We knew we had to do something epic for my parents 50th, but we also knew that a big party with tons of people would NOT be what they would want. We determined to travel somewhere with the entire family and my dad was insistent on paying for the whole thing with "our" inheritance money. My mom's vote was for the Panama Canal, others wanted Hawaii, but Ashley and I thought that an all-inclusive resort on the Riviera Maya would be the way to go. Despite State Department Travel Advisories, we eventually got everyone in the family on board. No food to plan, buy, prepare, or clean up after. Talk about a dream vacation!
Ashley and I had been to an all-inclusive resort in Playa del Carmen for our honeymoon in 2003 and we traveled to the ruins in Tulum and Chichen-Itza and went snorkeling in a lagoon. We had fond memories of the endless chips & salsa, fresh pineapple, and fried plantains. We had to find a kid-friendly and reasonably-priced resort, which task Ashley took upon herself and found the Paradisus La Esmerelda, also in Playa del Carmen.
Our only concern was Georgie, stranded in the midst of all male older cousins. Juliet is the closest Merback female in age. She gets along famously with Dave Quinn's oldest, Dayton, and so we contrived to have her fly with us from LAX to Cancun and then back to Las Vegas with my parents. Dave is a federal air marshal, so he was easily able to bring Dayton through security and meet us after we got off the plane from Portland.
Mimi was also waiting for us. Georgie was in heaven from the first moment.
We flew with Dayton, Mimi, Poppop, Jennie, Brandon, and Jaders all together to Cancun then got on our shuttle bus to the hotel.
Why yes, I do need a lift.
The kids loved the hotel right from the start. There were pools with fish and turtles right next to the check-in desk and they were entertained the whole time. These pictures are from later in the trip but give a feeling of the entry and pools.
Jaders mugging for the camera.
Cooper, Will, Ty, and Fiver. The young boys contingent.
Jaders illegally feeding the fish.
We checked in and ate way too much at the Brazilian rodizzo grill & buffet. A wedding was going on by the pools and the music was incredibly loud. I passed out earplugs to Ashley and the girls and turned on some white noise so we could sleep, but the music stopped by 11. Isaac was sleeping in Mimi and Poppop's room the first night because Tanner and Luke did not make the trip as their passports had expired. They visited us five years previous in Italy and hadn't renewed them since. It was a massive bummer.
It was interesting to observe everyone on the plane as we landed in Cancun and got the news from Ashlee. We went rapidly through several of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief. Denial at first for everyone, then anger for me. I got stuck in anger for a while. Bargaining was everyone else's next step, as they tried to find any connections we could to expedite the passport process. Mimi went right to sadness. I think that was the main reason that I was so angry. No one got to acceptance until the next day, and everyone backslid a little at times. Doing my best to help Isaac have a great week anyway, I offered him $100 if he would talk to a girl on the trip (and Georgie $100 to facilitate it), but it didn't happen. I guess he isn't as motivated by money as I thought.
Sunday morning I watched Spain self-destruct and lose to Russia. Ugh. We then got ready for church and hired taxis that cost $120 to get all of us to and from the chapel. Religion is expensive!
The girls looking fabulous.
I think this is Cate because she has a mole on her left neck and Lucy has a mole on her right neck. I love Juliet's facial expression here. I tried to translate for Dayton but she told me to give it a rest about halfway through the testimony meeting. Rob translated for Dad the whole time. After sacrament we realized that the taxis wouldn't be coming back for another 1.5 hours, so we decided to kill time by doing my family's devotional. My dad had mandated that all families prepare a devotional and take turns giving them every night. Our night was Tuesday, but I had the devotional on my phone so we "nos aprovechamos" of the opportunity.
Georgie reading one of the first stories. I had solicited memories and tributes of Kerry and Rosie from the Wayne & Jeanette Garff family, and they did not disappoint! Some were hilarious, some were very touching, and some were both! We laughed and cried with joy.
Dayton read the submissions from Pam, her grandma, and Jaimee, her aunt. She was quite the trooper to do it, as both of them had a lot to say about how much they love my parents.
Thoroughly enjoying themselves! Cary Ann Rogers commented on how her favorite thing about my dad was how he leans forward, mouth open, smiling ear-to-ear when he is listening to someone talking about something he finds interesting. And of course he was sitting in that exact position as Ashley read Cary's entry!
Jaders in my lap. Her name is Jade, but everyone calls her Jaders.
Georgie with...Cate again? They need to flaunt their neck moles in pictures.
