Puerto Vallarta

The first leg of our Spring Break Vacation brought us to Puerto Vallarta, a Mexican town on the Pacific Coast. It is only an hour and a half flight from Monterrey and we scored one-way plane tickets through a cheap airline, Volaris, for only $47 a person. 

We rented a condo through airbnb.com to stay for five nights. It was a neat two bedroom condo on the seventh floor with a fantastic view of the ocean, an enormous pool, and direct beach access. 

The boys were thrilled about the robes provided (Seth)

Our first dinner together on our balcony. 

The boys representing the USA

Love this picture of the boys! (Seth, Josh, Sam)

They don't wear matching shirts often, but when they do, it's so cute!

We really enjoyed Puerto Vallarta. Each day was in the low 80s with a slight breeze and we liked that it didn't have the high humidity that the Cancun area did. However, the water was actually kind of chilly...not Oregon Coast cold, but also not Hawaii or Caribbean warm. Joshy loved playing in the sand and the first day the boys boogie boarded quite a bit. 

Covered with sand

In all cracks and crevices ;)

Trying to get a group picture in the hotel pool was near impossible

This is just one small section in the gigantic pool

Another view of the pool; as you can tell, the condo complex was pretty empty in the middle of the week.

Our condo beach was filled with sand dollars...but not Oregon, bleached white, broken sand dollars...these things were all alive! When your feet were in the water at low tide, you would literally feel dozens of these shells rolling over your feet with each wave.

We discovered that each of these "paw prints" on the sand were actually sand dollars that had buried themselves. The boys and I spent hours digging them up and putting them in self-made tide pools. We were totally fascinated by alive, pink, hairy sand dollars.

The boys holding alive sand dollars (our condo building is in the background)

Another crazy thing I saw on one of my beach walks was this dead puffer fish. I can't say that I've ever seen one of those before!

One of the afternoons Ben got a beach-side massage (he was sore from all the airplane travel) while the kids and I played in the sand. The twins buried their feet and wanted me to take different "statue" pictures of them. Silly boys.

Awkward football pose.

Look at those ribs--I mean muscles.

Josh wouldn't leave the section of beach where Ben was getting the massage...he's just a bit attached to his Father. 

We spent most of our time at the beach or in the pool, but we also just enjoyed quiet time together as a family. We read, did puzzles, and played pool in the game room. An annoying aspect of our condo was that the internet didn't work the entire time that we were there; however, it ended up being a blessing in disguise, because we were basically screen-free the whole time. 

We found the coolest Ravensburger Disney puzzle to borrow from the game room

Ben teaching Josh how to play pool

Uno as a family

We also ate at two of our favorite Mexican restaurants of all time, and both for under $20 as a family. The first restaurant, Pancho's Takos, was in old town Puerto Vallarta. Their specialty taco is called "trumpo" and is meat cut off a spit. This place was a hole-in-the-wall, but also was super popular. We waited in line for an hour, but enjoyed chatting with a retired American couple from the Seattle area while we waited. And the tacos were SO worth it!

 The waiter was skeptical that we could eat our 24 tacos that we ordered, but he didn't know how much our boys love their tacos! In no time at all, they were gobbled up.

 Best. Tacos. Ever.

On Wednesday, we scheduled a boat trip. The boat was supposed to leave at 9, take us to a bay to snorkel, then take us to an isolated village (only accessible by boat) called Yelapa. The day had kind of a rough start. Within about five minutes from getting out of our taxi at the marina, I discovered that my phone had fallen out of my pocket in the taxi. So, Ben and I split up: he and the kids headed to the port and our boat, while I tried to find someone to help me get a hold of the taxi driver. About 10 minutes later, Ben sauntered over to me; I figured that we had missed the boat, but no, we had been told the wrong time that the boat wasn't leaving until 1 pm. He was, however, also bearing good news: Sam had the idea that Ben should call my phone over and over again. Eventually the taxi driver pulled over, answered the phone, and thankfully drove back to return it to us. Not exactly the morning that we had imagined, but we are more accustomed to these "Mexican" type days now. 

 Waiting for my cell phone. 

Four hours later we were on the boat ready to go. 

It was a beautiful day for a boat ride.

The kids were instructed to wear their life vests like this for snorkeling (I think that it made them look like they had fish tails). Snorkeling wasn't the best experience: the water was cold and choppy. Josh didn't want to be left behind with boring ol' mom on the boat, but then hated the water, fussed and cried, and was afraid of being eaten by a whale (we had seen one about 10 minutes earlier). So, within a few minutes, Josh and I headed back to the boat and Ben and the twins snorkeled. 

Thankfully they were all able to go kayaking as well. Josh was much happier with this experience.

Walking to the village of Yelapa.

It was such a beautiful place.

The highlight of the trip to Yelapa was that we all took horses to a waterfall about a 15 minute ride up into the hills. Riding horses was true Mexican style: they plopped each of us up on a horse (Josh was with Ben), gave us absolutely no instructions, slapped the horses' butts, and off we went down the trail. The twins had someone leading their horses...but having never ridden a horse in my adult life, I felt pretty intimidated!

Sam

Seth

Josh LOVED riding his horse. He named him Blaze and I heard many a "yippy-i-oh's" during the ride.

I totally look like a natural, right?

Not only did we ride the horses minus instructions or training, one of the first "obstacles" was a wide river to wade through. It wasn't very deep, but I definitely didn't have experience in nudging my horse to want to go through water. 

We survived and the setting was absolutely beautiful.

Riding up the hill through the village

The waterfall at the end of the journey

The tropical trees around the falls were absolutely enormous.

Favorite (only) family picture of the trip.

Me and my horse on the ride back. Thankfully this time one of the guides helped me with my horse. I was thankful because truthfully, I was quite uncomfortable handling a horse on my own!

Such a cool village.

Glimpses of the bay on the ride back.

It was by far the most beautiful beach we saw in the Puerto Vallarta area.

Ben, Josh and Blaze.

Yes, Sam's guide was a girl about his age. Not sure what she was going to do if his horse decided to take off. (Crooked picture = taking pictures from a horses back.)

The kids had a blast running from the waves that crashed exceptionally hard on this beach.

I had fun treasure hunting for shells.

The return trip home was beautiful. And...we all saw a whale flip its tale out of water!!

Captain Sam

My handsome hubby.

Thursday was our last full day at Puerto Vallarta, so we spent as much time as possible at the beach.

We all worked together to make a sand castle with a massive river.

Unfortunately, we miscalculated the castles distance from the ocean and the river never quite filled-up.

The final morning Josh also taught himself how to boogie board. The waves were too small to thrill the big boys, but they were perfect for Josh. He wouldn't let anyone instruct him.

Instead, he picked up the board and headed off to do it on his own. True Josh style.

Favorite moments of the trip:

Riding horses in Yelepa

Seeing a whale

Sunset from our condo balcony

Least favorite moments of the trip:

Losing Jamie's cellphone in a taxi

If we go to Puerto Vallarta again:

Stay in old town Puerto Vallarta instead of the resorts of Nuevo Vallarta. We loved the old Spanish buildings and walk-ability of the older area, but our condo was 40 minutes away from it, so we didn't get to spend nearly as much time there as we wanted.