Bon Voyage Mom!

Lauren and Amy about to go catch some rays by the pool.

After a wonderful breakfast on the beach and swimming for a couple of hours, it's time for Mom to pack up and catch her shuttle to the airport.

Hugs all around.

Grandma, Emily and Lauren waiting with Mom for her Taxi to the airport.

Mom hugs Lindsay goodbye on the way out.

Bon Voyage Mom! We had so much fun relaxing with you in Mexico. We will keep posting on our experiences on our last few days here. Have a wonderful experience in Africa! We love you!

Easy Like Sunday Morning

Lauren hasn't been horseback riding for years. Do you see the apprehension in her eyes? Emily and Lauren booked a ride Sunday morning. The rest of us slept, ate, hung out at the beach. Well, somebody's got to!!!
Okay. This isn't so bad. In fact, riding through this kind of environment is awesome. Even though it's morning, it's already very hot.

Sisters on a morning ride at the beach. Another memorable activity. The girls said they galloped in the surf and waded in a swampy-like area. Mom and I waited on the beach near our resort to take pictures of them if they came our way. They didn't. Good thing they had cameras with them. On the other hand, you probably noticed that there are no individual pix of Emily. That's because Lauren sat on her camera while learning to post a trot. We hope her memory card still works. We will try to access her pictures when she gets home.
The girls and their grandma. Thanks, Grandma, for a wonderful vacation!

Emily and Lauren Amy didn't realize how much sun she got. As I said before, you can hardly get her out of the pool, but the sun is relentless.

More fun

My last family dinner before leaving the group. I hope they continue to have a fantastic time.

Me and my sister. Valerie and I haven't had a photo taken together for a while.

Lindsay, Valerie, Amy, Mikayla, and Bryant

Emily, Me, and Lauren

Group shot - Even Mikayla is looking at the photographer (the bartender agreed to snap this).

Valerie and I were having a glass of wine on my balcony, when we noticed the girls walking back from doing a little bargaining at the jewelry vendor's counter.

The mini mart near our condos

No comment

This is my last post. Lauren and Emily have agreed to take over the blog site. They have four more full days to enjoy here. I catch a cab to the airport at 3:00 p.m. Stay tuned, as I will, to see what more our family vacationers like to do here. Thanks, Mom, for providing the condos and getting us all together. We miss those of you who couldn't get away from jobs and such. Erin and Cole, Reed, Dan, Dad and Shirley, Debbie, Lindsay, and more. Sending lots of love your way!

Both Forgettable and Memorable

This is the memorable part of the day. After a grueling morning in which we had to listen to a sales presentation, it was time for our ocean tour to the famous arch on a glass bottom boat. This may by Bryant's last smile. He got very sick on the boat.
Lauren and Valerie

Very interesting!

Emily and Amy enjoy the ride.
Lauren

The famous arch at the tip of Baja California. Check out the rock formation. They tell us it looks like dinosaur drinking water. What do you think?

Is Bryant still smiling?

In the marketplace, we saw a man with a baby tiger and we just had to play with it. Her name is Leah. What an amazing experience!!

Leah attacked Lauren's hand but at this age, she wasn't too intimidating.

Lauren and Leah

Valerie and Grandma sitting by the market.

In the market place on the way home. It seems strategically placed so that you must walk through to get to the taxis.

Check out this video of Amy finding a sting ray while we were at the market in Cabos San Lucas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG7zE8sNmqI

I did say it was a forgettable day as well. Upon arrival at the airport, we had made arrangements to get this "deal". We were promised a shuttle ride to CSL for breakfast and a glass bottom boat tour. No catch. No presentation to listen to. NEED I SAY MORE! You're thinking... "I can't believe you fell for that." Honestly, there were seven of us adults in the group, and we asked all the questions we should have. We were baited and switched. So, a 90 minute presentation turned into a three hour ordeal before we were free to go on our way. Ugh! Thanks to Bryant for hanging in there and translating for us, for negotiating with the salesperson(s) until we were finally FREE!

Friday Evening

Bryant, Valerie, Amy, Mikayla, and Lindsay are settling in for a nice dinner at Mama Mia's. Our hotel is in the background. So close.
The Garcia family.

Me, Lauren, and Amy. You can rarely get Amy and Mikayla out of the pool.

After settling in for the evening, we heard loud shots that turned out to be fireworks. Ten o'clock is when the pool closes. The live, funky, jazzy band went on for quite a while after that. We went to bed.

Our Outdoor Adventure

Lauren strikes a pose on the "Tarzan" swing. Note the steer in the river at the bottom of the canyon. That was good motivation not to fall.

Amy walks the plank. This bridge was made of cables and boards. The boards were about six inches wide. Very tricky. To make this a mental challenge as well, the bridge was very high over the canyon.

Amy gets it going on the rappelling obstacle. Of our family group, she went first. The guides kept telling her to eat more taquitos, because her weight wasn't enough to send her down.

This shot shows how fast we "zipped" along. At first I thought we'd get to do this once. Cool! But, noooooo! There must have been around eight zip lines crisscrossing the canyon. So much better! The catch is that by the time I was zipping along about the fifth time, I was having more trouble catching my breath and was feeling a little faint. Much of the reason is that it was around 95 degrees with no wind, and the physical demands did not end at zipping. In between each challenge, we hiked up some very tricky terrain.

Valerie rappells down a 95 foot cliff. Well, if my little sister can do it, I can do it. See below.

I absolutely loved getting to experience some very challenging firsts. Rappelling was just one new challenge during this five hour excursion. This one, however, came toward the end of a brutal physical and mental natural obstacle course. Our guides took very good care of us, but, in the end, we still had to anti-up the will and physical "umph" to get through. We were all very glad that it had been so difficult, because we felt a great sense of accomplishment. Still a highlight of the trip.

I picked this picture because I was smiling, but now I feel a little dorky because I realized all I was doing was climbing a ladder. The choice was, "Are you climbing the rocks or the ladder?" Lauren chose the rocks.

Lauren put the guides in their places when she told them she'd go back if they didn't stop rocking the ropes. Trouble is, back was just as far as forward.

She flies through the air with the greatest of ease! Emily has always liked to lead the way on our family hikes. She was no different this trip. The first person on the first obstacle... was Emily.

This one's called the "Tarzan" swing. There's no worries about holding yourself straight. Notice the pads on the cliff face beyond. Lucky for us, Emily did not end up smashed on the mountain.

This rope walk was probably the most scary for me. They let three people go at a time, and when someone else rocks forward or back, it swings you along. If that isn't enough, the guides would rock the ropes to make it more difficult.

A unimog turns out to be a Mercedes Unimog, which was the truck that sped through the canyons to get us to our first point on this adventure. Click on the link below to see what the terrain near the road was like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoDeHM=mMNo (I'll keep working on this link. It doesn't seem to be working properly.)