Days 2 through 7 in Mexico were so wonderful! They were filled with sun, rest, beach naps, bocce ball, fajitas, chi chis, beach football, apples to apples, sunscreen and aloe, yoga, margaritas, chips and salsa, funny faces, LOST, teenage behavior observation, beach volleyball and a bus ride to a surfing destination where there were no waves.

In Mexico it is always my goal not to do much of anything. These family vacations are not for exploring Mexico and learning more about their culture. No, instead these visits to Puerto Vallarta are simply a Gringo getaway.

Because I am not what you would call a sun worshipper, I wear 30-50 sunscreen every day. R follows suit and is even more diligent than I am, what with his sensitive, Irish, freckled skin. My brother, on the other hand, still remembers and is nostalgic for the days of our youth when we could sit in the sun without sunscreen and not get burned. And we tried to warn him, did our best to convince him to at least put on some 15, but no. He was lobster red and in some unhappy sunburn pain by day 3. Because I had missed some spots, I also had a sunburn, but only on and behind my right ear. Luckily, that was the worst of my sun exposure and I was back on the beach the next day, but my poor brother had to stay inside for a whole day to recover. I hope that he has now learned his lesson and will take my sunscreen advice next year…

We discovered this year that my nephew is now into football. He asked every person who their favorite football team is, but because my family is not what you would call “big on sports” (I mean, my dad loves basketball and keeps up with the popular teams and statistics like any other guy, but everyone else is like, “foot what?”). But just because we don’t follow any professional football closely doesn’t mean we don’t like to play (with a nerf football)! We started playing in the room and then moved the games outside to the beach, which was very fun and sweaty. And I’ll be darned if my nephew, at almost 7 years old, doesn’t have an amazing throwing arm. Can you say future quarterback? Amazing! And with my running back and receiving skills from my days as ‘Baker Baker the touchdown maker’, we make a pretty darn good team.

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After the first day of beach football, I woke up and went to the kitchen to do our dishes. Upon replacing the broiler pan back into the oven, the whole front glass face of the oven fell off onto my left big toe. R was already out running and my brother & nephew were still sleeping, so all was quiet before I screamed bloody murder when the heavy glass corner hit my poor unsuspecting toe. My brother came running, weary eyed and not quite awake. He grabbed me and placed me gently on the couch. I was bleeding and bruised and I even shed some tears from the shock. After he realized I was going to live, he went back to bed for a bit. So, that is why I could not play beach football anymore (not only ’cause it hurt, but because I couldn’t get sand in it). I hobbled around with a bandaid trying to look normal.

In the evenings we played the game Apples to Apples, which is always fun and requires no skill, really. It’s a good game for the spread in age we had, which was 7 to 96! We laughed and bickered a lot over it…

On Thursday night we went to my favorite restaurant in PV (touristy restaurant) called Fajita Republic, which I know I have written about here before. The food was just as delicious, I ate way too much as usual and I had a mound of cheese in my belly which made me sleep horribly, but…as usual, we had a good time and had our annual “Crazy Face Contest”. Here are all the faces that were photographed by everyone…

Aren’t we cute?

On the last real day, R and I decided to ride the bus out to Punta de Mita, where I had always heard when I lived in PV was the best place to find surfing. Both of us would like to learn to surf, so we rode for an hour to the tiny beach community at the Northern tip of the bay. Upon our arrival, we met Oscar, who offered to rent us boards and give us a surfing lesson, but we were hungry and so we decided to have some brunch before we decided. Up on the deck of the restaurant we looked out over the water and could see no waves in any direction, so we decided against it. Really, there was no wind and nothing you could even boogie board on. At least we tried!

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The last night we all went out to dinner together one last time and found we were accompanied by the most beautiful sunset, the colors of which kept getting better and better as the evening went on. It was the perfect ending to the perfect vacation…

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After 7 days of vacation, one funny happy hour, countless ray of sun, 8 episodes of LOST and a few too many cocktails ~ I was able to return home refreshed and rejuvenated…hooray for the family Spring vacation!

*For my brother’s photos, click here.
*For my dad’s photo’s, click here.

Until next year…