Cancun- July 18th

Today was the most incredible, terrible, and longest day ever. In the morning, Pearl and I went to wakeboarding yet again. I had no desire to wakeboard for some reason, so I sat waiting for Pearl to finish her run. I talked to Tyler while I waited, and he took his name off the list because the wait looked too long. Nick came to say hi, then he walked to tennis. Tyler, Alex, and I walked to the beach because a guy at water skiing said it would be 40 minutes till Pearl's turn.

We swam in the water talking about everything, from school, to favorite foods, to our social lives. We also talked about names we strongly like and dislike in the pool afterward. When we had run out of things to say, we went back to retrieve pearl. On our way to sailing, we stopped for drinks where we happened to bump into Sam and Nick. We walked all together to sailing and rented two boats. We took them out with the usual teams, but this time, Wells was with us. Nick and I jumped around to different boats, and I almost fell in. We walked to Las Cazuelas, and before we went inside, we playing catchphrase. We split into teams, Nick + Grace vs. Sam + Pearl. Obviously Nick and I won :p Pearl and I ate lunch with our SMC group because we were given the privilege to eat dinner with the guys.

Lunch was delicious and I even got soft serve ice cream. After lunch was when the madness began... I agreed to sail a few moms from SMC, and also promised to say goodbye to Tyler. I ended up sailing the parents really well, but I missed saying goodbye to Tyler. I walked all over the resort looking for Pearl, but I could not find her anywhere. I waited for her at water skiing and she eventually showed up with Alex. Pearl and I both got up on the wake boards and went around the whole area without falling!

We then dried off and walked to trapeze where we learned a move called the penny role where you sit on top of the bar. I got up on my first try, and when I was sitting on the bar, I turned toward Nick and Alex and did the "Hope laugh." When I came down, Nick, Alex, and I played "Go Fish" till pearl was done with her catches. We then went back to the room to our separate rooms get ready for dinner. We both dressed in shorts and T-shirts with our bathing suits underneath. 

We met with the guys at a card table outside of Hacienda, and made our way upstairs. Alex asked for a table in French, and we were placed in the nicest part of Hacienda; Nice work Alex! As we sat down, Sam and Pearl got food and Nick, Alex, and I remained in our chairs to converse. As we talked, Nick placed his fingers on his water glass thinking it was empty and tipped it so that it spilt all over him. I began laughing so hard.

Dinner was delicious, especially because it was Asian food, which includes lettuce wraps, beef and broccoli, caramel pork, and more. Nick and I got up together to get asian dessert and I ran into an adult man walking through the doorway. He was trying to go one way or the other, but we kept bumping into each other. Nick and I laughed so hard because of the man's serious and annoyed face. 

After dinner, Nick began talking about Glozell Green (a youtuber) and we all sat on a pool chair to watch her YouTube videos. We laughed so hard at her squid video that we started crying. Once we calmed down, we walked to the forest to play hide and go seek. The first round Alex was the seeker. I hid with Nick, but unfortunately, Nick was farther into the bush than I, so Alex found me first. The three of us walked around and eventually found Sam, but we could not find pearl. We walked for seriously 5 minutes looking for her and screaming that she had won. Alex began shouting "PEARL! Come out!" We were so terrified and I thought something terrible had happened. We finally saw her walking towards us, and we found out she had been on the other side of the forest.

I was the next seeker and I found Alex first, and Pearl last again. We forced pearl to seek the third time because she was so good. Nick and I went off again, but this time we split up. I found a nice hiding place on a rock and stayed there for 10 minutes. Pearl was finding no one, but she pulled her torch (which broke the rules) and found me. We next found Alex, but after that no one was to be seen. We randomly heard a monkey shriek and looked up at a palm tree and saw Sam straddling it. We were laughing so hard and took so many pictures. We later found Nick deep in a bush. 

Next we headed to the trapeze area. On the way there we found our favorite ice machine and played ice chubby bunny. I started with 5 ice cubes, and it was the strangest sensation. My mouth burned and my gums couldn't bear the cold. Nick currently holds the "Ice Chubby Bunny" first place prize for 7 ice cubes. After our game, we walked to the hammocks by the trapeze and fit all of us in one hammock. Nick and I sat on one together, and Pearl and Sam wrestled each other on the other hammock. I saw the trapeze and got very eager. They had put a board up so we couldn't climb it, but somehow, I made it up, and without bruises. No one else joined me because they were chicken, so we walked back to the pool to complete our next item on the scavenger hunt list. 

