Church Easter Hike

Almost every Easter, our church organizes a hike.  But dragging along three kids 3 years and under, you tend not to make it to an 8am meet-up time.  We went up to Eaton Canyon Park anyways.

We decide to get some McDonalds for breakfast and eat there. 

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And no, I don’t know why Caris is eating like that.

In the visitor’s center, there were some animals in glass cases.  There were two animals that had food in their cages; the tarantula and the garter snake.  Although I hate spiders and snakes, I had to keep my open in case one decided to go after some food, a cricket for the tarantula and some fish for the snake.

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The tarantula got my hopes up, but I guess it wasn’t hungry.

The best part about the visitor’s center was the glass case with the stuffed animals and their fake poop.

Now on to the hike.

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There’s a stream crossing at Eaton Canyon Park.  Last time we were here, the creek was dry.  This time, not so much.

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I have a bad history with stream crossings.  The first backpacking trip Yvonne took me on (this was before kids) was suppose to be an easy one.  It was only suppose to be a three mile (6 miles round-trip) hike.  Three miles to the campground, we’ll stay one night, and then go back home.  Easy, right?  Well it would have been easy if they didn’t lie about the distance and didn’t have the 26 stream crossings we had to cross.  So after that, I haven’t been very fond of stream crossings.

Of course Caleb wants to cross the stream, and Mommy was readily willing to go.  So off we go crossing the water.  I wish I could have taken a picture or video of us crossing.  I was carrying Caris.  Yvonne had Chloe in the Ergo, and was holding Caleb’s hand behind her as they crossed together.  Caleb almost made it unscathed until she lost her balance a little at the end.  While Yvonne was trying to steady herself, Caleb took a little step in the water.  He didn’t seem to mind.

Daddy and Caris, amazingly enough, made it dry.

Here’s us on the other side.

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We decided that it would have been easier to carry Caleb across, but it’s kind of hard when the kids outnumber the adults.  This friendly man offered to take Caleb.

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After some hard work this morning hiking, the kids need to use the potty.   Caleb left this present.

Life

Last Christmas Caleb got a live butterfly garden for a gift.  The idea with this garden is that you request some caterpillars from the company, and they mail them to you.  You watch the little caterpillars grow in size and become butterflies just like the Hungry Caterpillar.  Since Easter is coming soon, Yvonne thought it would be fun to teach the kids about life through the life cycle of a caterpillar/butterfly.

We didn’t get any pictures of the caterpillars in caterpillar form.  Somehow during the week, we just never took a picture.  But it’s awesome watching them grow from itty bitty caterpillars to big fat caterpillars.  The pictures will have to start at the chrysalis stage.

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Here are the caterpillars starting to come out!

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Alcohol + White People = Party (Day 5)

Caris started stripping for us early this morning.  As soon as we got out the house.  This stripping theme will be a recurring them today.  Her outfit was conducive to her stripping.

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We had our breakfast buffet today.  It was delicious.  We’ve been eating quite a few buffets since we’ve gotten here.  The price is pretty good for most of them, and we don’t have to pay for the kids.  But the best thing about buffets is that we don’t have to wait for food to feed our children.  For some reason they have lots of ants in their pants.

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We decided to go swimming after breakfast.  Of course a breakfast buffet, we needed a little downtime before we got in the pool.  Time to relax at the beach.  Or at least try with our kids climbing all over us.

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Caris likes to play with the sand.  She was dumping handfuls on us.

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Chloe likes to sleep on mommy or daddy.  This is another recurring theme.  In fact that’s pretty much where she lives most of the day.

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Time for the pool.  Caris needs to get dressed into her swimsuit first…  After she gets undressed first.

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Caleb loves the water.  He’s like a little fish.  I think he spent more time under than above.

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Room service for lunch.

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We found this at during our trip to Walmart last night.

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Caleb & Caris are still on LA time.  They nap until 6pm local time, which means it’s dark after their nap.  The playground is open all day though.  And has lights.  Good enough for me.

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Stripping again.  So easy.  Just so easy.

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I’ve been to quite a few weddings, mostly which are of Chinese people.  A lot of the times there’s a dance floor at the reception, and here’s what I’ve noticed about dancing, at least the weddings I’ve been too.  No one dances.  Not unless you have alcohol and white people.  You can have white people and no alcohol, and there’s no dancing.  You can have alcohol and just Chinese people, and there’s no dancing.  But put the two together, and you have a perfect combination.

Country Western Night at our resort is an all you can eat, all you can drink buffet.  And there’s a dance floor in the middle.  What do you get when you mix white people and alcohol (all you can drink alcohol).  A party.  These are mostly old people here, but they were having a blast line dancing nonetheless.  Having a blast with the beer drinking contest.

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Caleb was completely fascinated with the show.  Caris was focused on her food.

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We missed the bull riding competition.

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Caleb has been scared of balloons ever since they started popping at the Mexican Fiesta night.  Caris just doesn’t care about the sound, and likes balloons.

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Jungle Cruise (Day 4)

Jungle Cruise

I like Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise.  It’s entertaining.  The guide is usually funny.  There is rarely a long line on that ride.  And you get to see a lot of fake animals.

