Guess who...

got a new job and no longer has to drive to Decatur every day?!?!
Go here to find out:
http://www.rcs.k12.al.us/rcs/Board/Board%20Briefs/2009/06%2025%2009.htm

Family Weekend

Matt played in a Lefty Golf Tournament at Point Mallard in Decatur this weekend, so he came to visit Wednesday and stayed through the weekend. My parents and Abbie joined us Friday night. We had a great weekend, shopping and relaxing. Matt finished 3rd in the tournament, and we were very proud of him!!

Win & "Uncle" Matt, playing in the yard

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

Me and Abbie

Here's me and my wonderful hubby

Here's Win's permanent perch in the yard...He sits so he can see in the kitchen window and hear someone walking in the house...he's waiting for his Daddy to come walking out the door.

Cathy and Steph - we missed you and you will be forced to join us next time!!!

Riviera Maya

Here's the truck - loaded down with Win and luggage.

Isn't the beach beautiful?

D became quite the beach volleyball player on our trip. He played in resort tournaments everyday.

Dusty discreetly took this picture of me trying to get a picture of Jerry Van Dyke (Luther from T.V.'s Coach), who was sitting at the table behind us. You can see the picture didn't work out so well. Jerry Van Dyke owns a house next to the Valentin, and he plays poker and eats there everyday.

If you weren't careful, you might step on one of the critters relaxing on the sidewalk.

Here is the armed guard as we passed into Playa del Carmen. These guys lined the roads entering and exiting the city.

Mexico's version of Lay's potato chips

Last, here is our UNtrustworthy Delta return flight. It's NEVER a good thing to hear your pilot come over the intercom with, "Ladies and gentleman, we have a problem." We lost a generator on takeoff, and had to continue flying until we leveled off and then banked (!) the plane to turn back around and return to the Cancun airport. We sat on the plane (in hot Mexico!) on the tarmac for over 2 hours, until they fixed (?) the problem. Needless to say, on our 2nd takeoff of the day, we were just a little nervous!!!

We had such a wonderful time and did not want to come back to the real world!

Tulum

Here’s a little background on Tulum:
It's an ancient Mayan city located on the Yucatan Peninsula, and is surrounded by water on one side and is walled on its other three sides. There is only one entrance/exit into and out of Tulum’s walls.
The temples of Tulum are oriented to the east. The spring and fall equinox line up with Tulum, which suggests that it was important in terms of their astronomic calculations. On the spring and fall equinoxes, the sun shines directly through two small windows that line up in the temples.
These windows also served another purpose-Tulum is (was) a port city - they used a light behind the two narrow windows . . . when a ship could see light in both windows, they knew they were aligned with the narrow entrance to safely make it through the reef.

See the windows? We didn't photograph them lined up, but they really do line up perfectly!

In one picture, you will see what looks like two lips kissing…this can only be seen looking through one certain portal at Tulum. Our guide told us that when a GPS was used at this spot, its coordinates were the exact tilt of the earth! How did they know the exact tilt of the earth so long ago (and with no technology to figure it out)?!?! Wow!

Can you see the lips?
It’s absolutely amazing at how the Mayan people made such accurate and complex predictions! They calculated the exact length of a year (to the decimal point). They made accurate predictions about solar and lunar eclipses. The Mayan calendar is extremely accurate, and although many people say that the Mayans made predictions that time will end in the year 2012, those at Tulum told us that is not at all what they predicted. They predicted that a new calendar would have to be configured at that time because this will be the end of a 26,000 year astrological period on the calendar and they think the Earth’s axis will actually shift just a very teeny tiny bit.

This is the beach/ocean (water entry) of Tulum. Below we're standing on the cliff that overlooks the water.

I think this (below) was the religious temple.

Below is where the leader of the Mayan's at Tulum lived.

Can you see the face below? It was on the side of one of the builidings.

I don't know what this flower is, I just thought it looked interesting!

Every night, there was a different show - our favorite was the circus show.

Fire show