Now This is My Kind of Adventure!!!

Step One: Speed boat across Pacific to private island.




Step Two: Get in a umigog and travel dirt roads that do not deserve that title, up through the jungles of Mexico. This was a very rattling/bumpy road, but the junlge was amazing. So lush and green. We passed a waterfall every 25 yards or so. Totally amazing.

Step Three: Get dressed for our adventure...

Step Four: Hop astride "batman" as my donkey was named. We had to ride these mules the rest of the way through the jungle as the path was steep, rugged and narrow. SOO fun.

Step Five: Put on some nasty, wet, slimy gloves and zipline through the canopy of the jungle. This was an amazing experience. So thrilling, serene, and breathtaking.

Step Six: Rapelling - haven't done that since girls camp - never done it through a warm waterfall.

Step Seven: Get plopped into the pools below. Sounds good to me.

Can you believe that scenery?? So gorgeous. It was hard to keep my head down to watch where I was stepping. Everything was so beautiful.

Race. Adam won. He's heavier - no fair.

We also got to cross narrow rope bridges, slush through rivers, hop suspended bridges, and the group right in front of us noticed a HUGE tiranchula as they walked passed. Glad I didn't notice that one.

I would have done that every day. It was completely amazing.

Rythm's of the Night...Sigh...So Romantic

So I woke up extra early this morning to expeirence Yoga on the Beach, but I got down there only to find it was cancelled. Bummer. Those of you that know me, know I don't wake up early for just anything. So I decided to get a massage instead. It was fabulous. $30 for an hour. Not too bad.

After the massage I joined water aerobics at the resort and then we spent the next few hours trying to set up the rest of our week. I of course was trying the get the best price I could for all the tours we wanted to do. I got pretty good deals. We were able to buy some of the tours from a beach vendor that we had met in church. He said we were feeding his family for a week. Glad we were able to help.



The flea market was a blast. I thought I was good at bargaining, but these people need to come to the U.S. and do training sessions on selling. They are CRAZY! I definitely ended up with more than I had planned, but I got a good deal right? :)

Monday night we went on a cruise called Rythms of the Night. It was awesome. We took about an hour long catamaran ride across the ocean along the city line to a private island called Los Caletas. Onboard the catamaran, it was open bar. As you can imagine, we were most likely the only ones not completely wasted by the time we arrived.

We got to watch the sun set.

Going...

Going...

Ahhhh... Beautiful.

When we arrived at Las Caletas, it was almost dark and the only light the island had was by torch and candlelight.

We were escorted to an outdoor amphitheater where we experienced the most amazing show. We got to see characters like this dance and perform for us. Acrobatics and fire dancing were among some of the highlights.

Afterwards they took us to dinner. Each couple sat at there own candlit table. It was very romantic. We ate in palpayas which are huts made from palm leaves. They were set on the waterfront and we watched and heard the waves roll in as we ate. A mariachi (sp?) band played for us.

The food was amazing. Some of the best we had our entire visit. Definitely gourmet. That was definitley an experience I would do over again.

After dinner we were free to explore the island, my fav was relaxing under this palm tree on the beach, in a hammock. Sigh... I keep playing the "1 week ago we were...." game. 1 week ago I was laying in a hammock next to the ocean under a palm tree with my hubs. What happened? Oh ya, I came home.

And this is where my camera broke. Some drunk lady was taking a picture of me and dropped my camera lens down inside a canoe. UGHHH, we still have a week of vacay left to go!!! I had to buy those dumb disposable cameras. They are developing at Walmart as we speak, and they better turn out! Stay tuned.

Sunday we sought ought the church. We had to take a taxi to church and arrived at our beautiful building in the middle of trash trodden streets and little huts for homes. I was shocked. The church had a gate around it and it was open outdoor mall style.

The homes around the church - and everywhere else in Puerto Vallarta and surrounding towns was shocking. These people live in poverty like I haven't seen before. You could probably fit 45 typical mexican homes on my property alone. The windows are cut out without any glass and you can see into there homes. They are one or two room cement shacks with cement floors. Chickens are running round thier cages and laundry is hung from lines.

There are no garbage cans - they just pile thier garbage bags into the streets. The trash man comes to pick it up every day to keep the rat population down. WOW! I always hear how good we have it in the states, but it is different actually seeing it.

So hear we are at the church right in the middle of a typical mexican neighborhood which I have just described.



We stayed for all three meetings, and of course we couldn't understand one thing. The Spirit is universal, and as one lady was bearing her testimony and getting teary, the spirit was there. It was awesome to behold. It was also so wonderful to sing such familiar hymns in another language. What a great experience this was.

This sweet little old lady named Judith came to talk to us. She is from Murray, Utah and her and her husband retired there 13 years ago. They spend about 4-6 months a year in Puerto Vallarta. She showed us around, translated some and introduced us to her friends. She also invited us home for dinner.

