Don't take my chocolate away!!

Someone got into my baking cabinet and found a square of semi-sweet baking chocolate....

and thought it was quite delicious! 

Mexico con mi familia...

Last week I was able to go to Puerto Vallarta with my Mom and sisters to celebrate Liz's graduation/excuse to have a fun girls trip! (Yes, this was my second trip to Mexico in one month...the timing was a little off!).

We left all the kiddos with the guys back at home and spent 5 days in Mexico! :) Many, many thanks to my fabulous husband for watching Lucy for 5 days so I could go on this fun trip!

While we were there, we spent most of our time at the hotel, laying by the pool and beach, reading, chatting, saying "no thank you" to the bazillion vendors that kept trying to sell us stuff,  painting our toenails, saying no over and over to the time-share people and trying to get the stupid internet to work on my iPad. We also took a day trip to two small islands close to PV to snorkel and kayak, as well as see the one of the tiny cities on the island. We spent one day sight-seeing around PV (and bargaining with the street vendors in the market!)

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The trip was a lot of fun and it was great to be able to spend lots of time with my sisters as life is about to change for most...Lane and Alex are moving to New Jersey in August so she can start grad school at Princeton, Liz has moved out and will start teaching in the fall and Paige and Marcos are waiting to see what is next for them. 

We had lots of fun times, great memories (I sound like a Hallmark card). Definitely a fabulous time had by all!

Warning: there are a ton of pics in this blog.....

waiting at DFW

super-excited about our day of snorkeling/kayaking/sight-seeing....
and glad that the rain stopped!

Mom, Liz and random Mexican guy who decided to get in our pic...

where we snorkeled and kayaked 

tiny city that we were able to visit during our snorkeling tour...

All the girls!

The little city also had a giant waterfall- Paige, Lane and Liz decided to brave the cold waters....
Mom and I decided to watch :) (above pic)

ocean on one side, lake on the other

we spent one day sight-seeing in Puerto Vallarta

cool church in the city

displaying our purchases....a dress for Lucy and Alyssa, hat for Cameron
and a special birthday sombrero for Liz's classroom

Liz and Lane decided to para-sail- here is Liz, all ready to go!

taking off....

sailing!

Lane's all ready in the seated position

sailing!

Lane sailing around Puerto Vallarta

Mom knows best....she decided to make Strawberry Daiquiri ice cubes with the left over strawberry daiquiri....

summer fun...

 just a few cute summer pics...

I caught her all-of-a-sudden lying down with her book and reading to herself.
 I love how she loves books so much! 

One of her FAVORITE things to do is to play with the water hose

"Here, Daddy, you take a drink!"

Mexico con mis amigos!

Last week, we took our first vacation without Lucy and joined our best friends on a trip to Playa del Carmen, Mexico. It was W-O-N-D-E-R-F-U-L!! 

We have been sharing life with these couples for over 7 years, and it was a joy to be able to go on vacation, kids-free, all together! 

The Treadaways, The Pokludas, us and the Saugiers

Waiting to leave DFW at 7:00 am, Friday morning

Simon and Katrina, enjoying a little coffee in the terminal

The view from our room....AMAZING!

So happy to be on vacation!!

What I did most of the time...

We loved lying by the pool all day long!

The ferry that took us to Cozumel for the day. Not a bad ride out, but we all were feeling not-so-great on the way back, due to strong winds and choppy waters....no bueno, amigos.  As JP said about our Cozumel trip before leaving,  "There's a 60% chance that it will be the best day of our entire trip and a 40% chance that it will be the worst day of the trip." The 40% was the trip back on the ferry, no doubt. 

The side of the resort

The resort

beach!

white sands, blue water

 The resort was all-inclusive, and it was so wonderful to be waited on the entire time we were there. I should teach Bella how to make and bring me coffee whenever I want it....and to say, "It is my pleasure," after she serves it to me. 

We were able to do some interesting shopping while in Playa del Carmen- there's nothing like walking down slightly-sketchy streets, being offered cigars, then when you say no thank you, you don't smoke, you are offered marijuana, crack and ecstasy...quite a jump from a cigar. And no, we did not buy any of it. 

We had a ton of fun with our friends and made some great memories- like joining water aerobics at the pool and having to carry a very large, older Mexican woman on my back across the pool in a race....interesting. Our group likes fire, so whenever there was a dessert that had the option of being set on fire, we were in....bananas foster, Mexican coffee, and crapes flambe. 

We also had some alter-egos popping out- Simon bought himself some trendy sunglasses and a Fidora. Mike, mistakenly, grabbed my khaki pants that were lying on the couch at home, and packed them (the men had to wear pants and closed-toed shoes to dinner). When he opened his suitcase and realized the only pair of pants he'd brought were mine, he was quite baffled. He ended up running to and from the hotel in the 20 minutes before dinner to the above-mentioned-sketchy-streets and finding some white linen pants. Totally not his style at all. And kind of Yhani-ish (Imagine some Grecian man playing a sax on a beach with his white linen pants flowing with the wind....). 

Lucy was well-taken care of by both of her grandparents while we were gone- she stayed the first two nights with Oma and PapPap and had a great time! She even proved her Mommy wrong by showing Oma that she does, in fact, like bananas. Oma gave her her first bites of chocolate and even gave her strawberry ice cream as an afternoon snack- that's what grandparents are for, right?

She spent the next two nights with Grandmommy and Papi and did well- she got to play with her cousins a lot, see her aunts and uncle and even see GG. We were sent several cute pics of her to tide us over... I missed my girl! 

We were so very thankful for our families who took care of our sweet girl while we were gone. When she woke up on Wednesday morning to me getting her out of bed, she looked confused and stared at me for a while, like, "Wait. Where did you go, why are you not my grandparents?" 

Liz knows stuff...

Liz graduated from UNT two weeks ago! We are so proud of her and are so excited about her new job next year! She will be a fantastic teacher!

"WE <3 LIZ !!" 

I found this cute idea on Pinterest....came out pretty good, if I do say so myself!

Fun teacher gifts

The parentals

While waiting 2 hours at Cheesecake Factory for dinner after graduation, we noticed that it was also Prom weekend and there were tons of fancy-dressed high schoolers waiting with us. We decided to do our own awkward prom group shot....

More normal sibling shot

Marcos and Liz

Alex and Lane...so sweet.

The next day was Mother's Day. I hosted a lunch at our house- so fun to have everyone at home!

GG, Grandmommy, Paige and Lucy

We also celebrated all the spring and summer birthdays- Alex, Elena, Liz, Grandmommy, and Cameron!

Cousins who love their paci's...and each other!