Thanksgiving in Mexico

We spent Thanksgiving Day this year in Riviera Maya, Mexico. This will be a short post (is that even possible for me - lol) since I'm exhausted, and beyond overwhelmed with just laundry alone. Holy cow - traveling really wipes a person out, especially when traveling by plane. This was the kids "once in a lifetime" vacation of this magnitude so it was worth it! They know from now on our vacations will probably only extend within the boundaries of Wisconsin, as they always have in the past.

We rolled in last night at 10:00p.m, all immediately crashed without even unpacking. The first item on the to-do list this morning was to pick up our dog, Daisy May, from my in-laws. She definitely was kept in good hands and was shaking so bad from happiness and excitement upon our return that we thought she might pee her pants (oh sorry - I meant on their floor.) 

I wanted to share some thoughts with you I had one day while I was playing water volleyball in the resort's pool.

The game started, of course, with a few of the kids around Luke's age - just throwing around the ball, hitting it here and there. Sometimes over the net, but mostly not. Then some other older kids got interested and jumped in, including Matthew and Megan. Then a few dad's joined in with Mark. And then mom's (me, too!), teenagers, 20-something people.....and naturally 2 teams were made. Only a few really knew each other's names, I'm sure.

Before you knew it, a whole game of water volleyball was going on with people from all ages and nationalities; all walks of life, having a blast playing water volleyball: cheering each other on; encouraging the little ones with their serve (we actually let them go right up to the net); yelling: "Good job, Great try. That was a good one!", and just simply laughing and having fun.

I remember thinking how neat the whole thing was. How even my very reserved, shy Matthew jumped right in to play with kids he didn't even know! How when a person walked by, someone would ask him or her to join in: "Come on, join us" was called out. "Anyone want to play?", "We need another player". And the more people, the better. Skill didn't matter - not at all. We were just trying to fill up the whole pool.

We were just a group of people on vacation away from the daily stressors of life, simply enjoying time with our families/friends and each other. Nothing else mattered: not age, nationality, religion, political view, sex, social status, language, marital status. Nothing else mattered.

Imagine how our world would operate, or even in our own cities, neighborhoods, jobs, schools...... if this is how we related to each other. Hmmm.....just something to think about. At least it's something I think about :)

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ours was definitely memorable. Instead of the usual Thanksgiving foods we've always enjoyed in the past, Mark and I ate sushi, and the kids ordered in room service (probably mac n' cheese - ugh).

So here we are home, and back to reality. Christmas music is playing on the radio, and somehow we feel like we "skipped" Thanksgiving since we never got to eat turkey and pumpkin pie, or watch football!

Maybe for dinner some night next week if there are any turkeys left to buy. I'm not ready to shift into the Christmas "mode" until after I eat a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

Until next time....