Mom’s Visit

January 2014

Mom joined us for a five-day visit during our stay at Paradise Village.  In fact, she arrived the same day we checked in, and I took a bus to the airport to meet here, and then we took a taxi back.  The boys were very excited to see Gramma Nay.  Since her stay was only 5 days, we didn’t make any plans to cruise anywhere, but rather just stayed at Paradise Village the whole time and pretended we were on vacation too.  We relaxed by the pool while the boys ran around and never grew tired of the alligator slides. We also had a very nice and relaxing beach day.  We sat under palapas soaking up some internet with our ipads while the boys boogie boarded.  They had a little animal show, and Brenden got to hold a snake, but unfortunately, I didn’t snap any photos.  We did venture out one day and play tourists by visiting downtown Puerto Vallarta and the Malecon.  We took the bus, but we had no idea how to get there or where to change buses.  But as usual, that wasn’t a problem.  We just asked and then followed the crowd of people going to the same place.  We were on a pretty run-down bus our last leg, but everyone was in good spirits, and no one complained.  The PV Malecon is like La Paz on steroids.  The walkway is dramatically wide, and the sculptures are much more elaborate.  The boys wanted to eat at McDonald’s and I’m sure my mom would have relented (because that’s what grandparents do), but I would have none of it, so the boys moped a bit.  We lucked out and found a place to relax and have lunch right on the Malecon that served, wait for it, burgers AND pasta, so now nobody had any reason to mope anymore.  In pretty much all of the larger Mexican towns we’ve been to, possible exception Santa Rosalia, there is always someone posted outside of restaurants trying to lure you in.  To me, this is a bit of a turn off, and I like to find the places that seem to have many customers without having to drag people in off the street.  This time in PV was the first time I took the bait.  What was I supposed to do after all?  They had burgers AND pasta!  The food ended up being pretty good, and we enjoyed just sitting, eating, and chatting.  We walked quite a ways down the Malecon and made our way up to the beautiful church of La Iglesia de Nuestra Senor de Gualdalupe.  The boys haven’t been in very many churches, so I gave them a quick reminder to be solemn and respectful, since even though there were tours going through, there were also people sitting quietly in some of the pews.  I can only guess they were praying.  Although I didn’t let the boys have McDonalds for lunch, we did take advantage of the fact they have little McDonalds dessert kiosks scattered about, where you can get soft serve cones and blizzards (although the blizzards aren’t churned like they are at home, they are basically just ice cream with Oreo crumbles on top).  We walked across the Rio Cuale and down around the narrow island that is near the mouth of the river.  I thought I had read it was an up-and-coming artsy type of area, but mostly it was just the same ole types of vendors you see everywhere.  On the way back we hit the municipal market, and I purchased a little shirt for baby Benjamin (sv Fluenta) that I totally forgot about and never gave to them.  I’m sure when I see them again, he will be way too big.

Overall, it was a very nice, slow-paced day and we enjoyed some of the sights that Puerto Vallarta has to offer.  This was our only trip into the heart of Puerto Vallarta, even though we were in Banderas bay for a month and a half.

Mom’s visit was fun, but way too short, and before you know it, I was driving her to the airport.  Yes, I was driving because I rented a car for a couple days to do some massive reprovisioning.  I feel a little regret that we didn’t provide mom with a better look at more of Mexico, I mean we didn’t even take her to La Cruz.  Unfortunately, since we were in a marina, we were also preoccupied with getting things done that can only be done in marina, even though we had already spent 2 weeks in the La Cruz marina.  Tim worked on projects, and I attended seminars.  But I know mom’s main focus was spending time with us, and particularly the boys, so hopefully she got her 5 days fill of that.  She thinks the next time she visits it will be when we are “summering” in New Zealand, and John will be able to come too.  John has always wanted to go to New Zealand, so it will be fun that we can offer a reason to go.