Amazing Vacation, but glad to be home!

We returned home late last night from our trip to Puerto Vallarta. Overall, it was a great time but we were ready to come home! I missed Leah much more than I anticipated. Thank goodness for technology and FaceTime. We were able to check in from time to time and "see" how Leah was doing. Even after a few days I felt Leah changed and looked different. Melissa was great sending us texts with detailed reports and we could call her anytime we wanted. We had dropped Leah off at Melissa's the night before we left so we didn't have to worry about disrupting her sleep schedule and getting her up so early. (A huge thank you to Melissa for taking Leah while we were gone! We had total piece of mind and never had to worry). I'm sure she loved being with all the kids. Leah was all packed and ready to go on Saturday evening. It was hard to drop her off but she didn't even shed a tear when we left. She was too busy playing! We bought her a new pink suitcase. She loved wheeling it all around the house and become quite possessive of it if I tried to take it to pack more of her stuff.

Our trip started with an early 6:45 am flight on Sunday. My dad came and picked us up at 4:00 am. Wow - that was early! Unfortunately, we did not have a direct flight to Mexico. Our first stop was in Houston, Texas where we had a two hour layover. Once we landed we grabbed ourselves some lunch (even though it only 10:00 am) and kicked off of our trip with our first cocktail! We were on vacation after all and had already been up for 7 hours. We then had another 2 1/2 hour flight from Houston to Puerto Vallarta. It went by fairly quickly (our flights had DIRECTV and we could watch whatever we wanted). One of my coworkers had just taken a trip to Puerto Vallarta a few weeks ago and stayed at the same resort we would be staying at. Her trip was not so great (the weather was rainy and overcast the whole time and her and her husband both ended up getting sick while they were there) and I was praying we would have a different outcome. Luckily, we ended up having an amazing vacation that was well worth the time away!

We stayed at the RIU Palace Pacifico. It was an all inclusive resort that was just beautiful. We were up on the top floor with an ocean view room!

We didn't get there until almost 3:00 pm  so we spent a lot of time exploring the resort and locating the different restaurants, spa, bars and other areas. There were 5 restaurants onsite along with a handful of bars. We didn't have time to try all of restaurants but the ones we did were okay. I am actually looking forward to eating at home again. All of the food just seemed so heavy and my stomach needs a break. After we figured out what was where, we took a long walk along the beach. The water was not as clear as it was in Aruba or Cancun, but it was definitely warm. The sand also wasn't as fine as it was in some of the other places we've been. It was a nice beach though. After our walk, we had dinner and drinks before calling it a night (as we had had a long day).

The rest of our vacation was spent laying poolside, taking dips in the water and sipping on a wide variety of drinks. We spent almost every day at the pool. For this trip we opted not to do any excursions, we wanted to purely have a relaxing vacation. In addition to our pooltime, we also took long walks everyday. Sometimes we would walk the beach and other times we'd go walk the sidewalks down the stretch of all of the resorts. We even made it to the gym a few times to get a workout in (which definitely helped with all the food and alcohol we consumed). We treated ourselves to massages that were absolutely wonderful. The weather was fantastic. It only rained a few times, primarily really late at night. On our first night, we had some pretty severe storms and actually ended up losing power. Otherwise, we lucked out with hot sunny days almost all the rest of the time.

While we did spend a good amount of time at the resort, we also ventured off and explored the downtown. To get downtown, it is a $25 cab ride, but if we took the bus it was only $1.50 a person. Although I was a bit hesitant, we ended up taking the bus (which we happened to be the only tourists on the bus).The bus was packed with locals and was hotter than heck since there is no air conditioning and it was about 100 degrees outside. In order to get downtown, you have to take 2 different buses. It was a little intimidating figuring out where we had to make the switch, but were able to make it there. We walked around downtown for awhile stopping in the different shops. We also  stopped at a few locals bars and had some Corona's and Margarita's.

The timeshare people were relentless. Every few steps we took, we were getting bombarded by them or by people trying to sell us something (like jewelry, excursions or tequila). Rob caved and ended up buying a $45 bottle of tequila! Anyone want to come over for margaritas? Because I can assure you otherwise that we won't drink it. I will say, this was probably the first trip we've taken that we were not offered drugs! Cancun was probably the worst. Sine we weren't sure where to catch the bus back, we decided to take a cab back to the resort (which was about a 25 minute ride).