4 of the 5 of us sat down on one pool recliner to start our next challenge. We started with the first challenge which was eating 3 Splenda packets each. Sam went to the bar and brought back 15 packets of Splenda for all of us. Sam downed them so quickly, Alex suffered a little, Nick winced the whole way, and Pearl looked like she was going to puke. I did not enjoy the before taste, but afterward it was quite enjoyable. We then did the next challenge which involved us downing 2 piña coladas each. Alex and Pearl went to the bar and asked for 10 piña coladas to bring back to the pool. We sat around the planter and began the challenge. Halfway through the first cup, weird sounds and reactions were coming from everyone around me. By the time I finished my first cup, I heard Alex wincing at the frozen feeling in his head, Pearl wincing at the frozen feeling in her chest, and Nick feeling that sensation in the back of his eye? I drank quickly and felt the coldness in my lower back. I kept going although I felt like all of it was going to come out. I stuck it out and finished my second piña colada before anyone. Alex was second, but Nick and Pearl could not finish. Once I finished my drinks, I got super pumped up and started taking off my clothes to jump into the pool. I jumped in, but Pearl did not... at first. With more persuasion, Pearl was thrown into the pool. We stayed in for hardly two minutes and soon longed for towels. We walked over to the towel shack and Nick sneaked inside to grab 2 towels. 

We walked back to our pool recliner and began talking about more potential night activities and Nick jokingly said, "eat fire." When he said that, Alex ran to La Estancia and got a cup of chili flakes. He dared me to eat the chili, and I did. I didn't find it surprisingly spicy, but Alex did. We then had the brilliant idea to pour it into an extra piña colada. Once done, I drank that as well and my lips were on fire. 

On the beach we did a very physical piggy back race, which was very fun.  First we started with Pearl on my back and Alex on Nick's back. At that point, Pearl and I did not know we could play dirty and trip people, so the boys won. The next round, we switched, so Pearl carried me and Alex carried Nick. Pearl walked about two feet and fell because she became top heavy. The most fun round by far was as follows; me carrying Nick and Pearl carrying Alex.  Nick even video taped it on my shoulders! While we were going Alex almost pushed me once, and when we crossed the line, Nick wrapped his legs around my knees and we face planted as seen in the video.

Watch the piggy back view:

Once our piggy back races ended, a band nearby started playing, so we began dancing with the music. I briefly danced with Alex and danced with Sam for a great amount of time. Alex and I waltzed and Sam and I did an assortment of dances. I was really impressed by Sam's dance moves. Sam stole my phone and started taking selfies. Pearl is officially the worlds best photo bomber because she made the strangest faces in Sam's selfies. 

When we came back from the pool we went to the stage area. I got on stage, which still had lights on, and danced my little heart out. Nick unfortunately videotaped the while thing. We then bumped into Wells on our way to the pool for the pool party. Pearl and I jumped in first again, and the triplets jumped in with their cargo shorts because they had forgotten to wear a bathing suit. Wells left us to go change, so we had some fun in the meantime. I mostly swam with Nick and Alex. We all went underwater and I did the "Hope laugh" and phrase the best I could. While I was doing the laugh I kind of inhaled a lot of water. In the pool, there was a water polo game going on and Sam played. Alex and I were on the side practicing our circus act. I would stand on his thighs, stand, do the Vitor wave, and the hopeful laugh. We got out of the pool wet and cold, so Alex and I ran to the towel hut and got more towels. We then ran to a central cabana and cuddled. This was definitely a peak moment of our friendship. We took up every inch of the cabana with Alex on my feet, Nick laying next to me, Pearl's chest under me, and Sam next to pearl; I couldn't see. We also felt bad because we couldn't fit Wells into the cabana. 

Once we were dry, we decided to walk to the club. We went inside and walked past everyone to our usual corner. Nick owed me a dance because he didn't earlier and boy was our dance something. We got our serious face on with a white mans overbite and began to shoulder shimmy. We were laughing so hard with all the fun we were having. I finally convinced him to dance honestly, and so he did. We did many styles of dancing, yet it was always the overbite and shoulder shimmies that dominated the floor. I danced again with Sam and it was very fun. I did the next dare which was to ask the DJ if I could DJ, but all he did was say no. We continued dancing and Nick's favorite song came on,"My Hips Don't Lie" by Shakira. I was impressed/shocked that he knew all of the words. The club was so fun, and we left around 12:20am. We walked back to the room talking about the incredible night we had just had. I gave hugs to all of them and said goodnight.