Juliet got one of the best laughs reading Parry Garff's entry. He compared my parents' table at Thanksgiving to the kind of table that Jesus would be sitting at, filled with sinners and publicans. Juliet accidentally said "sinners and Republicans".
The girls and Isaac did great jobs reading their parts and the hour we spent laughing and crying was my dad's favorite moment of the trip.
Outside the chapel in Playa del Carmen. Jake is taking the picture because he wore a t-shirt and bright blue athletic shorts to church, and Ashlee was not there yet because she was arranging for Tanner and Luke to stay with their neighbors for the week before she flew down.
On Monday Isaac and I watched Mexico lose to Brasil (that is not a typo #latinlanguagesnob) in the enormous theater room filled with mostly Mexico fans but a few Brasil fans. It was a really fun experience and would have been even better had Mexico won. I love the World Cup, even if the US and Italy didn't even make it to the tournament and Spain crashed out in the round of 16. Hope springs eternal every four years!
Juliet is digging it
Isaac posing with Cooper and Will
Georgie is the embodiment of the Beach Boys' lyric: "A bushy-bushy blonde hair-do"
Georgie is really into contortionism these days. She surprises me with how flexible and athletic she is, since she has never been into traditional sports. Here she is performing a one-handed cart-wheel.
Isaac and Coop skipping rocks
The CA Merbacks
Georgie and...let's say this is Lucy this time. The twinners are getting harder to tell apart as they get older, unless you can see the moles. But their personalities are still adorable.
Cousins make everything better!
Cate and Will ordering food at the poolside snack bar.
Cate shooting Mimi with the water guns that Mimi brought for the grandkids. They were a huge hit!
Fiver helping Lucy pound some strawberry daiquiri in the pool as Jennie supervises.
Water gun fight!
Jaders is getting in on the action with her daddy
Lucy with her weapon of choice
Mimi and Poppop with one of the twinners
Cate, Will, and Lucy showing off their Mimi-taught swimming skills
Lucy doing her best dolphin impression
Poppop with Brandon, Jennie, and Jaders
Chicken fights! Juliet and Isaac taking on Rob and Will
And the Italian Merbacks emerge victorious!
Ty and Juliet. I think she liked the pool.
The Three Amigos ride again!
Cate on the kiddie slide
Will and the twinners all showered and ready for dinner.
The female contingent at dinner: Jaders, Juliet, Dayton, Lucy, Georgie, and Cate. The buffet was fantastic, with at least some different items every night and almost everything of high quality. The only problem was that it was CROWDED as they were renovating the family-side of the buffet so we had to share the adults-only buffet with the other side of hotel.
Jaders at the beach. Love this photo!
The girls on the beach in the evening.
On Tuesday we ventured out to see the ruins at Tulum and Chichen Itza. When Ashley had visited about 20 years ago, her family took a tour with LDS tour guides who gave a Book of Mormon spin to the ruins, and Rosie was loving that idea. So Alma's LDS Tours picked us up early that morning with Miguel as our main tour guide and Heber as the second driver and guide-in-training.
Georgie and Lucy (for sure) selfie
Our first stop was Tulum, a smaller village on the coast. Miguel is in the white shirt and trucker hat. His American accent was excellent, which he says he perfected by watching TV and movies, but he definitely said, "Guys" too much, to the point of distraction. We should have had a "guys" bingo game going, but it was too hot and humid for mirth. The walled section of Tulum was the holy area, where the priests and rulers live. This structure is a home of a wealthy person on the main drag. It reminded me of the homes in Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Whoa, what is this?! It's Ashley and I on our honeymoon in Tulum, 2003. Tulum was very uncrowded and unspoiled back then. Now it is a massive tourist trap and very crowded. The building on the left is the main temple.
Closer to the main temple. You can't get his close now. Funny enough, I wore those same Quicksilver blue board shorts on this trip!
Family shot on the cliff by the coast and the main temple. Jennie is hiding and I am trying to give shade to as many people as I can. It was HOT.
The biggest disappointment of Tulum was not the crowds but the beach. 15 years ago it was one of the most beautiful beaches we had ever seen and we spent a couple of hours just swimming and lounging there. Now it is infested with seaweed and raw sewage.
See what I mean? A lot has changed in 15 years, right Ash? ;)
The California Merbacks in the same spot 15 years later. If you look closely, you can see Cate's mole on her left neck (in the white shirt) and Lucy's mole on her left neck.