We almost did have one setback (that probably would have ruined my trip). The morning after we went downtown, Rob went to go get his wallet out of the safe and immediately asked me why the camera was not in there too. A bad feeling ran over me because I could not pinpoint the last time I even had the camera. I immediately searched my purse and my luggage - no camera.  The last thing I remember was looking at all of our pictures that we had taken on the cab ride home. Did I leave it in the cab? I was beginning to panic and feel sick to my stomach. Not only is it a really nice expensive camera, but also had all of the pictures I had taken from our trip and TONS of pictures of Leah that I had not yet downloaded to our hard drive. (Since I tend to take a gizillion pictures, Rob always gives me a hard time that I need to transfer my pictures much more frequently).  I literally wanted to cry! I didn't know what to do. If I left it in the cab, there was almost no hope that we would get it back. Even though it was extremely unlikely, I decided to check with the front desk to see if it had been turned in. I was not optimistic, but after I inquired they informed me that a camera had been turned in. I had to describe it and they told me what they had matched my description. I was overcome with relief! We asked where it had been found and they said it was sitting on one of the benches in the lobby the night before. The lobby is the only area of the resort that has wifi. I remember sitting down and using our iPad when we got back from downtown. The camera was in my purse and must have fallen out. I am not sure how I didn't notice - it is a fairly large camera with a decent size lense. Anyhow, I was SO relieved that we had gotten it back. It honestly probably would have ruined my trip. I was definitely over-protective of it the rest of our time, frequently checking to make sure it was still in my bag!

The next couple of days went by fairly quickly. I did get a little sunburn from being outside so much (regardless of all of my suntan lotion applications). I am fair skinned and don't tan that easily - I tend to burn. I finished a book (my second one of the year -yay!) We had dinner in the specialty restaurants. They were all right. One of their restaurants was a Japanese Steakhouse. I didn't have high expections since Mexico is not known for their Sushi and I was right!! The resort also offered "themed" nights. One night they did a Mexican Fiesta and on anothet they had a Gala theme. We met people from the Chicagoland area (St. Charles & Shorewood), California and several from Canada. The evening of our last night was probably the most fun. We sat at an outdoor bar and had a great time.

On our last full day, there was a slight overcast so we decided to go back downtown in the morning. This time we took the bus there and back. We checked out the flea markets to look for some bargains. We didn't find much just a few things for the kids. In order to get to the various areas of the markets, we had to cross these incredibly wobbly and scary bridges that ran over a river. If you know me, I am extremely scared of heights and was having a panic attack crossing the bridge fearing I would fall. The locals were crossing it like it was no big deal, even pushing strollers across the rigity old bridge. We stopped for lunch at a place called Puerto V. It was a pretty hip and modern place. If our resort was closer to the downtown area, we probably would have checked it out at night. (I was a little leary about being downtown too late since we weren't super familiar with the area). After a little more walking around, we hopped back on the bus and got off where we would make the switch. There happened to be a (pretty modern) mall right there so we decided to stop in and check it out. It was definitely more Americanized then the downtown area we had just come from. There was a Chili's and other stores we recognized. They also had a large casino attached (which sorta seemed out of place). We went back to resort and got ourselves ready for dinner and drinks.

I enjoyed spending the much needed time away with Rob. Our vacation definitely served its purpose. It gave us a chance to relax and reconnect (although a lot of conversations were based on Leah). We had a great time, but by the end of the fifth night, we were ready to come home. The flights home were pretty uneventful but were long travel days. We couldn't wait to get home. Our connecting flight didn't get in until late and by the time we gathered our luggage and our limo picked us up, it was even later. My dad had picked up Leah for us in the early evening and brought her back to our house so she would be there when we got home. We were so anxious to see her and squeeze her with hugs and kisses, we ended waking her up when we got in. We probably should have let her sleep but I missed her SO much!! We ended up sleeping in pretty late this morning. Today is filled with spending quality time with my little girl, unpacking and cleaning up and the other million things I need to do because on Monday it is back to reality!!