Cómo sobre eso....tome un cuadro

Ok, so you may need to bare with me on this blog. 12 fantastic days in Mexico = a TON of favorite pictures to choose from. So what Im saying is, this may be a long blog. :)
Our much anticipated trip to Mexico had finally arrived! We drug the boys out of bed at 4am and headed for the airport Christmas morning.

Jake and the boys watching our plane prepare for us to board.

We found this sign on one of our first days in town and it saved us from a lot of frustration on the trip. Wen we came upon this sign we explained to them that this is a BIG rule in Mexico. "to hold your mommy and daddys hands at all times, or the police will come yell at you" any time they refused to hold our hands on the trip we simply said "remember the sign?" and they grabbed our hands. Yes, were bad.
On our trip we toured two resort time shares. We've talked latley of getting into a time share now that the boys are getting older and we plan to travel more, so to see a few options gave us more of an idea of what type were looking for. They fed us yummy breakfast, showed us their resorts, told us how time shares work, and even gave us little thank you gifts (gift certs for food, massages, and even cash!)

Here is the water fountain in the main lobby of the first one we toured. Eli refused to smile nicely for many pictures on this trip, so get used to the silly faces now.

They had a bar/lounge that they took us through to view there also. This was a rug on the floor. We were shocked at the decor in this room....animal rugs, wall mountings, photos...ALL of animal killings/hunting...many of which were endangered!

This particular resort was a little too fancy for our family with little kids, and the second one we went to wasnt built completley yet and that worried us..but it was nice to get ideas for when we do choose a final plan.

And what would a pricey time share resort in Mexico be without Flamingos? We dont know, because this resort had a plenty! Arent they beautiful! (And the boys are trying to sheild their eyes from the blinding warm sunshine....such Oregonians)

Our first full day in Mexico it was just us and our boys. We had a great day exploring the new town and getting familiar with our surroundings. The boys had a really hard time understanding why when they talked to anyone they would get a weird response. We kept explaining to our very social children that they all speak spanish there. By the end of the trip it was fun to see how differently they interacted with everyone, especially the kids at the pools. They really began to adapt to their new surroundings and even picked up a good dose of spanish words and have been using them here at home.

Having dinner at one of our most visited resturaunts on the trip. These big windows opened right up at our seats and we watched the beach fun through our meals. I even bought a beautiful swim suit wrap from a woman vender right off the beach through our window.

The sunset out the window at dinner. Absolutley breath taking.

There was a ton of really amazing statues throughout town. This one we came upon durring our wandering around our first day. Sadly, I cant remember what its called though and its not on our map to cheat either.

Searching for sea shells.

Looking down the beach just past the Golden Zone.

And of course our favorite part of the trip...sun and water. By the end of the trip both boys were complete fish. Here is Mommy and Eli hanging out on the rocks in the pool at our first hotel.

And the boys chilling in the kiddie pool.

The beautiful beach by our hotel.

Sr. Frogs! Eli's favorite place to eat. He had such a great time at this resturaunt, and is where I believe he got his rythm. He could not dance before this trip, but somehow by the end of our vacation he had rythm and could move! Sr. Frogs is a super lively dinner place. They had loud music, balloon hats, funny waiters, and we had a great time. They got us all up on our tables dancing, took us around the resturaunt and outside on a congo line...including Eli!...the fun never stops at Sr. Frogs. Eli asked just about every day if we could go there again to eat.


This is some of the seating in the bar at Sr. Frogs!

This was too funny. I was taking a picture and when I looked back through them...poor Eli was covered by that big frog hand! Luckily we got this family picture with him and we were all visable.

By our second full day Jen and Neil arrived also. We spent many great meals and adventuring with them. One of our days together we found a really fun water park. Half of the park was closed to maintanence, but the parts that were opened we had a blast on. Zach wasnt fond of much of it, but got a kick out of laughing at us all.

The kiddie pool is meant for KIDS there. Adults tend to pick up more speed on those little slides, sending us past the end of the slide and out into the pool where the flooring is made of really rough sidewalk...ending in very sore bottoms.

Jake and Neil taking on the big bucket of water.

Eli sliding down the whale slide....out its mouth. Eli absolutley ate this park up. He went on all the big slides with us adults and we almost couldnt keep up with him! Were going to have to find some water parks close to home to take him to again.

The rare moment of Zach playing at the park in the water. In his defense it was pretty cold water.

Wandering around town we found some really fun things to take pictures of and visit. This was an old bridge/raod that is obviously not in use anymore. It started and ended right here, in the rocks. Very interesting, and the birds were flying everywhere!

Statues with different meanings were everywhere you looked. They were beautiful.

While taking this picture a ton of locals were watching us as we yelled "cheese" for the picture. As we walked away you could hear them giggling and saying "cheese"...guess they found us tourists pretty silly. So the rest of the day we said "queso!"

High Divers of Mazatlan. These steps take the divers up to the top of this little cliff from where they dive into this small area of ocean between some rocks. They actually dont have a ton of room to land in the water, and they have to jump pretty far out to miss the rocks. It was really neat to see. This was one of the things I read about online and was really looking foward to seeing. The guy that jumped for us when we were there climbed to the top and spent a good 5 minutes stretching and preparing himself...and building himself a nice group of viewers (tips are better when the groups are large!).

Mazatlan Cathedral. What more can I say? It was georgous. Surrounded by the heart of Mazatlan and its people. Inside a wedding was going on, and we were amazed at the beauty of the entire thing. We did joke about finding the weddings reception for some lunch though, but chose to go to Panama resturaunt instead.


Exploring the streets of Mazatlan with Daddy.