After Tulum we went to eat at a legitimate Mexican buffet in an old, refurbished Spanish hacienda in Piste. The best thing was making fish tacos out of the corn tortillas, fried cod, and multiple salsas. Our next stop was Chichen Itza, one of the most spectacular Mayan ruins sites in the world. The temple is overwhelming when you first see it.
The younger boys and Juliet at the temple. The whole thing is a big solar and Venusian calendar. The number of steps are equal to the number of days in the Venusian year, and the number of terraces off to the side equal the number of months in their solar year (18 months of 20 days each plus 5 holy days). So cool.
The big girls. We stood here in front of the steps and clapped all together like this: "clap-clap, clap-clap, clap-clap". Because of the angle of the stairs, the sound runs all the way up to the top of the temple, and when it echoes back it is high-pitched like the call of the Queztal bird, a sacred bird with extremely long and colorful tail feathers that were used for the high priest's costume.
The whole fam-damily, as Poppop would say. The face above the door at the top is the god of rain. When they needed rain, they would turn his nose upside down to "collect" rain and when it was raining enough they would turn it right side up again to let the rain run off.
Italigonian Merbacks + Dayton, summer 2018!
I had Ashley stand in front of the temple to set up this next shot, but I had to include this one as well because she looks so dang amazing!
Here we were trying to recreate a shot from our honeymoon. We couldn't remember the exact spot so we guessed.
15 years earlier! I told Ashley that she is even hotter now than she was then. Also notice that people are climbing up the steps on both sides. The steps are now closed after a woman fell and hurt two other people and at least one person died. It was an international incident because everyone involved was from a different country. The steps are extremely steep, which supposedly caused the person ascending them to look down as they walked and reverently avert their eyes from the temple on top. Also, the right base of the stairs on the left has a serpent head, the "feathered serpent", god of earth and sky. There is no serpent body, but the person ascending the steep stairs in a switchback fashion would form the body. Another way the body is manifested is in shadows that appear where the stair structure meets the terraces from 21 March - April 6. Miguel made big deal about April 6 being their holy day. They must have known I would be born that day! Also notice the line of people at the base of the temple on the left. There is a door there that leads to the interior of the temple, where there is another, smaller temple. Back in the day you could ascend those inner stairs to see a bench in the shape of a jaguar with jade (!) eyes. It was very cool back then but is now closed to the massive crowds.
Back in 2018, Miguel is telling us about this smaller temple which still has some of the original blue and red paint on it. When the larger temple was discovered in the 1800s, it was covered with plants. The easiest way to clear the brush was to burn it, which also burned all of the oil-based paint.
Mimi with Jaders. Did I mention that it was HOT?!
Dayton with Lucy (I remember what shirt she wore that day)
The final and best stop of the day was at the Cenote IK KIL. A cenote is a hole in the ground filled with fresh water. The Yucatan peninsula is littered with cenotes and I can't believe that Ashley and I didn't even go to one on our honeymoon. You could spend an entire week just going to cenotes without ever repeating one and have an amazing time.
Brandon throwing his signature backflip off of the 15 foot cliff. Ashlee and the cousins are in line at the top.
One of the twinners jumping off of the lower ledge
Some bald guy, Rob, and Isaac
Unfortunately, we arrived only about 30 minutes before it closed, but we still had a blast jumping off of the cliffs and swimming in the cold water. Apparently Red Bull has an extreme diving competition here every year where divers jump off of the very top level, which is very, very high.
Wednesday was July 4th, Jennie's birthday! The hotel did a great job of having activities and food to celebrate (the US's birthday, not Jennie's!). First up was a foam party for the kids.
Georgie in the foam
Dayton striking a pose
Jaders closing her eyes so the foam wouldn't get in
Juliet screwing up her face trying to do the same
Georgie and Dayton
For Jennie's birthday, and Mimi's anniversary, we all chipped in to buy them each a 90 minute massage that morning. Jennie said it was the best massage she had ever had. Her other request was to go shopping in downtown Playa. Here are the girls getting ready to shop with Aunt Sara.
They went to a fish pedicure spa, which Ashley and Georgie had done in Cannes, so Dayton and Juliet had the pleasure of having tiny fish each dead skin off of their feet.
Dayton bought this lucha libre mask for her brother
And the girls all got churros
That night we ate at a "BBQ" while a rock band played in the background. Big mistake! The food was not great and the band was low quality and "too darn loud". At the regular buffet they served really good empanadas that night, which I ALMOST went and ate after dinner anyway. But they did have a mechanical bull outside that all of the kids got a chance to ride.
