Happy 9th Birthday Ali!

Today is Ali's 9th birthday. The sun is shining and the air is finally warm. She is smiling and happy too! The day reminds me of the day she was born that was also sunny and warm. I am grateful for my oldest daughter and can't believe how big and beautiful she is getting. Happy 9th birthday Ali!

Thursday May 12, 2011

I liked paddle boarding so much that I wanted to do it again. So Cameron and I woke up with enough time to head down to the beach early in the morning. We rented a paddle board (just one this time) as early as we could. The water is so calm in the morning before all the boats and wind makes it choppy. It was much easier to paddle board and once I got out of the waves I was able to stand right up.


After paddle boarding for about 25 minutes I was tired. The time before I fell so often I didn't get tired. So I let Cameron have a turn. He did much better too!


A good view of the beach!

After paddle boarding we met Stacey and Amanda at the hotel. We planned to go shopping for a little while to finish seeing all the stores. I love trying to see what the best price is for something. I got my mom a nice mexico dress and we bought the girls anklets. We also bought a hammock for our yard. When we got tired we found a place advertising 3 tacos for 45 pesos. It seemed like a great deal. We got tacos along with guacamole, rice, beans and chips. We also got to try mole which has cocoa in it but is a salsa type dip. I really liked it.

This is a replica of the biggest marlin ever caught! It is quite a fish and Cameron was quite impressed. They had to cut it into three pieces to put it in the boat.
After walking around in the sun we decided to head back to the pool. Amanda really wanted a big water fight and we tried to appease her. It is hard to have siblings that are so much older than you but we tried to be kids for a little while. Cameron was the best at the water fight.






After swimming we went back up to the hotel and hung out until dad got home. We also checked the internet. All week dad had not caught one fish that counted for the tournament. He was feeling pretty sad about it. But when we checked the computer team Just Keep Fishing had caught one marlin. It is amazing what one little fish can do for the morale of the team. When dad got back he was so happy and ready to go out and celebrate. He was still excited about the fish he caught at 9:00 in the morning. We watched the video and then got ready to go out to eat.

We went out to eat at a place called Maro's shrimp house. It was the best place we ate at all week. The food was amazing and it was the only place that completely filled up. It was fun to feel like we were celebrating and Dad was glad that he didn't have to move in order to save face.



The food was once again amazing. I can honestly say I like sea food now! And I wish for another lobster right now.

Chileno Beach Wednesday May 11, 2011

We planned to go to Chileno Beach because it looked beautiful from the road and we heard it was a great place to snorkel. We are very glad that we went. This beach is a public beach and the Mexican government wants to make sure it is pristine. It was very different from the other beaches because no one tried to sell us anything the whole time we were there. It made it very relaxing. It must be illegal or I am sure they would all try. There were a lot of palm trees and a perfect board walk down to the sand.

The water was so clear and it looked amazing!
Another amazing part about the beach was all the palapas that we could sit under. We were there fairly early and so we grabbed one but we had to walk a ways down the beach to find one that was unoccupied. I wish the California Beaches did this because the shelf was very nice for hanging things we wanted out of the sand.

The beach had areas especially designated for snorkeling and since we were unsure of where to go we decided this must be the best area. We got on our snorkel gear and headed into the water armed with bread to help us see the fish. They were everywhere and you got bombarded by fish begging for the bread as soon as we went underwater. It scared Stacey and she didn't want to do it anymore so she gave me all her bread too. The snorkeling was fun and we saw lots of tropical looking fish. We ended up swimming around the rocks and going to another beach. Stacey really wanted sea glass and so she spent a long time looking around for it. We found out it is hard to find on their beaches because there are people who spend all day being paid to pick up any trash. They gave us the sea glass and also some small shells for my girls.
We snorkeled back around seeing big fish and also a huge shell that Cameron wanted to dive for but it was too deep to get.
We enjoyed sitting under the palapa and ate some snacks we brought with us.

