As I meandered through the grocery store today I couldn't help but think of all the issues that surround our food choices as of late. Conscious of my diet and my family’s diet I found it difficult to ignore all the bad press our protein products are getting. I looked at steaks and hamburger-BSD, Chicken-BIRD FLU, Salmon-MERCURY, Eggs-how long have they been on the shelf? Those rabbits that dine in my vegetable garden during the warm weather season are starting to look less like pests and more like a safe fare for my BBQ. Then we have the carb section, potato's, pasta, bread, rice, cereals - all bad according to Dr. Atkins. How about the genetically enhanced pesticide drenched fruits and vegetables or the MSG laden processed food that comes in cans, or the caffeine dosed soft drinks. Luckily I remembered what my late stepfather once told me "there is no seasoning like hunger" Bon Appetite.

Political Corruption seems to be on the tip of the Canadian tongue as of late. Everyone seems surprised, shocked and outraged that the federal government bilked the taxpayer out of millions of dollars in tax revenue. I firmly believe that if a group rules long enough corruption will permeate the infrastructure sooner or later. It’s unfortunate that the party is going to take the hit for this fiasco. I'm positive that contained within you will find many committed social-minded individuals who would like nothing more than to make our world a better place for us to live. Too bad, guilty by association..

Life has officially returned to normal. The Vacation is over, the 3 huge meals a day are behind me (so to speak) and the photos are developed. I have spent over 3 hours scanning, sorting, editing and uploading all some of the pictures we took from the 4 different cameras (digital, film, camcorder and underwater) and lets not forget the pictures we bought from the locals. (Digital cameras rule!) Anyway here is my rendition of the 8ish days in Cancun Mexico

Day 1 started with a 7am-limo ride to the airport followed by a 4.5-hour flight.

I was kind of bagged because of the late night last minute packing but the in flight movie was "School of Rock" which I have been wanting to see so I stayed awake to watch it. Fun Flick for the whole family. We gained an hour on the trip south, which was cool, but it was burned up at Mexican Immigration. As I explained in an earlier entry I had to bribe the official to get into the country. He told me entry could be granted if a generous gift was made to his boss. Can you say corrupt SOB's. Upon exiting the airport I headed to the first beer cerveza stand and purchased my first of many Corona's and boarded the ride to the Crown Paradise Club Resort. Did I mention it was 30 degrees out :). Check in was a breeze and we were given our all-inclusive bracelets, our room key cards, towel cards and a safe key. The kids were full of energy and very excited so we unpacked, checked out the view from the balcony and headed to the pools for a swim (the resort has 5 pools plus a kids water park) A neighbor suggested that I take a thermal mug for beer because the hotel cups are slightly larger than Dixie cups, this advice was golden, not only do you get more in your glass but it stays cold right to the bottomAfter swimming and a half dozen Corona's it was time to get ready for dinner. The buffet was well stocked with numerous food stations, Oriental, Mexican, Italian and the special of the day at the Center Island,. I could tell right away that I was going to gain at least 10 pounds on the trip. After dinner we wandered over to the theater for the after dinner show. The resort cycles through 7 different themes each week. Monday night is Mexican Folk Dance night. It was very colorful to say the least and everyone in the family enjoyed it except for my son who is apparently not a big fan of folk dancing. After the show we were all toast so off to bed we went. Unfortunately our card key for our room was how should I put it...a fucking nightmare. Swipe, Swipe, Swipe....Swipe, Swipe....49, Swipe tada. The door opened. Needless to say I was not impressed but too tired to complain. We were all asleep by 10pm.

