FIVE!

It is hard to believe we have a five year old in the house...can you believe it? We celebrated Brock's birthday multiple times, first we celebrated with family and a couple friends before our trip, and then again (the official day) while we were in Mexico. The hotel put balloons and cake in our room, and a 'Happy Birthday' sign on the door. A little about Brock at five:
- You are still an intensely smart little dude - always asking questions, studying things and situations! Wise beyond your years and always have been! The other day you and Theo had the water on and it was draining down our yard and onto the sidewalk. I told you it needed to be turned off and you quickly said "but mom, we are scientists and were studying how water floods dry parts of the earth". Oh well then, if it is educational mom will let us do it a few minutes longer - and I did :) Then I gave the second warning and Brock responed, "but mom, now we are studying how rivers flow to the ocean" Okay, two more minutes of studying and then you are done!
- You are so sweet and a little serious! You are so sweet - you love your bother, the earth and other people. You make me a better person and here is an example. The other day we were watching the news and there was a guy with a seriously terrible hair do. I made a comment like, 'that is some crazy hair' and Brock said, 'But mom, I think he likes it that way'. So instead of having a laugh over the crazy comb over you really made mom think! You love bugs and will not kill a fly...much like your father. I've heard you many times tell your bug-stomping friends and brother to stop killing bugs. And now you tell them (as your dad has told you), 'If you kill it you have to eat it'. Theo actually did eat a bug after Brock told him that this summer :)
- You are and always have been our non sleeper! Yesterday there was a lunar eclipse and we read about it to Brock. He really wanted to see it so we set our alarms for 4:30 am. Turns out we didn't need them because Brock got up on his own ready to see the eclipse, he watched it for hours! I couldn't believe how excited he was about an eclipse - it isn't all that exciting to watch, but he was fascinated.
Happy Birthday Brock! We love you so much!

Nuevo Vallarta!

Just two days back and we are already missing the warm weather, sandy beaches, sweet baby turtles and nice people of Mexico! We stayed at a fantastic resort called Dreams Villamagna in Nuevo Vallarta. We met some friends (two fams from AK). We pretty much spent every day playing at the beach and swimming in the pool which was just the kind of vacation we needed and was just perfect for our two little beach bums. We knew they were getting spoiled when after a couple days Theo picked up the phone in our room and placed an order for room service, "Hello, I want some two chicken nuggets pease, bye" and Brock was giving knuckles to the concierge and ordered a dirty monkey (virgin of course) from the bar. We got them home just before they became fully spoiled by hotel life :) Here are some pictures of our Vallarta adventures.

The view from our room and the resort from the beach.

We logged many hours at the pool! This pool had a gradual entrance and was great for the kids.

Fun in our room. Lounging in bed, admiring the towel elephant, and swimming in the balcony hot tub...what a life!

The sea turtles were the absolute highlight of the trip! On the second night we were there we were walking along the beach at night. My friend Kathleen and I were in the middle of talking about sea turtles and I told her I didn't think we would see any - two seconds later we spot a HUGE mama sea turtle coming up the beach (shows what I know!). It turns out our beach is a huge nesting area and that night was just the beginning of our sea turtle adventures! Each morning Cory and I would spot babies or freshly hatched eggs on our runs, then one morning we were at the beach with the boys and a baby sea turtle practically walks under our chair - we found the nest and intiated the discovery of 16 babies! They have a large conservation effort for these creatures on this beach and they try to relocate nests and babies to protected areas. So the 'officials' collected our baby turtles out of Brocks bucket (ahhhh, could this get any more exciting) and we met them later that night to release them at dusk (nope, doesn't get any more exciting than that). My pictures weren't great once the sun went down - no flash photo - it confuses the little cuties! The biologist drew a line in the sand and after everyone caked there hands in sand they placed a turtle in everyone's hand - Brock and Theo! Then on the count of three everyone put them down and off they went! SO AWESOME!

We also logged a trillion hours at the beach. The water and waves were perfect for playing and boogie boarding. The surf was full of creatures ...sand crabs, sand dollars, crabs, starfish and little surfing fish. The kids all got along beautifully! Talon, was so sweet with Theo and even carried him around a bit...it was the sweetest! Brock, to my great delight, loved playing volleyball with the big folks. He would run around like he was ready for a big play and was annoyed that he never got the ball. He got hit with the ball pretty good once, but he just shook it off and said, 'good thing I blocked it, huh mom?" Love my little guy!

Brock and I ventured into Puerto Vallarta with our gang of friends.

If the boys had any energy left we would head out on 'the town' (i.e. the lobby or ballroom) for the evening entertainment.