was so fun. And having 5 people go to split the cost of rental car and hotel? Yeah, I'll accept that. We flew to Cancun, but didn't want to stay there because it's expensive and touristy and not that exciting. So we rented a car and drove a couple hours to a smaller town called Tulum. I had been there before when I was like 10 but didn't really remember it, so it was great.

Beware of picture overload. I didn't even put of half of what we took.

This is the hut we stayed in. How cute is it?! I loved it. Despite the hot nights of no AC and trying to fall asleep, it was totally worth it. It was literally right on the beach and only about 25 bucks a night.

This is the view from walking outside our hut. If you walk down the path about 20 more feet, your little toes-ies are in the white sand and crystal blue 80 degree ocean water. It was perfect.

One day we went to these ruins. They were so big that you could rent bikes to ride around so you didn't have to walk so much. So that's just we what did.

This was a game the Mayans played. Now it's been too long to remember what it actually was. Something about using  your hips and elbows to get the balls into that hoop on the top, hence Luke and Sam demonstrating.

Posing triumphantly after making it to the top of the ruin.

This was our meal for basically the whole time we were there. Chicken, salsa, tortillas. Accompanied by hungry, annoying flies swarming all around trying to get in on the action.

This is the beach from 20 feet outside our little huts. It was amazing. We stayed in a not-so-touristy area so the beach was basically just us out there. Which made it that much more better.

Yep.

Boys having a mud fight.

Can I live here, please?

Ruins round two. These was were much prettier, being right on the ocean. We paid like 10 dollars to have a tour guide walk with us and talk about the ruins because there were speculations that there were some correlations between church history from Book of Mormon times and these ruins. We had a Mormon tour guide named Abinadi, haha. It was neat being able to ask him questions and things.

I totally remember going to these ruins when we came when we were kids. My mom took us small three  children all through Mexico all by herself for almost a month. Yeah, she rocks. Anyway, I remember we had taken a long taxi ride to finally get to these ruins and it ended up being CLOSED. and the taxi driver had left us all alone  by the time we figured that out. So my mom, being the rebel she is, decided we should ignore the locked gates and no trespassing signs and hop over the wall and explore the ruins ourselves. So that's just what we did. I remember walking through those beautiful ruins all by ourselves exploring everything. I remember it was raining a little bit. So there was something about being alone in these ancient ruins with no one in sight, hearing the waves crash against the cliff. It was unforgettable.

Then we went snorkeling in some senotes! Senotes are water wells in caves with really fresh, clear water. There were a lot of fish to look at. I'm not one to get worried or nervous, but the boys were going really deep into the caves where you really need scuba gear, because the cave ceilings go really low, so there's not many pockets to come up and take a breath. But they insisted on going and exploring and they'd just feel around with their hands for air pockets to come up and take breaths of air before having to continue to swim. I thought they were going to drown! And I'd yell for them from the open part of the cave and they wouldn't answer because they were so deep into the cave and they were gone for like almost an  hour! Almost gave me a heart attack. 

I'd like to think that it's the camera making me look so ghostly, but no, it's  not. I gained ZERO color that whole time we were there! So disappointing.

This is the supermarket we spent so much time at making this trip as cheap as possible. We went there for breakfast everyday to eat 25 cent donuts.

We ate either at the supermarket or at the taco stands on the street. Best tacos of my life! They were like 20 cents each and I never got sick of them by the end of the trip. Jeff was the only one who got sick from eating on the streets. He threw up several times in the middle of the night (in our poorly ventilated and hot, muggy hut due to no air conditioning-- have I painted a pleasant picture for you, yet?)

We decided to stay in Cancun the last night we were there since we had an early flight and so that way we were closer to the airport. We found an awesome deal to where it was only like $17 a person to stay in this all inclusive resort! Equipped with tennis courts, pool, gym, SHOWERS, buffet, etc. It was pretty heavenly.

Luke obviously won at tennis. I was his partner, but I guess I'm too humble by not posing in such an ostentatious manner  :)

I love my family. How am I the shortest one?! So strange.

The sunset kept changing in such beautiful colors every 10 seconds that we kept on taking pictures.

We're so lame.

There you have it! Finally. Mexico 2011. It was a too short of a trip and I wish we could go on endless adventures together.