MEH-HE-CO (PART UNO)
Brian turned 40 this summer. He wanted to celebrate by getting as far away as possible, so he booked a trip to Mexico about 6 months in advance. This is not the way we usually operate, but it was fun having all that time to anticipate our vacation. He wanted to go somewhere where he could do nothing but surf and watch world cup soccer, which sounded good to me. The kids are old enough to where I hoped we could all actually relax a bit. I just wanted to sleep in and read, and the kids wanted to swim and play on the beach. Win for all. It was the first time we had all flown together as a family, and aside from Autry repeatedly trying to run off in the airport (the moving sidewalk was a big hit, she used it to elude capture amazingly well), it went very well.
We got to see Lydia at the airport, she was flying to Norway for Rose's graduation at the same time. We flew from Austin to Houston to Puerto Vallarte, Mexico. As soon as we arrived the kids started saying "Hola!" to everyone they saw. After we got the luggage we crossed the street to catch a bus to Punta Mita. The bus ride was CRAZY. Take everything you imagine about riding a bus in Mexico and add three little kids and about 10 pieces of luggage and a driver who was probably insane. Lots of bouncing and sweating and brake slamming. The kids thought it was fabulous. I kind of did too, it was so fun to be out in the world like that with our little family. Punta Mita was at the end of the road, about an hour north of Puerto Vallarte. It had one street for tourists along the beach with some condos, hotels, and about 10 restaurants, all facing the water. The rest of the town was pretty typical small Mexican town, little kids running around selling Chiclets and lots of stray dogs. It was a very quiet little town and we felt safe, even though Mexico in general is not the safest place right now. Our condos were gated with a 24hr guard. It did make me a little nervous that there was an army post with heavily armed soldiers in the main street. Brian told me later that there had been some sort of an "incident" in a town nearby while we were there. In general the town was very quiet, the few tourists that were there were mostly Mexican families. A lot of times we would have the entire restaurant to ourselves. They filled up a little bit during soccer games, but were never crowded. Our condo was really nice, two bedrooms/bathrooms, nice big living room, kitchen, and big, private patio. It was nicely decorated and comfy. Only problem was that our AC never really worked very well. They were working on it when we got there, and even though they thought it was fixed, it never shut off and never really seemed to cool things off as well as it should. The condos had a nice pool with a hot tub. The kids were super excited to be able to swim in the hot tub, as the one at the Dunes in Port Aransas is "NO KIDS ALLOWED". We were a block off the beach and sat on top of a little cliff, so that we overlooked the restaurants and the ocean beyond them. To get to the beach we walked out of our condos, turned left down a steep hill, and then walked through (or between) the restaurants.
*Having some issues with pulling photos up... I'll post them when I figure it out.
