Day One of Puerto Vallarta

Please enjoy the journaling of our trip to Puerto Vallarta. Sometimes you may wonder why I am going into such detail about silly things., but it's because I am mostly writing for our own memories to be captured and remembered. Stay tuned for Day two soon!

We got up at six and started getting ready for our day of travel
adventure. I was nervous and excited. With travel you never know
what's in store. You're relying on lots of other people and factors to
get you to your destination. We started our vacation a little early by
staying the night at a hotel at the airport. That was a brilliant idea
if I do say so myself.... Anyway, back to the morning of our trip. We
took a two minute shuttle ride to the airport and checked in. We were all checked in by 7:30 for our 9:22 flight. We got up thru security where I was thoroughly frisked. Didn't know wearing a skirt made you suseptable to that! We joked that maybe they thought I was concealing a weapon in a thigh gun belt like Larura Croft. We got some breakfast at Quiznos. We shared a ham egg and cheese sandwich then mosied on down to our terminal and waited for our
flight. The flight boarded and left on time and we arrived in Houston no problems. Once we got into Houston we realized we had ten minutes to get to our gate. Stupid us we trusted the gate number on our tickets that we got in Tulsa. We trucked all the way across the Houston
airport and arrived promptly at the wrong gate. The gate we were supposed to be at was a good ten to fifteen minute walk in the other direction. Luckily a lady who was driving a cart who probably heard my big high heeled boots stomping hurridley asked if she could give us a ride
to our gate. If it wasn't for her we probably wouldn't have gotten on our flight. When we arrived there was a huge group of people standing at the gate waiting to board. We made our way thru to the counter becasue we realized our tickets didnt have seat numbers on them but instead had "see gate clerk". We handed her our tickets and passport and were immediately told we wouldn't have a seat on this flight. Then as quickly as we were told that we were told we would but would have to wait. They had apparently over sold the flight as they had the Tulsa flight too. So we waited and watched everyone board finally we got anxious thinking we had been forgottn and went back up to the ticket counter. They took our tickets and told us they were still
working on finding us seats. We waited what seemed to be forever. I was NOT going to miss the beach today!!! Thankfully we made it on the plane!!

We arrived in Puerto Vallarta two hours later! We got through customs and all the crazy time share people mobbing us to come to their counter. That was crazy!!! We were not sure who was the real deal and who wasn't. We originally told our people who were to give us a ride to the hotel to get lost. Luckily they started calling out our name and following after us so we knew they were the real deal. We loaded up in the taxi and headed to the hotel.

The ride through town was neat. Real cobblestone roads that were so tiny. Like the parking lot lanes at Target in the US. Of course our driver was very skilled at driving like a bat out of you know what! He was very nice and informative but we were afraid to talk to him to
much because we wanted him to not be distracted.

We arrived at the hotel that was hugged on both sides by beautiful cliffs of the mountain. Absolutey beautiful and breath taking! We got checked in and were escorted to our room. As we entered we noticed something was alittle off... Instead of one king size bed there was two double beds?!? We were not interested in playing Ricky and Lucy Ricardo on this vacation and sleeping in seperate beds. So we called down to reservations to see what was up. They had no king size rooms available until the next day so we decide to just go with the flow. Hey!...we were in a gorgeous place, with one another and we could squeeze into a double bed together for one night.

The room had an ocean view. Please see pictures! There is a large sliding glass window/door that can be left open to hear the roaring waves crashing up against the shore all night long. Love it!!!!!! We left the window open every night and fell asleep the the ocean.

We decided to get our suits on and walked around to get familiar with the resort. There was five restaurants six bars and an entertainment center at the resort. There was no reason for us to ever leave this place. It was so cool! We didn't have time to get lunch at airport so we were famished. We went to Oceana. The restaurant that opened at 5:30! Deliscious. We had shrimp avacado spring rolls, steak and shrimp and dessert. All served "fancy" style!!! At dinner we were looking over the beach and watchedthe sun set behind the mountain. Breath taking and surreal. Not sure what was more surreal, the sunset or the fact that we had a hot, uninterrupted dinner with no one requesting to be taken to the bathroom or having fits.

After dinner we sat and watched the waves and talked. Then we walked decided to take a walk up the beach. We were pleasantly suprised at the temperature of the water...perfect! After a bit of romantic walking on the beach it was time for the entertainment the resort was offering that evening. A Circus Show!

Every night we were there they had some sort of nightly entertainment. All were wonderful and super fun to be part of. Tonight's was the circus. It was just a small six man show but they put on a great show. They did some amazing juggling, and acrobats but the one thing we were amazed at and had never seen anything like was this one clowns ability to take small crystal balls and roll them in his hands. It was mesmerizing and unlike anything we'd ever seen before. He just kept adding more balls to his hand and just at the point you thought he certainly couldn't put another in his hand he would. They were in constant motion and moving from the top to the bottom of the pile he had in his hand. At one point the had 8 in his hand at once!!

Another Reader

After going through books and sitting down to read with Mallory over the past week, I think it's safe to say we have another child in the house who's a reader!!! She is doing so good sounding her words out and working hard to read books "all by herself" Tonight she read two books to me with little assistance. I am very excited for her and proud of what a good students she is.

Proud Parent Moment

After church today Matt and I were noticing that Jack doesn't really interact with too many kids at church. He will if they engage first but he doesn't "choose" to go sit at the boys table in Sunday school(we know this because we teach his class). We also noticed that he doesn't ever come home from school and talk specifically about one child that he really enjoys hanging out with.

So after church today Matt and I asked him who he hung out with at church on Wednesday nights. Who he hung out with at school. To both he answered no one. We then dug a little deeper and asked "Well who do you play with at recess?" He told us, "This boy named Christopher." He proceeded to tell us that Christopher was a special ed student that is in his class. He is who Jack plays with at recess. He told us that "he can't do all the things I am able to do". "Like at lunch he has to ask someone one to help him open his milk and stuff like that. So I help him at lunch too" He told us that on Mondays his other classmate Colby gets to play kickball and he stays and plays with Christopher. Then on Tuesdays, Colby stays with Christopher while he goes and plays kickball. I asked him if that was something that he was asked to do by his teachers or just something he and Colby worked out and decided to do. He told us it was just something he wanted to do because he likes Christopher and knows he can't do everything and didn't want him to feel bad.

After hearing this Matt and I were just beaming with pride. Getting a glimpse of Jacks tender compassionate heart. Needless to say this was a proud parent moment.

This Week

I like the convenience of store bought Halloween costumes but there is something about home made ones that makes them much better.

My husband is cute with his hat on backwards

I can't stand ignorant people who judge you and every move you make based on someone elses opinion of you.

I can't stand when I let those people mentioned above dictate my mood, actions, and feelings.

I definitely prefer black pens over blue pens.

A study with two boys and three girls shows--that inevitably girls will get more Halloween candy than boys.

My kids can run 3.2 miles and live to tell about it.

The song What a Fool Believes by the Doobie Brothers always whisk me away to sitting in a dentist office?!?!

Time-out

This morning after being put in time out for disobeying Rachel started telling me what she thought about it all through sad, tearful woes. 

I told her to go tot the corner to which Rachel responded....

I don't want to! But she went anyway crying and grumbling the whole way. As she sat down and started to cry harder she says " I wish I was a mom" More crying and angry grumbling. Then she says "this is no fun". I think she said something about being a little girl and was pretty mad about that too.

I'm pretty sure it was one of those moments you had to be there to appreciate it. Her tone and the way she was saying things was very entertaining. She said some other stuff that was funny and added to the whole conversation she was having with herself in time out.