Juliet shooting for 8 seconds. Or something like that.
Dayton trying her hand
And Georgie just trying to survive
They also had face painting by the mechanical bull, with Cate as a butterfly and Lucy as Wonder Woman.
The best part of the evening was during the band's break. They started playing dance music and all the kids went up on stage and started shaking their groove thangs.
Georgie and Dayton on the boat.
This is what the first two hours were like. Jake said, "It's called 'fishing', not 'catching'!"
We trolled in rough water for two hours and only at the very end did we hook something. My dad was supposed to have first dibs and the kids second, but Poppop was "mareado" and Jake told me to just hop in the chair.
Bringing the catch into the boat
It was a decent sized barracuda
They asked us if we wanted to eat it for lunch after the tour. My dad was in no mood and said no thanks. The guides claimed that it makes pretty good fish tacos.
Dayton hooked this one
Isaac hooked one of the biggest bottom fish
Cooper hooked the biggest grouper and they kept it for meat
Rob's catch
After the tour we caught a taxi back to the hotel and then spent more time on the beach and in the pools. During the devotional before dinner that night Juliet was feeling very affectionate towards Mimi and Poppop. Sometimes you wish she would just leave you alone for a few minutes, but that girl has so much love to give that no one an resist her!
Snuggling with Mimi
They say that Poppop loves Jaders the best, but that is only because he doesn't live close to Jubie!
Ashley made a reservation that night at a Japanese Steakhouse for the grandparents and the older kids. Poppop was enjoying himself, I promise.
Friday we went on another tour with Alma's LDS Tours, but this time to a snorkeling lagoon called Yal-Ku. We started in brackish stream that became saltier as we swam closer to the ocean. The fish were amazing and we found some short tunnels to swim through.
Miguel giving us some orientation
Cate ready to tear up the lagoon
Mimi and Poppop in the lagoon
Mimi, Poppop, Sara, Ashley and the grandkids loving it
Jaders, not so much
Ashlee with one of the twinners
Ashley and I underwater
Poppop giving the metal horns, Rob, Dayton, Juliet, and half of Georgie
Isaac, me, Jaders, and Mimi. There was a platform to jump off and we ALMOST convinced Juliet to take the plunge. Next time.
All those people in the water were shocked when Fiver went to the edge. I am sure that they thought he would never do it.
Wrong!
Isaac taking the plunge. He really conquered his fear this trip.
Brandon doing a backflip while the guy behind him is doing a swan dive. They ALMOST collided in mid-air.
The big girls loving it
They must have jumped off together a dozen times
On the way down
This is the best photo. Ashley is pointing her toes like it is her job. Isaac is following after, and Mimi is taking the plunge for the first time! We had the record for the oldest and youngest cliff jumpers that day.
I will never make fun of Rob's selfie stick ever again. Such a great picture.
On the way home Cate was slightly tired.
That night we had reservations for the whole fam-damily at the fancy Mexican restaurant called Mole. The best mole I have ever had is still the one Ashley made in our crock pot. My dad says that his favorite Italian restaurant that he ate at in Italy was Ashley's kitchen. That girl can cook!
Kids' table! Georgie and Dayton did a great job keeping the little ones happy during the meal and babysitting them while the adults finished their four-course meals.
50 years together. This is a great picture.
But not as great as what was to come! After the devotional that night, Poppop busted out some surprise romantic moves for Mimi.
Wow! He asked us to sing along but didn't realize that only Robbie knew that song! All I know by the Mamas and the Papas is California Dreamin'. It took some guts for an anti-social introvert to sing and dance like that in front of his posterity and total strangers, but that just shows how much my dad really loves my mom!
The boys and Juliet
The farewell family photo.
Thinking about the Tanner and Luke incident reminded all of us of similar massive mistakes that we have made in the past: losing money to an online scam, driving up an extremely narrow street, almost burning down the house with greasy rags, loaning money to people who have a tendency to not pay it back, not listening to your father when making a large investment at the peak of the dot-com boom, making a large investment in one stock because it was a "sure thing", not taking your spouse to the USSR when you had the chance, selling your boat without consulting your spouse, giving the love of your life the cold shoulder after she finally fell in love with you, etc. Even though the boys missed out on the vacation and Isaac sorely missed them, in the end it isn't that important. Nobody died or was permanently disabled, a negligible amount of money was lost, and everyone still had a great time.
