I have been wanting to go to Mexico for the past half a year. Last Summer some friends went to Mexico and in November some other friends went and hearing their stories and seeing their pictures just put the bug in me and I told Kefford we should go within the next year. He came home from work one day and said that he will have two weeks off in May because Kelsey and Brit were planning a trip to Jerusalem. As soon as he told me he had days off I said lets go to Mexico! I wasn't too sure on how to find the best deals for a trip like this because I definitely wanted to stay in an all inclusive resort plus getting air fare and finding the best place to stay seemed a bit overwhelming. I was talking to my friend Stephanie about it and she clued me in onto Costco Travel. I looked up a stay in Mexico for a week at an all inclusive resort and I found one for about $1800 for both Kefford and I. I was amazed that it seemed so much cheaper then I expected, the cost included flights, shuttle to and from the airport and the a inclusive resort. After talking about it and figuring out where exactly we wanted to go we booked a weeks stay at The Occidental in Puerto Vallarta. I was so excited and really looking forward to this time with Kefford. The last vacation we took just the two of us was to Australia for our ten year anniversary, it was definitely time for another trip.
May is recital month for me, the girls are still in school and we just had a lot happening so we decided to leave on Monday and come back on Friday, a quick trip but that was ok. Avynlea and Rylee are old enough now, we felt, to stay at home on their own so I took them grocery shopping before we left and I left some cash for them so they could eat out a couple of nights or just have money if they needed anything. They were actually pretty excited to have the house to themselves and even though we told them not to tell anyone Avynlea couldn't help herself and ended up telling everyone she knew. Crazy girl. Rylee moved herself into our bedroom and lived the high life while we were away, I wondered if we would get our bedroom back when we returned..hahaha.
Avynlea took us to the airport before school Monday morning and we flew to LAX and then boarded our flight to Mexico. The mask mandate in airports has been lifted so we were able to fly to LAX without wearing a mask which was amazing. Unfortunately we learned once we landed in California that the flight to Mexico still had restrictions so we had to wear a mask for the flight into Puerto Vallarta, booo.
We have some friends, The Heslops, who just took a trip to Puerto Vallarta and they gave us recommendations on things to do while down there. One of the things they told us was as soon as we got through customs to just head outside the airport to our shuttle. They let us know that there would be people inside that would try to sell us timeshares and other things but to walk past them and get outside. As soon as we land and got through customs we were hit with the exact scenario he told us to avoid. We were doing good getting through the mass of people trying to get at us but then one guy asked what shuttle we were looking for and once we said gray line he said oh that's over here and ushered us over to a guy at a desk who proceeded to try to sweet talk us into buying timeshares, or trips or change our stay at the hotel we were at. I really don't know what he was trying to sell since I quickly realized what was going on and proceeded to open an email from Avynlea and I ignored him leaving Kefford to deal with getting us out. Kefford was also ignoring the guy and looking around trying to figure out how to get out when the guy told us e were being very rude. We said we didn't want what he was selling and and after him calling us rude a couple more times we were able to extract ourselves and we got outside and found our shuttle.
Once we got to our hotel we got checked in and we received bracelets that had our room tag on them. All we had to do was hold our bracelets up to our door and it unlocked it and we were in, super easy and really nice to not have to worry about carrying our room key around. Once inside we changed out of our traveling clothes and headed out to explore our resort and find some food. We were pretty hungry after all day traveling and our hotel had buffets for all meals so we were able to find some yummy things to eat.
That night while I got ready for bed Kefford went to get himself some ice cream, when he got back he told me there was a show going on out by the pool and to come look at the sunset. We saw the most amazing sunset and we headed out to take some pictures of it. We got some from the balcony on the outside stairs and then Kefford and I headed down to the beach to try to get some different views. It was beautiful and it really felt like we were in paradise. After we took our sunset pictures we stopped to watch a little of the show. It was people dancing in different styles and while it was interesting for a while I was done after about 20 minutes. It was ok but the girls suddenly had on some pretty revealing outfits and the dancing was more of the same so we went back inside and went to bed.