Then Stacey wanted to get more sea glass and so we walked over to the other side of the beach and looked for more sea glass. We also saw a million crabs on the rocks but no star fish? Do starfish only exist in colder water?


It was hot and I love to swim so we went out in the water again.


Here is the pirate ship that doesn't even use its sails bringing people in to snorkel and scuba dive.
After we were tired of the beach we went back to our house to shower and clean up. We were disappointed to find out that we had missed going to see Amanda swim with the dolphins. When we were cleaned up we went shopping for awhile. It was hot and I didn't really appreciate the shopping experience too much because we were looking all over for a silver store that I couldn't find. Stacey liked to ask each and every retailer what something cost, then negotiate a much cheaper price, and then finally decide she didn't want it. One store owner threw a hammock she decided not to buy at Cameron and said, "Fine you can have it for free." Cameron really enjoyed everyone thinking that he had two wives the whole time.

Finally we found a store that had the silver starfish necklace that I wanted for a good price and so we bought it. We headed back to the hotel and met Stacey who had walked back. Natalya and Amanda were there and we waited for Dad to get back. We ended up going to the Shrimp Factory for dinner after deciding that the giggling Marlin was just too expensive. The Shrimp Factory was okay but still pricey for what we got. The favorite was the bacon and cheese stuffed shrimp that were a heart attack waiting to happen. I loved the coconut shrimp and sauce just like the outback only fresher. I now love sea food!

Tuesday May 10, 2011

On Tuesday we decided to go to Medano Beach. We picked up Natalya, Stacey and Amanda at their hotel and then drove back to the beach. Stacey rented an umbrella because she was a little tired of the sun all day and I started negotiating a deal for paddle boarding. The beach had the best sand and was so nice and flat. We started out swimming and I found someone who would rent us paddle boards for the price I wanted. At first Natalya and Amanda were quite worried about the water but soon they acted like they had been to the beach all the time.
I have never been paddle boarding before but it looked like fun and I wanted to try. After two minutes of broken English instruction we went out on the paddle boards. Obviously we didn't really know what we were doing. To add to that there were tons of jet skis and boats coming in and out and a very still wind. It took us awhile to get the hang of it but I loved it anyways.
First we tried on their knees.
Eventually we learned how to stand up and went back forth between paddle boarding on our knees and standing up. I really enjoyed it.
Amanda enjoyed playing the water and the sand while we were paddle boarding.
We got hungry and decided to walk down the beach to the Office which is a famous Cabo place to eat. We walked all the way down there and it kept getting louder and more obnoxious as we went. I do not need the party crowd and was happy that by staying a little ways out I could stay away from the party places and enjoy my peace and quiet. We finally got to the office and decided to look at a menu before sitting down to eat. 3 Tacos cost 240 pesos, roughly 20 dollars. This seemed outrageous to us and so we started walking back the way we had come. After a while we walked into another restaurant. 3 tacos were 130 pesos roughly 12.50 or so. We decided to keep walking. We got back to the restaurant right by our umbrella and 3 tacos were 850 pesos or about 8 dollars. We ate there. It was nice to eat under the umbrellas in the sand. Stacey and I shared a hamburger because we were a little tired of Mexican food for a few minutes. I thought it was wonderful.
After the beach we dropped Natalya off and then went to buy some stuff for dinner. Amanda came back to our house with us. We bought stuff to make mango salsa and qesadillas for dinner as we were a little tired of buying food. We bought some kind of mexican cheese that had a name something like barfar cheese. We kept calling it barf cheese and making Amanda laugh. We enjoyed an afternoon just messing around and being lazy. We came back to the hotel around 8:00 but Dad and Natalya weren't back from their dinner so we decided to go down to the beach and look at the waves.

The waves were very big and we enjoyed looking at them. When we got back to the hotel room we found out that dad had not caught any fish. He had fun getting free food at Captain Tony's for dinner and had fun when they hung up his tee shirts at the restaurant.