And The "Stellar" Award Goes To...

We are back from Cancun with sunburns and souvenirs to prove it! I have a lot of posts that I'm going to have to split up from day to day so I don't bore you with a big ol long one.

We spent our vacation with Mike, Heidi, and Bradyn Lee (http://www.findingrfamilee.blogspot.com/). They are the ones who came up with the Cancun idea, found the place we stayed at for the last week, and helped make it possible for us to go!

Bradyn, their newly adopted adorable son, is absolutely adorable and smart with the deepest dimples I have ever seen! We left yesterday with a bunch of Brady-isms that will probably last for awhile.

*Singing "Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog"

*Dancing in place

*Saying please, thank you, more, and wait in sign language

*Smiling with our head tilted to the side and then laughing

*Saying "oola oola oola" as many times as we can in a row

Now the STELLAR AWARD goes to Mike Lee!

First off, we rented a car for a few days so we could drive to a couple different tourist spots. Second, Mexico driving is ridiculous! Nothing makes sense, cars go wherever they want (locals only) and no one obeys any sort of logical traffic laws. There are Policia on every corner and we were warned that if you are a tourist to drive 5 miles under the speed limit. Well the first 20 minutes we have the car, we get pulled over. The cop knew that we were tourists and we could tell he was thinking about ripping us off. Example..."We won't take you to jail, or ticket you if you give us $500 USD!" or whatever they could think of. Apparently this happens a lot. So after learning a few rules about Mexico driving, Mike had it down! He took us through downtown Cancun (scary!) and all the way to Tulum safe and sound! There were times where I would have broken down in tears if I had been behind the wheel!

The next reason he gets the award is because he saved someones life on our last day! We spent our last morning out on the beach soaking up as much sun as possible. The wind was blowing pretty hard Friday and the waves were huge! They had red flags on the beach which means "Danger! No Swimming"

A guy started screaming for help and Mike didn't hesitate one bit as he jumped up and ran down the beach to help. The guy was in the water and from what we could see he was in dire need of help. He was holding his wife up in the water, trying to bring them back to shore, and trying to avoid drowning. Mike and another guy swam out to the couple while another guy went to flag down a lifeguard. Our beach didn't have a lifeguard on duty, but some of the larger hotels down the beach did. Mike took hold of the drowning woman, who couldn't even swim anymore because she had been fighting to the waves for so long, and brought her in to the shore. They ended up giving her oxygen and she was fine. Tom and I had been up by the pool keeping our eye on Mike, so we ran back down to the beach to watch Bradyn while Heidi ran over to check on Mike. The waves were so big that he was taking a mouth full of water every time the waves came in and it didn't help that he was doing the work of two people while bringing the lady in. She thanked Mike and gave him a hug and also thanked Heidi. When Mike walked back to our part of the beach everyone around started clapping for the Hero!! Of course he said he didn't deserve it, but he definitely did. Who knows what would have happened to that couple by the time the lifeguards had gotten there, the waves just kept taking them further and further into the water.