cabo parte dos

I should probably start this blog post of a million pictures with a shout-out to the hubs. First of all, he's pretty cool. Second of all, he saved my camera and all our vacation pictures. You da man. 

Alright, well here's the story of the camera rescue;

Our flights in and out of Cabo were on a smaller airplane, which sucked. But it meant that when we were getting off the plane and boarding the plane we were able to walk out onto the tarmac, which was slightly awesome. (it looked like this - okay, I'm being a little dramatic, but I felt like a celeb and that's my favorite feeling) However, the feeling was lost when we were boarding our flight home. After spending a good 45 minutes waiting around chasing Jack through the airport, it was finally time to board the plane. After walking across the tarmac, I stepped up onto the stairs and suddenly realized I did not have the camera bag. Panic. I turned around to Gar and yelled, "Garrett, the camera! I never grabbed it at security! Go get it! RUN!" In that moment all I was thinking about were the pictures. Oh, the pictures! Oh and all those adorable pictures of Jack! What if I never saw them again? I felt sick. I was also worried about the camera itself; it had been a surprise Christmas gift from Garrett and I knew it wasn't cheap. I will admit that this little bloggy also crossed my mind - how could I write posts about Cabo without pictures? That would be soo boring. This camera could not be left in Mexico.

A few minutes later Jack and I were sitting alone on the plane. Jack was happy as a clam pushing buttons, opening and closing the window, and jumping on his seat; no worries in the world. Then there was me, sweating like a freak as I sat silently panicking in the next seat. I kept thinking, "Maybe if I look down for a second, I can look back up and he'll be here." It wasn't working. Next thing I knew, the flight attendants were coming around to check that all seat-belts were buckled - we were taking off shortly. Then I had another (much scarier) realization, Garrett's passport was in my purse under my seat. My heart fell to my butt. The pictures didn't matter anymore - my husband was going to be stuck in Mexico forever! I grabbed the closest flight attendant and explained our predicament, only to be told, "Oh... well, I don't normally fly in and out of Mexico so I don't know what will happen if we leave without him." Thanks, lady.

Luckily, at that very moment Garrett's sweaty face appeared. I have never been so happy to see him. And he had the camera! Hallelujah! He had made it back just in time (he told me later that as he was running back down the terminal he saw the gate agent begin to close to gate). He slowly came down the aisle, handed me the camera, took his seat and between deep breathes he whispered, "I am not doing anything this flight - I deserve a nap." I was so relieved (understatement) that he made it back on time; and I was so happy that the camera and pictures had been saved. The whole flight home I kept thinking, "What a man, what a man, what a man; what a mighty good man." (I often think in Salt-N-Pepa lyrics)

Back to our trip;

Have I mentioned how fantastic it was? Sors that's probably annoying. It was just a really great trip with great peeps. My last post included the pictures of how we spent the majority of the vacay - at the hotel pool and the beach. However, we did tons of other stuff too. We ate tons of authentic Mexican food; which I learned, sadly, does not ever include chips and salsa. We rode on a glass bottom boat, swam with dolphins, rode jet skis, hung out at the marina, met Poncho, and cruised through souvenir shops.

The first set of pictures are from the morning we took a glass bottom boat out to Lover's Beach. Doesn't that sound spicy? Well it wasn't - but it was pretty cool. Before we got to the beach, the guide on our boat gave us a short tour around the peninsula and when we weren't busy making sure Jack stayed in the boat, we were amazed with how beautiful it was. 

Just swinging at the bar waiting for our boat. Nbd.


Jack can't quite say "fish" yet, so instead he makes this face.


Starring down at the glass bottom of the boat, waiting for fishies.


Finally, a few appeared -


but then Jack figured out you could see way more fish if you just looked over the edge.


The "Cabo Arch"


Too bad Garrett's dumb head is blocking the arch...


I wish I could take credit for this picture - I stole it from my sister-in-law


Exploring the caves on Lover's Beach

The next set of pictures are from our dolphin adventure! I'm not just being silly here, that's what the place was actually called. I was a little excited about this. Okay, a lot excited about it. As soon as we decided we were going to Cabo I informed Garrett that we would be swimming with dolphins. No. Matter. What.

