Welcome to Puerto Vallarta!!

Our flight left around 11:00am on June 10th. It was only about a 3 hour flight to get to Puerto Vallarta! When we arrived, we thought we would be in sunny paradise, and turned out it was overcast and rainy. Kind of a bummer to start out the trip, but figured we were there for 8 days and it couldn't be bad weather the whole time! Because the airport is so small we walked down a staircase to get off the plane. This was all new and exciting to me! It was really humid as well which was a whole new experience. Talk about feeling wet all the time! Yuck! My wavy hair was not ready for the weather and spent the entire trip pulled back. It reminded me of Monica on "Friends" when they go to Barbados and her hair is a big poof ball and out of control. Ok, mine was not quite as hideous, but you get the idea.






We arrived at the hotel, unpacked our stuff, and just spent the day relaxing. Here are some pictures of the hotel.


This is the lobby


View from the lobby balcony out onto the resort grounds.


Our room

It was overcast for probably the first 2 and a half days, but we didn't let that ruin our vacation. I was determined to return home with a sweet tan, so we still spent the time playing in the ocean and laying out.


A picture of the resort during the day






The resort provided boogie boards and Kayaks to use as much as we wanted, so we spent a lot of the time riding the waves in the ocean. To make it even better, the ocean water wasn't any colder than a swimming pool! We had so much fun!


The resort also did all kinds of activities out on the grounds. One day they had a beach party and did all kinds of games and dancing. They even had a chef out cooking seafood in a big huge wok on the beach. We even had pineapple drinks. I thought they were fun!





They had 3 restaurants in which you had to make reservations for and then a buffet that was open almost the whole time. This was my favorite restaurant because they made delicious sea food and it overlooked the beach.


lunch on the beach.


The dinners at the restaurants were a little more formal and required you to somewhat dress up to go to them.




This was lunch at the buffet. I had a little to much fun playing with my seafood than eating it!

One of our excursions was the Canopy tour. We rode in the back of this truck that had only a net in front to protect us from the bugs. It took about 45 minutes to get all the way to the top of the mountains. There were about 15 lines that we did. The majority of them were way high up. Kinda scary to know that if anything happened to the cable you would be a gonner! I had to try and not think about that and just have fun. We had the best tour guides who had such a funny sense of humor! It was such a fun and hot day!


riding in the back of the truck true Mexican style!




me going with no hands. It was a lot scarier than it looks!


Joe was a natural pro at this.


Us and the tour guide. He was our favorite!

Every night there was some sort of entertainment show. There were things from a kid doing rope tricks, Carribean dancers, mexican dancing, Mr. Riu, and a dancing show that we actually participated in. 14 couples got pulled on stage, Joe and I being one of them, and we were told that they were going to play all kinds of ballroom style music and we were supposed to dance. There were 3 judges and you would get voted off. Although Joe and I know nothing about ballroom dancing, we were as creative as we could and had a blast doing it. I don't think I have ever seen Joe shake his hips more than he did on that stage! We made it down to 7 couples and then got eliminated. Thank goodness for watching "Dancing with the stars" or I don't think we wouldn't have even gotten that far. We had so much fun. Too bad we don't have any pictures of us.


The Carribean show


This kid was the cutest rope spinner I have ever seen. He was really good.


Joe posing with the indian dancers



The nights were my absolute favorites. They had such pretty sunsets. Joe and I had fun hanging out at the beach and taking pictures.











We also spent a day visiting The Malecon in downtown Mexico. We went to a bunch of the shops and spent the day sight seeing. Man was it ever hot!!! They have all these weird statues and sculptures that we had to get pictures with.









On the day before we went home, Joe decided he had to go parasailing. I stayed back to take pictures because it was a little pricey and I was a little scared myself.







When our trip had come to an end, I was kind of sad but ready to be home. We flew from Mexico to Minneapolis (totally out of the way, but it saved Joe's boss sky miles so we did it) and then flew home. We didn't end up getting home til about 12:30. Then it was to bed and off to girls camp in the morning for me. Sorry this post was forever long but I had so many pictures I wanted to post and still didn't get to post them all. It was such a needed vacation and we had a lot of fun together!