Tuesday Day 2 I woke up just before dawn, converted my beer mug to a coffee mug (I rinsed it out in case your wondering) grabbed a card key and headed down to the lobby to find Java. There was an all night snack bar close by that was just shutting down the grill but had lots of coffee, fresh fruit, and warm breads for early risers. I scooped up some tasty roll type things, filled my cup with coffee and headed back up to the room to sit on the balcony and watch the sun rise over the gulf of Mexico. Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe....Swipe tada, in like flynn. Did I mention how fucking annoying the room card key was? Luckily I made it to the balcony in time for sunrise and was not disappointed. I pulled out the digital camera and laid the foundation for a morning ritual. Click. After sun rise I noticed people placing towels on the pool chairs, most of the best spots were claimed by 8am. I guess I was lucky to discover this early in the week but had mixed emotions about it. I wish I could have procured 50 or so towels and covered all the chairs around the pool at 5am just for a joke. Everyone was awake by 8 and we went down for breakfast. The buffet had everything you could want and then some. Needless to say I ate way too much which was another morning ritual I would adhere too for the duration of the trip. After breakfast we took the kids to "kids club" (a supervised activity center and water park for 4 to 12 year olds) and headed to the pool so we could drink too much and burn our Lilly white asses to a deep pink colour. Laying by the pool in the hot sun you couldn't help but notice the various shades of red the patrons were sporting. You could almost tell how far into vacation time each tourist had progressed by the hue of their sunburn. The Resort employed several loud, slightly amusing (more amusing with every drink) activity staff. Water Aerobics, water polo, tequila volley ball and basket ball were some of the activities to partake in but I was more inclined just to soak it all in. By 5pm we had achieved our sunburn quota for the day and it was time to get the kids and head out for dinner. Tonight was the Seafood restaurant, which. like all the restaurants you had to book seating reservations for in advance. Dinner was a very tasty 5 course meal which was served quickly by Jose the waiter and surprisingly we were out of the restaurant early enough to attend the Theater. I missed most of the show as I was preoccupied hunting down sunburn relief cream and aspirin for my beer induced headache. Again we hit the pillows early as we had booked a trip/tour for the following day. Everyone I was snoring by 9:30pm.

Wednesday Day 3 I woke up early again and did the morning coffee/sunrise thing. Go figure another beautiful day. Our tour was to go to a snorkeling park called Xel-Ha and then visit the Mayan Ruins at Tulum. We had to catch the tour bus by 7:30am so we ate an early breakfast and left the resort right on time. The bus ride was long and it sucked as we stopped at what felt like every hotel/resort along the Cancun strip, picking up a couple of passengers at every hotel until we had a full bus. This added almost 2 hours to the ride. Out of the 40 or so tourists 7 spoke Spanish and the rest were English. Our fat, arrogant, obnoxious, chauvinistic tour guide would always start every info byte with Spanish followed by the English translation. The strange part is it would sometimes take him several minutes to deliver the Spanish info but only 10 or 15 seconds to convey the same rendition in "Spanglez" as he called it. I hope for his sake he doesn't count on tips to make his living. We arrived at Xel-Ha around 11am. This is a must see place, very cool. You enter the park to find a sea of hammocks, dolphins, Macaws and iguanas all over the place. They have all the equipment you need for snorkeling. The water is brackish and warm with dozens of species of tropical fish to see. A great place to learn how to snorkel for any age. The park also had a place called "the cliff of courage" which of course being the courageous fellow I am, had to jump off (notice I said jump). Unfortunately we ran out of time before we could check out the whole park and were back on the bus headed for the ruins at Tulum by 3pm. The ruins were cool but because of the volume of tourist every year you were not allowed to climb to the top of the pyramid.  While exploring around the base of the structure my son found a crack in the foundation where he extracted 6 polished stones. This made his day as he was sure this was treasure left by a Mayan boy hundreds of years ago but more likely left by a tourist on a recent visit. We left Tulum and headed back to the hotel and arrived around 8pm just in time for buffet stew before bed. Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe....I hate the fucking door locks in the Crown Paradise Club Resort!

Thursday Day 4 Morning ritual, coffee/sunrise, Breakfast buffet. At this point of the trip I think I've gained about 6 of the 10 pounds predicted. Since I'm ahead of schedule exercise seems to be in order. We leave the kids in Kids Club for the morning and my wife and I proceed to walk several miles down to the beach to the ClubMed where the national Snorkel Park is located. A very cool place with tons of fish to see. If you book this activity through the hotel you can take a bus to the park and cut through ClubMed property to enter the park but it will cost you $35 USD. We snorkeled for over 2 hours before heading back to our hotel. On the way back we observe numerous women sunbathing topless and proceed to discuss if the required attributes are met to engage in this activity. Some pass with flying colors while others.....need some work. That afternoon our son makes some new friends and we meet the parents. We proceed to chat it up for the remainder of the day and share some conversation and cocktails in the evening. Derek and Nicole (Coco for short) are from that great Canadian Tobacco town, Tillsonburg, And have 2 sons Evan and Clayton . We decide to hook up in the morning and check out "AquaWorld" the resorts water activity center across the road in the lagoon. Once again were all wiped out by 9 and its time for Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe.....Fuuuucccccckkkkkkkk! Bed.

