Your guide to our exceptional lives

I promised to blog about it afterward. He feels I am shirking my responsibilities as the matriach of this family by not updating regularly. Jerk. So I am paying back taxes on my Mexican vacation by stringing together the next 500-1000 words for your reading pleasure.

So yes, we went to Mexico. It was a big deal for us. 3 measly little nights in a foreign country, but it was miraculous.   A little vacation from our problems, and our jobs, and cooking and cleaning and laundry, and our two year old. After a year of Adam traveling a lot and only taking 1.5 days off this year so far, and me getting through the last 7 months of pregnancy sickness and hormones and mood swings while working and caring for a toddler, and knowing that soon we will have a newborn and then a nursing baby for a year after that, we decided we had better go now while we could squeeze it in between important events and trips at work and before birthing time. And it also happened to be our 5 year anniversary and my birthday. And we found an amazing deal. Really, the stars aligned. So with 10 days notice, we booked and went.

That was a long, dumb explanation. Paragraphs like that are why I stopped blogging. Because I’m boring and don’t have the energy to try to be entertaining.

Anyway, back to Mexico. We went to Puerto Vallarta and stayed in an all inclusive resort. Totally awesome. Pregnant ladies past 24 weeks aren’t allowed on cruises, so we figured this was the next best thing. And it would have been, except for the horrible food. Very sad to be in an all you can eat resort with 5 different restaurants and 3 snack bars that all serve garbage. But when said garbage comes to your room at any time of day or night for no extra cost, and there is an unlimited supply of it, it’s easy to ignore that it tastes like bark. I am ruined for regular hotels where I actually have to pay for my 2 am nachos and 2 dozen pina coladas per day. Other than the food, though, the service and amenities were fabulous and we were pampered in luxury and comfort.

And did  I mention that our room had floor to ceiling windows and a balcony about 20 feet from the beach? Yeah, that was amazing. We loved waking up every morning to a full ocean view. Also we heard more Kenny G on this trip than the rest of our lives put together. I suppose it wouldn’t feel like a luxury resort if anything other than the great master of romance and soprano saxophone had been piped through all the indoor and outdoor and elevator and restaurant speakers nonstop. And so, after the aversion and nausea phase passes every time I hear him play, Kenny will hold a special place in my heart forevermore for providing the soundtrack of our romantic Mexican getaway.

Remember a few years ago when we bought that expensive camera so we could take amazing photos of the momentous events in our lives. Well, we didn’t take it. So here is one of the very few pictures we took on my phone.

Sunset from the Malecon

So. Highlights?

1. Getting the best massages of our lives. That was our first order of business. Within two hours of landing in Mexico we were getting massages, and it was a perfect kick off to our trip. My massage lady was so good I almost gave her a hug when she was done. Really, it was amazing.

2. Buying/wearing hats. One of my goals for the trip was to get an Aubrey Hepburn-esque floppy beach hat and lounge around wearing it on the beach all day in my black flowing beach dress and sunglasses looking so classic and refined….with 7 months of pregnant belly, and a red blotchy face from the persistent heat, and frizzy unruly hair from the humidity and salt water, and a waddle. Alas, at least the hat was pretty, and I bought it from a market vendor who very patiently let me try on every hat in his shop and told me I looked bonita in all of them. Liar. Really though, finding the perfect hat was one of the biggest thrills of the trip. Because I am a psycho.

Adam, however, truly did look dashing in his beach hat.  It was especially dashing when he wore it with his resort wear: khakis, sanuks, collared shirt, and all in soothing pastel shades. I liked his look so much I took to calling him my man of leisure. Which he adopted as his official moniker for the trip, amending the title to “International Man of Leisure” or IMOL. He then spent the entire trip quoting excerpts from his new book, Travel Tips from the International Man of Leisure. His advice was always insightful and timely. For example, the IMOL once advised me that when a wave is approaching that appears to be higher than my head, I should close my eyes. Clever man, my IMOL. Anyway, we love our overpriced Mexican hats. Even though I saw identical ones on clearance at walmart for $5 the day after we got home.

We never did get a picture of the IMOL in full costume, but Aaron pulls off the hat well with jammies.

