Christmas 2008

Photo from the front steps of the Houghton's mountain home a couple days after Christmas. It seems like we all had some type of bug, so Grandma and Charlie didn't want to get anywhere near us. Besides missing them in this photo there were also 4 fur balls (2 puggles and 2 beagles) that didn't make it in the picture.  Jaclyn and I came in Christmas day, after returning from Cancun the night before. 

This year our family decided to do something for charity instead of gift giving. We all chipped in and bought two water buffalo from Hiefer International, a charity that provides animals to needy families around the world tohelp  create sustainable income. The water buffalo will be used to in the Filipines to help farmers.

Moon Palace, Cancun

During my Christmas break this year I went to Cancun with Jaclyn and her family. The picture below is the Poston family outside of the Moon Palace Resort in Cancun. The Moon Palace is south of Cancun and about a 15 minute ride from the airport. I arrived a day Jaclyn and her family got to Mexico because I had my Urinary System final exam. This resort is an all inclusive resort and there are many different restaurants located in different places throughout the resort, most of which were excellent. Near the beach was a sprawling pool with a bar and restaurant on both sides. The pool snaked around and you had to cross several bridges to get from one side to another. Just past the pool area was the beach complete with a couple volleyball courts and a boat rental area. 

From our resort we could look up the shore at what we thought was Cancun because we saw many large hotels. One afternoon Jaclyn and I took a shuttle from our resort to another "Palace" resort called Beach Palace. This resort was much more compact and was situated right in the middle of what we thought was downtown Cancun. This stretch of buildings was actually a strip of land smothered in luxury hotels separated from the mainland. Cancun was farther north and we actually never made it into the city. The picture below is looking at the mainland from this strip of land after doing some shopping at a flea market. We would later find out that even bargained prices here were more expensive than both our hotel gift shop and even the airport gift shop!! 

The boat rental area had kayaks, surf boards, sailboats, and wind surfers. Below is a picture of me and Jaclyn attempting to wind surf. It is much harder than it looks. After about a half an hour I was able to stand up and balance, but I never could figure out the wind. Sometimes I would start to move in one direction but didn't really understand why. As you might imagine, this is difficult on the back muscles. Surprisingly it is also a little rough on the shins because I was repeatedly falling off and hopping back on. 

As a part of the all inclusive feature of this resort we were allowed to take part in two pre-planned excursions. For the first excursion Jaclyn and I went to Chichen Itza. The second one everyone participated in and this was the snorkeling tour. The picture below is Brad, Drew, and Megan getting ready to hop in the water and do some snorkeling. There was a pretty good size group of people going snorkeling and it was pretty windy which makes for difficult snorkeling. Once in the water I tend to wander because I don't like being right in the large group of people. Besides scaring away all the fish, it is dangerous, the one time I passed through the group I got a fin to the face. I was scolded several times by people on jet skis telling me to stay with the guides. I did get to see a couple see turtles, some spear fish, and this old metal thing covered with coral that kind of looked like an old canon. 

After the snorkeling tour we went on another excursion (we paid for this one) called the "Ocean Safari". Myself, Jaclyn, Brad, and Drew participated while Megan and Kim went horseback riding. Our excursion started with a lengthy jet ski ride where we got to speed around and jump some waves and then we rode out to and underwater freshwater well/cave where we would do a little snorkeling. In the picture below I have dove down into the well and am coming back out of it when the picture is taken. Right around this well were some different types of sea plants and a school of fish that were feeding on things that the freshwater current would bring in. We all took turns swimming down and checking it out and then jumped back on the jet skis, played around some more, and then headed back. 

Chichen Itza

On my second day in Mexico Jaclyn and I participated in one of the resorts planned excursions to Chichen Itza, a Ancient Mayan village and observatory. The picture here is of the main attraction called El Castillo and has recently been elected as one of the new 7 wonders of the world. This temple has been designed so that on the day of the equinox a snake designed on the edges of the staircase with its head at the base appears (light shines on it).  To see what this looks like you can watch the video I found here or to pictures of the equinox.  Compare these with the picture I have here because they are seen at the same angle. Other highlights included a field known as the Great Ballcourt where a game was played. This field has been found at several other Mayan sites but the court here is the largest and is thought to be where the winners of games at other courts came to play as kind of a championship match...although the winner here would be beheaded! 

The game was played with a large rubber ball and teams consisted of six players per side. Hands and feet were not to be used, instead players hit the ball with their hips. One of the objectives of the game was to hit the ball through vertical cylinders mounted of the walls of the court, one on each side at the center of the field. This was a very difficult task as the cylinder was only 3 cm larger than the rubber ball. 

The stone carving to the right shows one of the winners (Captain's of the winning team), his head is on a stick that you can see coming out the top and bottom of his skull. There was a wall of these stone carvings that were representatives of the

 games winners. It is thought that these winners, after being beheaded by the captain of the losing team, would then play the games with the gods. If they can beat the gods then become a god.