Sunday, May 24, 2009

To Cabo and Back with no Swine Flu

Well, here I am, back to real life. Obviously we decided to go. It was not an easy decsion, but we weighted all the facts and decided we were going to go for it. Can I just tell you I'm soooooo glad we went. We were VERY diligent about washing our hands and wiped down our airplane seat and our entire condo unit. We could see that MANY others decided to cancel. It was quite slow down there. We didn't mind, we had a great time! I brought masks, gloves, airborne, vitamins, my own hand soap, hand sanitizers and used all but the masks and gloves. A few people wore them on the plane and most of the employees at the Cabo airport wore them but other than that, we didn't see any!
For those of you that facebook and blog, these might be a repeat, but when I'm having a bad day or when the rain comes back, I will go to my happy place and remember what a fun and relaxing trip we had (sigh...........). So there's your warning...I'm posting way more pictures that I should but when you travel with another couple, there are sooo many more photo ops! Speaking of travel partners, thank you Michael and Lisa for being such great travel partners. Laid back, go with the flow, just here to have fun....that's what I like! Also a HUGE shout out to the greatest husband ever. He gave me the BEST gift that week (besides just going, that in an of itself was HUGE), he handled EVERYTHING! All the money, all the paperwork, all the documents and I just got to me an arm decoration for the week, it was heavenly! It was a TRUE vacation from normal life!!

So here we are on our first day in Cabo. We are not at our resort, we are just finishing up with a time share presentation. Yes, we stooped that low for free stuff. I have to say we did not go looking for this. Time share sales are a HUGE business down there and it's very competitive to even get people to the presentations. We stepped off the plane and were bombarded immediately with sales reps. I tried to steer Damon clear of them, but he had free golf on his mind, so he "went to work" so to speak. Don't feel bad for these people, because you see, 8 years ago, we were the "suckers" that bought down there, so ever since then, we have NO problem saying no and since they hounded us in the first place just to attend, we figured, why not?? So that was the airport scene. Then we checked into our resort and were heading out the lobby and Damon wanted to stop to "activate" our free drink ticket. Before I could intercede because I knew it was a ploy to get us to attend their presentation, he was at the desk and the lady was VERY intent on getting us to THEIR presentation, so what do you do? Yep, you go to both and see how much free stuff you can score: Between the two couples we got $400 cash so the guys could go golfing, a dinner cruise for four, a massage, and $400 credit for our resort restaurants (there were four to choose from). I thought that was a pretty good haul for 5 hours of "work" don't you??


Finally done with the presentation....let's get to the sun!!!


Here's a view of the main lobby from our "wait for the shuttle" spot. Lots of pictures taken while we waited. Kind of a down side to that resort. It's built into a hill, so it's quite steep from the bottom to the top. Getting around the resort is easiest by golf cart shuttle, so we waited quite a bit!
Our second night down there we went in search for the bonfire at the sister resort next to ours. Apparently there was NO ONE down there enjoying the bonfire so they turned it off and even after we pleaded and begged they still would not turn it back on! This is the best picture of my spray tan face. I thought I had a great idea of spray tanning before we left so I'd alreadyhave some color on my when it was 90 degrees out and I wanted to wear my sundress or shorts. Well, it was a little darker than I would have liked AND I forgot the whole pool factore and how the chemicals will fade the tan quicker and since it was HOT, we were in the pool a lot, so note to self, better to skip the spray tan next time!

Ahhhhh, relaxation!! Hey honey you look HOT!! He dropped 20 lbs from January to May pretty much just by modifying food choices and portions. Way to go!!!!

Lovin the sky pool. This pool was at the top of the resort, great views! They closed this pool mid week due to low occupancy...sad, we loved having it to ourselves.

Our attempt at the "Oh what a feeling", you remember the old Toyota commercials?? So, this pool also closed mid week...check out all the empty chairs!

More pool pics...you can tell where we spent most of our time!

Making our way back up the hill in the golf cart!!

Out for dinner at Mi Casa....our last mask sighting for the week...we thought it was funny!

We had the place to ourselves basically. The Marachi band played a really good Santana song!

Hello friend....so glad you guys could join us!

The boys at Hemingways. It was a really cool cigar bar. Cubans are big down there and they "needed" one for their golf day!

The wait staff wasn't very busy so we had lots of opportunities for foursome pics!

The infamous "free" golf game

Our sunset dinner cruise. The boat had probably around 40 people on it and my estimate is that it could have held around 150, but again, we made the best of it and enjoyed the lovely sunset and nice people we met! The lady that took this pictures was so funny, I think Michael was making a joke and asked if she could get "our boat" in the picture with us. She took him seriously, so here is a pic of us with our "boat" in the background.

It's an up close pic of "our boat" nice huh?....notice the helipcopter on the back of it???

The much anticipated sunset picture on the sunset cruise!

I've been on enough of these to know better than to wear a poofy dress....guess I forgot again. I ended up tying a knot in the side of the dress to keep me from giving the guests more than they bargained for on the trip!

Down at the beach! We only went in the ocean water once. The waves a had a wicked strong undertow and almost took me out a couple times. I felt much better pool side!

Out to dinner one night...Lisa thought my dress was a nice accent to the wall art!

Stayed in and enjoyed a game of cards!

Enjoying our last evening in Cabo. I think we started planning our next trip over dinner! We decided both couples passed the "test" and we'd go again together!

Last moonlit picture.....

Last group photo as we loaded up with our suitcases to go check out

Last few minutes to soak in sun from the lobby deck

Our view from the lobby deck

Last pic of us in Cabo...thank you sweetie for the best week ever! Happy anniversary!

At the Portland airport...Lisa's family brought her flowers for Mother's day....how sweet!

Speaking of sweet....oh how I missed my sweet girls!!! We were sooo happy to see them!

Grandma helped the girls make welcome home animals out of bath towels and they were waiting on our bed when we came home. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for taking such good care of our most prized possessions!

That's all folks!! If you've lasted this long in this post, bless you! If you haven't, I understand! Great trip and Great to be back home!

2 comments:

Corrigan Party of Six said...

such great pictures! something about an awesome vacation makes all the pictures gorgeous :)

Tamara said...

Oh I'm so happy for you - looks like a perfect vacation - much needed R&R - good romance and couple time - you looked adorable in all of your vacation clothes - you rocked your turquoise bikini and you hubby did awesome to lost that weight so quickly - good for him - I need to start planning another couple vacation - they are more needed then we know I think...