3. Doing nothing. Usually I am marathon traveler. I have a schedule, and we follow it to the tee to maximize our time and see as much of the area as humanly possible. This trip I made zero plans. I still spent 20 hours online reading reviews and researching the local flora and fauna so I was prepared to make last minute plans should the mood strike, but we arrived with nothing on our agenda. Ah….freedom. So we ended up booking one afternoon snorkeling excursion, then spent the rest of our time in the pool, and wandering around exploring the city, and at the beach, and reading, and sleeping, and dressing for dinner. Yes, our resort had a dress code for their fancy dinner only restaurants. It was fun. I wore a dress every night, we had beautiful, artsy looking multi-course meals and felt super highbrow eating a few bites of all that exquisitely plated but terrible tasting food in an atmosphere of incredible elegance. Then we would hit the streets and look for a taco stand to fill up on. Great times, bad food.

The IMOL just doing what he does best.

4. Time share presentation! Woo! As I said before, the food at our resort was nasty. So when I overheard some very loud, very crass Americans in the pool talking about the bad A breakfast they got for listening to a timeshare presentation I told Adam that I was going to find a timeshare man and get myself a bad A breakfast. And I did. We met Joe while we were wandering around the local market. Joe, a smooth talking 60 year old sleeze from Las Vegas, set us up with a timeshare presentation that not only came with breakfast, but also 1000 pesos, 2 free 3 night stays at a neighboring resort, and a lovely morning spent with John, another 60 odd American sleeze with a hawaiian shirt and way too many personal stories to share. We were getting to be great friends with John, until we told him we didn’t feel good about buying his timeshare. He grabbed his binder off the table and walked away with the clever parting shot “I’ll just give this deal to someone else then” and left us at the table without another word. Hilarious. It was a great time. Everyone should go to a timeshare presentation sometime. Priceless.

5. Boating/snorkeling excursion. The water was murky and there were hardly any fish, but our guide made up for it by diving down and finding a starfish and a sea urchin for us to hold. I’m pretty sure he was breaking a law, but when it comes to getting tips from American tourists on a mediocre snorkeling trip, his strategy was successful. It was beautiful, and I love boating on the ocean. Love it. We were on a motorized catamaran with a shaded deck covered in cushions, and it was fabulous.  I love the motion and the breeze and how the water distorts distances and puts everything into sharp contrast with the brilliant blue, and I love getting splashed and watching everyone weave around and try to keep their balance when they walk, and I love seeing the flying fish and pelicans. And the butterflies. What’s the deal with that? We had a butterfly escort all day long, a dozen or so just cruising along next to the boat, miles from shore. I don’t get it, with their teeny little wings surely they can’t fly those kinds of distances without dying along the way. But I liked watching them flutter along with us. Pretty little kamakazi butterflies.

I also liked sharing our excursion with American teenagers that drank non-stop the whole day. With their parents. I guess laws are different in Mexico? Weird to watch 16 year olds playing drinking games with their parents and the 50 year old crew, throwing back tequila shots and getting plastered, dancing the macarena on deck in very small bikinis. Strange indeed. Every time I leave the US and run into other American tourists I wish I were Canadian. But that is a lengthy topic I will save for another boring post.

6. Being on the beach at night. Late on our last night, after our fancy 5 course french dinner, we dragged some beach chairs down the deserted beach into the waves and just sat there looking out into the void of the ocean and listening to the waves, with the waves lapping at our legs and soaking our bums through the saggy canvas of the chairs, and talked. And laughed. And walked up and down the beach. And bobbed and played in the water (until I started freaking out about sharks, because seriously, swimming in the black ocean at night is freaky). And watched a fireworks show from a party cruise a mile offshore. And occasionally smelled cigar smoke and remembered that somewhere on that beach there was another human being and we were not alone in the universe on our own private island. It was simple, and peaceful, and perfect.

Also, this trip marks a huge milestone in my life.  My first bikini. Adam has been trying to get me to buy a bikini since our honeymoon, and I finally did it. If you can’t wear a bikini when you’re pregnant in Mexico when can you, right? Well, apparently the answer is never.  I wore it for a few hours one day, under a beach dress the entire time, and realized that there are some things that even the most seasoned Mexican beach vendors should be spared. And my bikini-clad pregnant self is one of them. I’m just too hot to handle, I’d hate for them to get ideas

Anyway, that’s about it. HUGE THANKS to my amazing, fabulous sister Camille for watching Aaron while we were gone. She was a total trooper and let us have a carefree vacation while she took care of two sick, crankly toddlers all week. Thank you, thank you, thank you Camille and Sean!

And now, I return to radio silence until the next time Adam wields the heavy hand of husbandly authority to force me into blogging.