We weren't sure how Jack would do with the dolphins -  We figured he would either be really into it or totally afraid of them. Guess what? He loved it. I think it helped that we had been telling him for a few months how we would be swimming with dolphins on our vacation. He totes showed up the other four kids in our group (three of whom were older than him) by being the only one brave enough to kiss/high-five/hold the dolphin. He's so cool. (Obvs he gets it from his Momma)

Showing off his bracelet, right before he decided to rip it off. Of course.


What a ham.


How official do I look?

These pictures are just my favorite.

Garrett's "must-do" in Cabo was a deep sea fishing trip. BOR-ING. Luckily for Gar, our brother in-law Justin and his Uncle Dave thought it sounded fun too. Long story short, the three of them plus a fishing guide went out for eight hours and Garrett ended up being sea sick the entire time. Poor guy. Plus Garrett felt so nauseous that he hardly took turns reeling in the line, and when he did the fish were pretty pathetic. However, Justin and Dave were able to catch some pretty impressive fish that turned into a pretty delicious dinner (or so I was told, I refuse to eat fish).

The view at the marina

Our brother in-law Justin with his catch.

Here's the plate of fish - I love the graceful garnishes of rosemary.

Jack showing off his fish sticks, which were apparently made from the fish they caught (we had no way of actually knowing)

After dinner we went on a walk down the marina and ran into the coolest sea lion ever, Poncho.

Some local fisherman on a nearby boat showed us Poncho's best trick.

The things we do for food. I can relate. 

After a week the trip had to come to an end. Boo. Packing sucked, almost loosing my camera sucked, traveling all day sucked - but when we were finally home it felt great. Since we had flown out of Las Vegas, our flights home from Cabo were back to Vegas. However, we had a layover in Salt Lake - so Jack and I snuck out after our first flight. Gar flew on to to Vegas a few hours later where he got our luggage, our car, and then drove home.

Life is pretty much back to normal now, but I keep finding myself looking through all our Mexico pictures. I miss the amazing weather, the pool, the ocean, our balcony and the constant family time. I guess it's never too soon to start planning the next trip!

Adiós, Cabo! It was real and it was fun. 

I joined Bloglovin' so you can follow me there now. (It's what the cool kids are doing) Or you can follow me the good ol' fashion way through GFC - or both! Spanks.

cabo parte uno

Like my Spanish? It's pretty intense. And maybe I had to use Google translator - "Cabo Part One" is much too difficult for me to translate alone. In my defense, I have never taken a Spanish class.

Okay well, even though the post is titled "part one" it's technically the second post about our trip. This time, however, we are actually in Mexico. (Sors to disappoint last time) When we finally arrived at our hotel in Mexico, we were blown away - it was amazing (also any hotel that has this list on their website is somewhere I want to stay). Garrett's Aunt owns a time-share at the resort and was gracious enough to let our family and my sist-in-law's family share the suite for the week. Once we made a quick Wal-Mart run, the suite had everything we could possibly need. My favorite part of the suite was our balcony, we had a beautiful view of the ocean and the tip of the Baja Peninsula. I spent almost every morning and evening on the balcony.

Jack's favorite part of the hotel was the pools - we swam everyday. Seriously. The pools were divine, the lounge chairs were comfortable enough to be beds, the towels soft, and the Shirley Temples were always flowing. Heaven. Plus our hotel was right on the beach, so if we changed our mind we could skip down to the beach in less than two minutes. Of course I took tons of pictures:

Jack "jumping" in the pool.


Jack's new trick.


Garrett and our nephew Hunter - this may have ended in tears.



Lounging at the pool.


Cheeeeeeeze.


My nephew Ethan stealing cherries from our Shirley Temples.

Jack learned the hard way that sand in the mouth, sucks.

The Paradise Family (yeah, that's seriously their last name. Awesome, huh?)

Las Vegas

This post is technically the first post about our trip to Mexico, but it will have nothing to do with us actually being in Mexico. Make sense? I know, but it will soon. 

