Mexico!

After a very long World Series I really needed a vacation.  My brother, Howard, and I planned at the beginning of the summer to take everyone down to Mexico…his son, Matt, all four of my kids, his wife Sizie and Joe.  So with Jody, my nanny in tow, off we all went to San Jose Cabo last week. 

San Jose is a little town about half an hour from cabo San Lucas.  It is smaller and quieter and was just a really beatiful spot to do a family vacation.  We stayed at a place called the Hotel Presidente Continental which was a very family friendly spot right on the Ocean in San Jose.

The most important thing to me was that my kids have a fantastic time.  Ben, my ex, had just had them up in Montana at his Dad’s horse ranch for three weeks so I was really missing everyone.  Well, boy was it ever a successful vacation!  The kids had a blast and were so sad we had to leave.

Everyone got to swim everyday in the pool that had a swim up bar.  Leo got really into some male bonding with Joe by asking him to dunk him in the water repeatedly.  It was so funny.  Joe would dunk him from side to side to the point where I couldn’t watch anymore cause it made me so nervous.  Then when he was done, Leo would declare, “That’s not good enough!”  I must have heard that a hundred times during the trip.  Finally Joe told him, “I think at this point the only thing good enough would be if I actually drowned you!”  It was all very funny and so cute to see Leo be such a man.

On one of the days we took everyone for a horseback ride.  Leo got on a big horse and was led on a lead from the guide.  Maud rode on her own.  Nelly started off with me but complained that the horse was too slow.  So we switched horses and she complained that one was to fast.  So she ended up on Jody’s horse which was apparently just right.  She was such a little Goldilocks.

And then there was Lucy, superstar 6 year old Lucy and got up on a big horse and rode on her own the whole way with no lead at all.  She sat right tall in the saddle and was brave and amazing in her horsemanship.  After that Joe was so impressed he is going to take her for riding lessons at a place in Burbank.  She is so excited.

On another day everyone went to swim with Dolphins in Cabo.  That was amazing.  We split into two groups, me, Joe, Jody, Lucy and Nelly and Howard, Suzie, Matt, Leo and Maud.  My group swam with a Dolphin named Ende and Howard’s group with Monet.  Everyone got to pet the dolpins and we got to ride the dolphins by holding their dorsal fins.  All the kids were superstars.  Lucy got to ride on her own and figured out how to grab on after only two tries.  Nelly rode on Joe’s back. Check out this picture – it is so cute! Everyone got a cute kiss from our dolphins too.  We have the cutest pictures from that day.

Every night at the resort there was a party.  One night it was a Disco theme, another a beach party, another a Rock and Roll party and the lest night was a Mexican Fiesta with a Mariachi band and awesome Mexican dancers. My older kids were not so into the parties but Lucy and Nelly were.  Everyone night we would take them to the party around 8:30 and they would start dancing and nver stop until the joint shut down.  It was so adorable to see my 4 year old and 6 year old cutting a rug non stop until all hours of the night.  At the fiesta in particular the girls had marraca’s we had gotten them from the crafts fair and they were shaking the marraca’s and jumping around for hours.  They wore us out!

Everyone was so sad to go but we already have next year’s family vacation planned.  My brother and I are going to take everyone to Bora Bora.  Leo, in particular, is excited about that because he can’t wait to see the sea turtles there.  He made a pet of an iguana in Mexico and was really good at spotting Geckos on this trip.  But Bora Bora is going to be heaven for that boy. I am already looking forward to that myself.

All in all, it was so wonderful to just get non stop time with my family.  I am looking forward to hauling everyone down to Aruba for UB.com’s poker tournament next month.  But that is a working vacation for me.  This was just much need hang out time and it was just what I needed to recover from the summer.