In early July, Matt, Mckenna and I went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for vacation. My sister Kristi was able to come and join us for several days, and it was fun to have her there to hang out with us. None of us had ever been to Puerto Vallarta before, but we love Mexico and were excited to experience and explore a new place.
The entrance to the resort we stayed at - The Grand Mayan. The place was so cool, and perfectly themed for the beautiful location.
Below are some pictures of our room that I took off the internet. I actually took these same pictures on our own camera the day that we got there, but when we walked in for the first time, the air conditioning in the room wasn't turned up very high and the humidity in the air fogged up the lens of my camera, so the pictures didn't turn out. Because I wanted to remember what the room looked like, I found these copies on the web.
This particular resort is known throughout Mexico as having really extensive, awesome pools, and it certainly didn't disappoint. There was a large kids play area, two big wave pools, a sandy beach among the pools (while also being right on the actual beach), a lazy river, and more. Every day we were there we all enjoyed the water - perfect for families, we had a blast! This was the view looking off our balcony outside of our room.
Facing the ocean on the backside of that mayan "ruin" that you see above was this water slide. We all went down it (although I'm not sure I should have being pregnant - whoops), including Matt with Mckenna on his lap. The slide was pretty tame and many kids were going on it, so I thought it would be safe for us to try out. It was fun! I even was with it enough to take a short video of Matt and Mckenna sliding down, until I realized that when I thought I had pushed the record button, it didn't actually record. Whoops again! ;)
Let the vacation fun begin! For some reason playing on the bed is so much more fun when there are a lot of pillows to smash into. :)
Mckenna loves playing with her Aunt Kristi! (That's Mckenna's "I'm going to eat you!" face - hahaha.)
Beach babe, ready for some fun in the sun... bring it on! Mckenna did a good job at reminding us to stay hydrated. :)
Since I was very pregnant with Calla and feeling more into relaxing than keeping up with an active toddler in the pools, Matt took the lead on hanging out with Mckenna in the water a lot of the time. What a great daddy! I did play in the pools too, but enjoyed reading and soaking up some sun as well... best of both worlds!
Kristi was kind enough to stay in one night and watch Mckenna while Matt and I went out on a special date. We took a taxi to an outdoor adventure outfitter where we would catch a boat cruise to start our evening, and they had an aquarium there too. This baby dolphin had just recently been born and was swimming with its momma - so cute!
We took about an hour boat ride to an island where we would see a cultural dance show and have dinner. It was so nice to just spend time together, just the two of us. We don't get to do that very often. The boat ride was really beautiful and everyone on the boat was going to do the same thing that we were doing, so everyone was in a good mood. It was fun!
Welcome to Las Caletas!
Dinner was great, and again, it was just nice to spend time together. We were sitting just a few hundred feet from the water, it was so beautiful. As Minnesotans, that's not something we get to do everyday. This evening is a really great memory of mine from our trip. :)
The flowers and landscaping where we stayed was absolutely beautiful. Here is Mckenna checking out some of the gorgeous flowers. I love this age - she is so curious about everything!
One day we went in to the downtown area of Puerto Vallarta to explore. If you look up Puerto Vallarta in a travel book or online, you will likely see these arches in the pictures of the town. It is in a popular area called the "Malecon", right on the Pacific ocean. Here is one thing I found online about the area: "Puerto Vallarta's El Malecon is one of the most beautiful miles on Earth and one of the top tourist attractions in Mexico. The famous Malecon of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico is a mile-long oceanfront boardwalk that follows the beach and the main street in downtown Puerto Vallarta." We look pretty little in this picture - Matt, Mckenna, and I (and my big belly - Calla!)
We asked around and got some recommendations for a good place to eat an authentic mexican meal. We ended up here at Pipi's - the food was YUMMY!
Mckenna was a good sport throughout the whole trip with all of the local flavors!
This mariachi band came over and played a song for us at our table...
The music was good but loud because they were standing right next to us while they played. I think Matt, Kristi and I were all having a good laugh - Mckenna was pretty overwhelmed, in a cute way. She wasn't sure what to think about all the musical action!
Playing out on our balcony with her sand toys. Mckenna played with the pail and toys for what seemed like hours on this trip, both in and out of the water and sand.
Another picture of the view off the balcony. This particular day it was overcast and hazy from the high humidity. We've been to Cabo San Lucas before in June, and it really isn't that humid there, so I was surprised that the humidity levels were so much higher here.
Each morning Matt and I took turns on "Mckenna duty" when she woke up early every day. A few mornings when it was just the two of us, we walked down to the beach to play in the sand. It was fun, we sat right on the beach where the waves wash up to your feet. At first Mckenna wasn't too sure about the waves washing up, but she eventually got used to it. She would say "up, up, up, up! down, down, down, down!" when the waves would come up and go back down - very cute. Notice that there isn't anyone at all on the beach behind us... that's how early it was! I guess there were a few early runners and walkers out, but not too many.
Playing in the kids pool area with daddy. She had a BLAST playing here - I think she could've just stayed in that area all day if we let her. :)
Mckenna brought these flowers over to her relaxing mommy that she found floating in the pool - awww, so sweet!
We would see little mini gecko lizards around the resort on the sidewalks, but then saw this bigger guy one afternoon in the grass. It was fun pointing it out to Mckenna - at first she seemed confused and didn't really see it because he blends in so well!
Sharing doritos with daddy... Mckenna got a lot of treats on this trip, lucky girl!
There was a small "dipping pool" outside on our balcony - think hot tub size, but cool water. Matt would take Mckenna out here for awhile to entertain her (and himself!) while pregnant mommy was inside the room taking a nap.
Hopefully she can laugh at this picture when she gets older. :)
Cool tree pictures from around the resort...
Again, notice the hazy humidity in the air. It wasn't like that every day we were there, but definitely some of the days it was more humid than others.
We ate at this place several times during our trip - Eddie's, near our resort. Eddie is an american guy that moved to Puerto Vallarta after really enjoying a vacation there and he opened a small restaurant with his son. The food was great, very reasonable prices, and free wireless internet so we could check our email, which is hard to find around there.
It's safe to say that Mckenna was obsessed with the authentic quacamole that we had at every place we ate - she called it "dip." :)
Sometimes you have to be really creative to entertain a one and a half year old! We had a full kitchen in our room, which was great because we went to the grocery store early in the week when we arrived and got a bunch of meals that we could eat in our room. It was convenient and great to have the flexibility to do both - stay in for a few meals and eat out some too.
Watch out... tired meltdown time! :)
But mostly we had a very happy, go with the flow girl on our hands. She is now at the age where she can start having fun on our family getaways just as much as we can!
LOVE those cheeks, that smile, and those eyes! Love her, love her, love her! :)
Time to head back home. :( We made one last stop right inside the front entrance to the resort - there were these huge (HUGE) mayan statues greeting you as you walked in and out, a very cool atmosphere indeed!
Little Mckenna standing at the feet of one of the huge statues. I don't think she quite understood what she was doing, but we set her up anyway for the fun photo op.
Tired but happy girls ready for our drive to the airport.
I think we pulled out every trick in the book to entertain Mckenna on our flights. here she is watching one of her favorite videos - kids dressed up and dancing to fun kids songs. "The mommies on the bus say shhh, shhh, shhh!" She likes to do the actions along with the video - too cute! :)
Notice the girls in the background keeping Mckenna company - thank you, girls!
Well, another fun Johnson family trip come and gone. We love to travel and explore new and favorite places, so this certainly won't be our last adventure. Hmmmm, where will we go next? :)
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