We took the bus to her home. The bus rides are awesome there. The streets are cobblestone with potholes everywhere, so you can imagine our rides to and from anywhere. There are no lanes so they really just do whatever. The buses drive FAST and literally no further apart then 6 inches. It is quite scary. She taught us the bus system, which saved us ALOT of money for the remainder for our trip. A typical cab is about $5 and the bus cost is .60.

Peter and Judith live near the ocean and marina. It was interesting to note they have crocadiles in there bay. I was really hoping to spot one. Apparently crocadiles frequent the water in the golf courses too. There are signs posted. SCARY. I guess your ball is offically lost when you land it in one of those water traps.

Peter and Judith. They were so sweet to teach us the ropes and welcome us into there home. What a good family.

On Our Way - Happy 10th Babe!

So I always imagined by the time we had been married 10 years, we would have things together. We would be well into Adam's career, putting all kinds of money away for retirement and a rainy day, and we would for sure be going somewhere fab for our anniversary.... well reality check! We are still just trying to figure things out - but we did by some miracle manage to take a fab get away. CHILD FREE!!! We have never done that before. Never been on a trip child free. I am still mourning the fact that it is over. We had SUCH A BLAST!

Our wonderful mothers took our kiddos for 10 DAYS! Adams mom took Cole in St. George and my mom took the girls in Rexburg Idaho. Yes, we are very irresponsible and they missed all that school.

My criteria for the tenth was that I wanted to get on a plane, go somewhere hot, and somewhere we'd never been before. That almost didn't happen, but in the end it did and I am happy and content (and 10 pounds heavier :)

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico here we come!!

Cole hitched a ride with one of Glenda's friends on Wednesday to St. George. That was an unexpected surprise. Saved me a trip - Whew.

Met my mom halfway to Rexburg Thursday.

Took off Friday. Thanks Ethan for getting us to the airport so early. We arrived in Mexico about 6:15.



I love flying. It's so exciting. This is the first glimpse of the ocean from our plane.

...and our first glimpse of Mexico.

As soon as we stepped off the plane and had our luggage we were vulturized by time share presenters disguised as helpful guys wanting to give you a map to the city and a free cab ride to your resort (because we were owners of a timeshare it was a perk). YA RIGHT!!! We got sucked in to a timeshare presentatin the next day. We accepted because they were feeding us and giving us tickets to a tour we really wanted to do. WHOA! Totally didn't see that coming. These time share vultures are everywhere. Someone offered us $300usd to go to one. We didn't because we didnt want to waste another 3 hours on our vacay but holy cow they are everywhere. If you lined these things up all on one day, you could have your whole trip paid for. That should be our stratedy next time.

We had a great one bedroom condo with a full kitchen (not that we really used it. I didn't want to cook or clean while I was there). Our room overlooked the ocean. Got to drink pineapple juice and watch the waves roll in every morning at breakfast time.

Enjoyed these little creatures every other day from the maid service. I could really get used to maid service.

View from our balcony. I don't know what kind of tree this is, but it was wild. It was like a tropical pine tree or something. It was tall sparse and the needles were THICK. The pine coney things were weird looking too.

First thing I noticed was the humidity. Wow, I have never experienced the kind of humidity they have there. Next thing, how green everything was. Whoa! Everything was so lush and stunning. Next, no place wanted you to flush the toilet paper. You were expected to use it and throw it in the garbage sitting right next to the toilet. Gross! Also, the streets were cobblestone. Holy cow that made for a bumpy ride. The taxis had no shocks left at all.

We hit the Soraina (local grocery store) first thing. I about died when I saw the prices. $37.50 for icecream!- I was relieved when I clued into the fact that they were talking pesos. It was about 12.75 pesos for $1.00 Thought we should stock up on fruit and icecream. Oh, and a meal for Sunday (only day I was willing to cook).

Hit a restaraunt down the street, they will make your salsa right in front of you. We were expecting some seriously good mexi food (we are huge mexican food lovers), but this place wasn't the greatest. It was ok, but definitely something I could find in the states. I want to be wowed people. I want to taste Mexico at every meal. Hopefully tomorrow things will look up on the food side.

All the sodas came in glass bottles. No fountain drinks here. After dinner, we hit the pool and hot tub. It was wonderful not to have to outfit three children with swimmers, and floaties. Ahh, looking forward to tomorrow.

Summer Boat Trip

Our sweet neighbors took us boating with them. We went to Pineview. It was a blast!

Francis and Ariah.

Mark and Adam.

Cannon Ball!!

I'm such a wuss on these things. I don't like to go to fast. Ambra and Cole were getting mad at me. Faster! Faster! They would scream.

We got Francis on the boat with us. She hasn't done that in years. We felt very special.