We went on a jungle cruise ourselves this morning.  It was a little different than the Disney version.  However, I enjoyed this one just as much as Disneyland’s version if not more.  It was entertaining.  Our guide wasn’t as funny, but much more informative.  It was a much longer ride.  And we got to see a lot of real animals.

Let’s get this picture post going.  Here’s Chloe getting dressed in the morning.  She’s happy she got sleep.  And food.  And a clean diaper.  And is being played with.  How could life get any better?

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We’re getting breakfast ready in the morning.  Notice the clock?  It’s 10:44am.  Still on California time.

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Now we’re walking to the entrance of the resort.  Our departure time is 11:30am, but we showed up late.  The boat is getting ready now for a 12:30pm departure.

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We found some bananas hanging off a tree next to our building.  Caris loves saying banana.  It’s her her favorite words.  Now if we could find that apple tree.

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Caris checking out the view from our balcony.  It’s been 4 days, and it’s the first time we’ve been out on it.  And knowing us, probably our last.

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Our upgraded car rental.

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After that little delay, we’re on the boat!  We were promised crocodile sightings on this trip.  Don’t let us down!

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Not only does Caris like taking off her clothes, she doesn’t like her shoes on either.

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Carlos Santana’s house.  Not that I really care.  Our guide only mentioned it, so I figure I’d put it here.

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“Crane!”  Caleb only likes this because it’s a crane.  The story is that rich people were trying to develop homes here, and they destroyed a lot of the vegetation in the area.  The government stopped them and ordered them to replace the vegetation in order to continue to develop the land.  The deemed it wasn’t worthwhile to build it any more left behind this crane as well.

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Some type of bird.

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Another bird.

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An iguana.

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An iguana walking.

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Another bird.  This bird is special.  It’s the only one crocodiles don’t eat.  This bird cleans the crocodiles teeth.  You find this bird, you probably find a croc near by.

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A local with his pet tiger.  This is Mexico. 

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Our first crocodile sighting.

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Caris is getting bored on this trip, as expected.  Only bottled water and mommy and daddy can entertain her at this point.  And we’re only 15 minutes into an 90 minute ride.

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Another bird.

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Another crocodile.

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And another.

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Let’s just say there were lots of crocodiles.

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Here’s a dock to someone’s house that was broken by a crocodile.  In the last census, there were 5 male and 2 female crocodiles in these waters that were between 26 and 31 feet long, all which would be bigger than our boat and weighing over a ton.  The owner of this dock/house found the 31 foot crocodile sunbathing on top of the dock one day as he was trying to dock his boat.  He called his workers in the house to try to scare it away.  It only made the crocodile angry, and he started thrashing away, knocking out the legs of the dock.  The owner has since had trouble finding people to repair it.  My question was brave/stupid enough to build it in the first place.

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Chloe’s nap time

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How many crocs can we see today?  At least they’re getting bigger as the ride goes on.

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We ran into the branches a few times trying to get close looks on the crocs and other things.  The branches and leaves and stuff fell into the boat.  Caris entertained herself playing with these things.

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Bigger croc

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I’m awake, Mommy.

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But not for long.

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We needed to make a trip to Walmart to buy some things.  I volunteered to take all the kids so Yvonne could study/sleep while I was gone.

Driving in Mexico is not so easy when you’ve never done so before.  There were talks about a Walmart being close by, but I could not find it on the internet or on any local maps.  Only talk.  There was stuff on the internet about The Mega, which is a superstore just like Super Walmart.  It’s only 15 minutes away, and I know the directions.  I’ll take the kids.  It shouldn’t be a problem.

For those of you who don’t know, the car isn’t always the greatest place for our kids.  Caleb likes the car. Caris can tolerate it.  Chloe absolutely, without a doubt, hates the car seat.  As soon as she goes in the seat, she starts crying her head off.  The crying alone will stress anyone out.  But now I’m driving in a new car, in Mexico, in the dark.  So many things can easily make this simple drive to the Mega into a difficult one.

So as I’m driving on the main highway, almost immediately as I get on it, I see the Walmart that everyone is talking about.  That is much closer than the Mega.  We’re almost there, Chloe.  No need to cry.  However, I miss the off-ramp to Walmart.  I’ll just make a simple u-turn and we’ll be there shortly.

Did you know that here in Mexico (at least in Puerto Vallarta) they don’t have left turn lanes on the highway even though they have stop lights? Well, I shouldn’t say that they don’t left turn lanes.  They do, but the left turn lanes are on the right side of the street.  I did not know this.  What really through me off is that when I passed Walmart, I notice the left turn lane was on the left on the opposite side.  The rest of the left turn lanes on this highway was on the right.  It took me a couple miles and 10/15 more minutes of stressful crying from Chloe before I could find a place to make an actual legal u-turn.

By that point of turning around, I had passed not only Walmart, but also the Mega.  I decided to go to Walmart anyways.  Here it is.

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Old Caleb Videos

Well, I guess you can’t really call them old, but these videos are from the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009.  He was 16-18 months old in these videos (around the same age as Caris is now).