This was interesting. This was another place I read about on the internet to see. Oceans Swimming Pool is what it was called. Literally a pool built into the beach, but when we got there it was empty? Not sure if high tide fills it up or what, but all the photos I saw online were of it full of water and people swimming in it. Not so much of that going on in my picture I took. But it was still interesting trying to figure out if it was high tide that fills it, then how did they build it?

On our 6th day in Mexico the rest of the family arrived. We moved to Torres with all of them and left behind the Quijote Inn. We were glad to have gotten most of our exploring and touring done by that time so that we could relax and have fun with the family. We are very grateful for Rita and Hector for organizing this gathering of family in the sun. What a holiday and vacation of a lifetime.

These lions were outside the elevators and the boys thought it was funny to pretend they were biting them.

A pretty sunset off our balcony.

We decided to skip naps entirely on this trip so that we could experience all we could durring the day, and the boys would go to bed quickly at night. Eli did pretty good with no naps, but every night about dinner Zach passed out in random places for a quick cat nap. This one...eating chips on a very tall stool in our hotel room.

New Years Eve BBQ. We ate a wonderful meal and the kids danced the night away at a party held at the resort. The night was ended with fireworks.
Zach and Julia were such buddies this trip. They followed eachother around alot and had a great time. Here they are on New Years Eve, all partied out...so they rested on pool chairs.

Uncle Juan is alway the life of the party with the kids. Such a trooper busting a moove on the dance floor all night, and even giving shoulder rides.

Jake volunteered to sit at the the "kids" end of the table...are you worried?

Watching the fireworks on the beach.

The big boy cousins hanging out in the hotel room. (Left to right- Josep, Sam, Will and Eli)

This little friend lived at the pool at our hotel! He just sat on this rock just inches from the pool all day long getting some vitamin D, and returned to under his rocks or wherever his home was at night.

Jake and Neil adventuring on the rocks on the beach.

This was a tour we took with the whole family, the Stone Island Tour. The tour guide was a little silly. My blog title is his catch line, can you translate it? "How about that....take a picture". It quickly became the catch frase for the rest of the trip by all, but mainly Sam. The tour included a catamaran ride on the ocean where they took us to a few key spots. We saw White Rocks (in the picture above)...which was a big couple rock islands covered in birds...and poop. He pointed out to us the rocks are white becuase of that reason. The kids thought that was pretty funny.

This is Pirates Cave.

When we got off the catamaran these guys started putting these huge iguianas on everyones shoulders for photos. Eli thought they were pretty cool. We had been telling him not to bother the one at our pool all week because it was a wild one, so when we got back from this tour I cought him trying to pet the wild one at the pool....guess he figured he touched these ones so all of them everywhere must be safe. Needless to say the one at the pool jumped away from him and startled Eli a little, and I never saw him try to pet him again.

Zach was not a fan of the catamaran..and spent the entire trip clung on to the railing and us screaming occasionally. He told me later that he's glad we didnt fall off the water fall. That was news to me, I didnt know there was a water fall in the ocean where we were. :)

Seal Lions

The side of the rock mountain looks like a lions face, I cant remember what he called it though.

Zach running on the beach on our tour.

Jumping waves in the ocean. (left to right- Jen, Eli, Candy, Julia, Juan)

The choices for your two activities on the tour were.. Horse back riding, horse buggy rides, snorkling (which was too murky and we couldnt do) and banana boat rides. Hector and Rita rode together on the banana boat and two random girls. Hector was such a trooper falling off gracefully for the camera and they both seemed to have a great time on it. Josep Sam and Will rode it also and looked to enjoy it alot. Eli wanted to go, but with him not knowing how to swim too well I was worried about him going too far out in the ocean on the boat and chancing falling off. We are planning a trip to Hawaii next year and have promised him if he learns to swim good by then, we will find a banana boat ride there he can go on.

Even though it was pretty murky and snorkling wasnt offered, Mike went out with some goggles and dove around in the water exploring. He found so many fun things, including this tiny star fish he brought up to show the kids. It was small, but it was the first one Ive ever seen that moves as much as it did. It was really neat. He also found quite the shell collection durring the trip.

For our options on the tour we chose horse back riding. This ones for you Billie! Zach rode with me, and Eli with Jake. I was very suprised with both the boys riding them, but especially Zach. Latley everything freaks him out, and more so when its not his idea. But when we got to the horses he got right on and wouldnt even let me steer the horse. He had a great time! We went around town and down on the beach. Ive always wanted to horse back ride on the beach, so that was a pleasant suprise.

Back at the hotel we enjoyed a ton of daily activities. One of the things we did was a potery painting. The boys each chose a little something to paint and take home. Eli did a gecko and Zach a frog.

Our last night in Mazatlan we attended a Fiesta. It was a lot of fun. There was a show and tons of yummy food and drinks. The kids had such a great time dancing on the stage. There was one part in the show where they told this story and they sacrificed a woman. Eli was very concerned and it took me days to get him to stop asking about it and believe me that they didnt really stab that woman, it was just a show. A fake story like the movies. Explaining parts of their culture.

The kids dancing between shows.

Table one....

Table two...

Zach and Mommy at the Fiesta...Im not sure what he's upset about in this picture, I dont remember him doing this.

The last day there, the kids playing in the pool one more time....and the Waibel Santa showed up on our vacation for a little yearly traveling courtesy of Becky.

This was a tree decorated at the hotel for Christmas. It was beautiful at night, but I kept forgetting to take a picture...so we got one in the day light on our way home.

Granmda and the kids playing UNO in the airport waiting for our planes home.

So there you have it, our fantastic 12 day vacation in warm sunny Mexico. We already miss it and cant wait to go back again some day. It was amazing. Thanks again Rita and Hector for putting it all together and sharring this experience with us all. Cómo sobre eso....tome un cuadro