Friday Day 5 Wake up and do that morning thing. Hook up with Derek, Nicole and the boys in the lobby and head out to "AquaWorld" We find out upon arrival that they have paddle boats, Kayaks and sail boats (sunfish and Catamaran) but its too windy for paddle boats. I decide to give the sailboat a try and ask for a sunfish. I'm told its too windy for a sunfish so Palo and Poncho set me up with a Cat. I haven't sailed in over 10 years but the 2 amigos offer no instruction and before I know it I’m casting off with my son on board. I guess it took about 2 minutes before I enjoyed a refreshing dip in the lagoon. Unfortunately everyone seemed to think this was a national crisis and before I could do anything the 2 amigos show up on a jet ski and whisk my son back to shore, right the boat and return with me. End of sailing end of story. Crown Paradise Club Resort water activity center sucks big ones! We head back to the hotel and spend the afternoon working on our sunburns by the pool. My son gets a henna tattoo and my wife and I book a sitter and go out for a nice dinner at another of the resorts restaurants called 50's. Hotel baby-sitters in Mexico by the way charge $10 USD/ hour. I Carumba!

Saturday Day 6 Morning ritual A crappy weather day but a nice sunrise non the less. We decide to head to the Mall and do some shopping. A very cool mall, outdoor walking streets with bridges and canals running through it. I took my son to the interactive aquarium where we got to pet stingrays, touch sea cucumbers, and watch as people in diving suits got into a plexi glass shark cage and were lowered into a giant shark tank to feed the beasts. Very big sharks, very cool. Everything is cheaper at the mall than the hotel with 10000 times the selection. We buy a bunch of T-shirts for $5US and some other touristy stuff. That evening we check out another resort restaurant called Wayne's Boots (Steak house) They have a mechanical bull in the dining room that you can try. I decided I was tired enough after the crappy steak I had just chewed on for 30 minutes so I passed on the bull ride. Again in bed by 10. Oh did I mention that at various points during the day I swiped my key card dozens of times?

Sunday Day 7 Morning ritual. The weather is still kind of crappy but the sunrise is still nice. We spend over 2 hours building the biggest sand castle I have ever had the pleasure of being involved in. The kids love it and we practically have to drag them off the beach. We spend the afternoon in the lobby drinking with our new friends Derek and Nicole as they are checked out (checkout is at noon) and leave for the airport at 5pm. While playing my daughter kicks my son in the face and gives him a bloody nose with enough blood to send everyone into a panic (except for first aid Dad of course) After a quick rinse and some direct pressure all is well. That evening we take in a great Mexican dinner at another of the hotels restaurants and catch the Kids Theme show at the theater. It has all the fav's Mickey Mouse, Shrek, Tarzan, Little mermaid and the list goes on. The kids love it and have a blast.

Monday Day 8  Morning ritual, We spend the morning on the beach playing in the surf and the sand. By 11am were on the way to the airport. Our baggage is opened and rummaged through by the Mexican airport security and our flight is delayed by several hours. By now I have had enough of Mexico and am ready to go home. The return flight is uneventful and we breeze by Canadian customs and immigration without bribes. Nothing like a foreign country to help one appreciate good O Canada.

Cancun Mexico and the Crown Paradise Club Resort. 3.5 Stars (lost 1 for the airport and .5 for the Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe.....)

I've spent the better part of the day getting ready for the trip. I've got my stuff packed, the dog is at a friends, My neighbor has the keys and plant watering instructions. I've got money, film, passport, sunscreen and shades. The kids are beside themselves with excitement. They are acting like its Christmas eve again. My wife picked up a Mexico tourist book last week, you know the type "the 10 best fill in the blank" type of book. In the tips section it said that you should make sure you bring your snorkel and mask because you will pay through the nose to pick one up down there. It made sense to me so I went to buy a snorkel/mask. First I went to Walmart because they have everything..except a snorkel and mask, next I went to Canadian Tire because they have everything... except a snorkel and mask, so I went to SportsMart, SportsDepot, National Sports and SportsCheck.You guessed it no Snorkel and no mask. So I went to The Bay and then Sears...Nope. Off to the Mall...Nada. Last but not least I went to the place where we bought our swimming pool from. YES!!! They had Snorkels and Masks!! I could see them through the window. Only problem was they closed 15 minutes ago. (this triggered a great deal of profanity directed at nothing in particular followed by a heavy sigh) Resigning myself to paying many many pesos for a snorkel and mask in Mexico I headed home. (I now need Ga$ from all the driving around) As I park the van I say hi to my neighbor and explain to him that only a complete idiot like myself would look for a snorkel and mask in February. I then learn that my neighbor is a diver and has been scuba diving for years (as does his wife and kids...) Happy ending....he lends me snorkels and masks and Flippers for all. :) See you in a week with pictures.