Almost exactly a year ago Jack and I went on this little trip to Texas - where my family and Garrett's family live. One afternoon while hanging with my sis-in-law, who had recently returned from a trip with her hubs to Cabo, she was telling me how much fun their trip had been. She also mentioned that there had been a lot of families vacationing there with little kids. Light bulb. Immediately, we both had the same idea - we should do a joint family trip! (Fabulous minds think alike - it's a real saying) Next I was looking up Garrett's school schedule, picking potential dates for the trip and figuring out with Lindsey which dates fit their schedule as well. A few minutes later it was decided, April 26 - May 3, 2013. The trip was born.

Fast forward to November. Gar and I decided that it was probably a good time to purchase our plane tickets - the earlier the better, right? We also wanted to make sure we could purchase three seats in the same row. When we looked up the flights from Salt Lake to Los Cabos we were really surprised with how expensive the tickets were, especially considering we were looking five months in advance. (We also had never had to buy a third ticket for Jack, so it was much more than our usual two tickets to Texas) But then I came up with a brilliant idea; "Gar, why don't you check and see how much the flights from Las Vegas to Los Cabos are? If they're cheap enough we can just drive down there." Turns out, flights from Las Vegas to Los Cabos are way cheaper - we saved about $600. So the tickets were purchased; our trip was official! Plus, now we were going to have an extra day of vacation in Vegas - and who doesn't love an extra day of vacation?

Okay fast forward again, now it's April 25. We spent our morning at the pediatrician (Jack, of course, got an ear infection the night before our international trip), picked up his prescriptions, finished packing our bags, loaded up the car, said our goodbyes to Guh-Guh, Hannah and Billy, and then we were off. The plan was a "quick" five hour car ride down to Las Vegas, where we would spend the evening with our good friends. Then in the morning we would fly from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and then Los Angeles to Los Cabos. Once in Cabo there would be a car service at the airport waiting to drive us to our hotel, doesn't that sound glamorous? (Spoiler, it wasn't - it was a van).

Okay well here's what actually happened. About three hours into our road trip, Garrett received an email from the car service in Cabo asking for confirmation on our flight details. After a few email exchanges, Garrett learned that the car service was unable to find our flight number. Red flag. Immediately, Garrett called Delta. So turns out our flight from Los Angeles to Los Cabos had been cancelled back in December but we were never notified. The agent from Delta assured Garrett they would rectify the problem; there were other available flights to Cabo the same day. The agent then tells Garrett, "I can put your family on a flight tomorrow morning from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City and then you'll have a direct flight from Salt Lake to Los Cabos." You are probably thinking exactly what we were saying, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME??" Garrett expained to the agent how frusterating this was since we live in Salt Lake, but we were already driving down to Vegas. But since we were over halfway there it wasn't worth turning around, so we booked the new flights. The agent promised Garrett that he would sit us altogether and that there would be no further problems.

Lies. About 45 minutes later, Garrett received our new flight confirmation email - which included our new seats. On our 45 minute flight from Vegas to Salt Lake we had two seats together and then one seat a few rows away, which is no biggie but kind of annoying. But on the flight to Cabo our seats were all separate and no where near one another - which makes sense, I mean two year-olds often sit alone on 3 hour flights. Garrett was pissed. After a long angry phone call, the problem was mostly solved. We weren't able to change our seats on the flight to Salt Lake, but they rearranged the flight to Cabo so that we would have our own row. Of course we did try demanding they move us to first class, but it didn't work (it's always worth a shot).

When we finally arrived in Vegas we were eager to get out of the car. Once we were checked in and rested we met up with my bestie Krysta for dinner. (Her hubs was supposed to come, but ended up having to study - dumb dental school). Although we were about to spend a week in Mexico eating Mexican food (which I already wasn't thrilled about), Garrett insisted we try this fancy Mexican place he loves. Even though Mexican food isn't my fav, dinner was pretty good and the company was even better. After din, we hit up Jean Philippe Patisserie for some gelato, watched the Bellagio fountains and explored the Bellagio gardens. It was a great ending to a kind of crazzy day.

I scream, you scream...

Jack was obsessed.

We loved the tulip and butterfly filled garden.

Next stop, Mexico!