Happy Anniversary to US!!! :-)

Have I mentioned how wonderful of a husband Jim is? Well, he is and this family just wouldn't work if it wasn't for him.

4 years ago on the little piece of land called Jekyll Island in Georgia..........we made that commitment I was afraid I would never be able to make. Is marriage blissful all the time? Absolutely not............however, good and bad....it's one of the most wonderful roller coaster rides ever!

He's the big goofball that can make me laugh so hard milk shoots out my nose, he's our protector, my confidant, my arch nemesis (sometimes), partner in crime, best daddy EVER, and the love of Chase's life.

I can't begin to tell you how lucky I am to have him in my life.

Granted, he's counting down the days until I turn 40 so he can trade me in for two 20's (har har) but getting rid of me isn't going to be that easy.

I LOVE YOU JIM!!!

Lake Time Fun

We couldn't pass up this gorgeous evening so we loaded the pups and girls and took them to the lake. Good thing I threw in Kellyn's bathing suit JUST IN CASE. I swear this girl is going to wake up with fins and gills one of these days.

And of course..........the Ariel life jacket. Kellyn was in heaven. While she "swam" with Daddy and "rode" Chase, Kait and I watched from the sidelines writing the ABC's in the sand and throwing sticks for Xena.

We were all a dirty mess by the time we left, Kellyn was shivering cold.....but they had a blast!!

Poor Chase. First he gets loved.......then he gets bench pressed. Just doesn't seem fair! :-)

SHOW OFF!!!! But a yummy show off at that!

My 1st baby girl. :-) Sweet Xena - her short haircut makes her look (and feel) like a puppy again. You would never know she's 12 years old. GO GIRL!!

A girl and her dog -

Shivering cold and wet...........only Daddy has what it takes. Boy is he wrapped around all 10 of her little fingers.

And she knows it!!! :-)

Why oh Why.....

......am I a sucker for smutty reality TV. I laughed my way through The Bachelorette and now I'm ashamed. So sad!

Cabo - In Review

FINALLY...............done with all my Cabo posts. You'll see them all below. I warned you, it's a whopper!!!

Start with Beach Fun and work your way up. Don't miss "The Hike"......it was quite the adventure!! :-)

We had SUCH a great time with our good friends Bill and Kim. I'm surprised that after ruining all their "doing absolutely nothing" time, causing near death moments (twice), and completely inappropriate photographing.............we're still friends!!

Perhaps they've given in to the fact that we're like fungus: Once we're friends, it's pretty near impossible to get rid of us!!! :-)

We had SUCH a blast and look forward to our next adventure together!!!

Cabo: Fiesta

Our last night there, the result had a Fiesta Celebration. Maybe it was BECAUSE we were leaving but I'm not vain enough to believe that. :-)

It was an all you can eat/drink kindof thing with "entertainment". Little did I realize, WE were going to be part of the entertainment.

The items hanging from our necks are shot glasses each person gets adorned with when entering the fiesta. Oh my!

Jim and I participating in the group dance. I look like Elaine from Seinfeld with my thumbs up. As for Jim - I have NO IDEA what he's doing. SCARY!!!

Bill and Kim, Jim and I were chosen to take part of this "dance off". It started off with about 10 couples and we ended up being part of the final 3. Lucky us huh? At that point, each couple had to do this role play thing. They dressed the guy up in a HUGE sombrero, then he had to "growl" in the microphone, take 3 big steps to the front of the stage - the in their best "mexican voice" summons their lady to their side. Then we had to dance around the sombrero. Just how I imagined spending my final night in Cabo!!!

Jim was the first to go....

.....he just about broke through the floor with his 3 big steps.

I'm actually wiping away tears of laughter (and embarrassment) as I reluctantly am FORCED to claim my man.

AREEEEEEEEBA!!!!

This is Bill giving Kim his "I'm going to kill you for making me do this" look.

AREEEEEEEEEEBA!!!!

I swear, you can't take us anywhere in public these days!!!!

There you go.......that's better!

After the Fiesta - we headed out to the beach for a few good photo ops. This is the best we could do.

Jim, of course, taking me down in a sweep.

At least Bill and Kim can be normal. :-)

Daniel-son. Wipe on, Wipe off......

Could Kim be any more photogenic? WOW!!

Cabo: The Leopard

This little guy deserved a blog post all his own. He's a 7 week old baby leopard that was born in captivity and is now a "representative" for the Animal Rescue/Refuge of Mexico. We just fell in love with him, made our donation, and got to hold him in our laps for photo ops.



Bill and Kim got him first.......by the time he got to us, he didn't really want to be held anymore. He had the "cutest" little growl going on. I can see how people get suckered into thinking these would make a good "pet".

Cabo: The Hike

To me, this was definitely the most memorable day of the trip. Before I go any further, let me remind you that "memorable" doesn't always mean appropriate, smart, OR safe.

Kim and I had this GREAT idea (input sarcasm here) of climbing up the tallest mountain on the rocky coast of Cabo. We're thinking this has to be a popular thing to do amongst adventure seekers, right? I'm starting to think that everyone that visits Cabo really does do nothing, why can't we follow suit?

So it starts off like this.

Story #1: We tell our resort representative that we want to hike to the top of "that" mountain (pointing to our destination). She says - oh yes - great idea. All you have to do is go to where that white building is in the marina and that's where the trail head is.

Story #2: When we get in the cab, we tell our driver we want to go to the last white building in the marina to meet the trail head to hike to the top of "that" mountain (once again pointing). He says "no no no......the trail head is on the other side of the mountain - located at this other resort from their beach". So we agree to just have him take us to this resort.

Story #3: As we drive into the resort - the security guard stops the cab to ask out business for being there. When the cab driver tells him we are going to the trail head for the mountain.....I can't even describe the look on that security guards face. It was a look of confusion, fear, hesitation, "are they stupid" type of look. However, he let us through.

Story #4: We walk into this new resort and ask the receptionist how to get to the trail head. She proceeds to tell us there is no such thing. We told her we were originally told to go to the last white building in the marina to find the trail head. She immediately came back and said "no no no.....that's private property and they have vicious dogs that run free patrolling it". GREAT! So we ask her about accessing it from their beach. She pulls the same face as the security guard did (nice) and proceeds to tell us they are not allowed to encourage access due to the dangerous climbing conditions on those rocks.

So what did we do..............we forged on.......in search of this trail head. When will we learn? Apparently NEVER!!! So, we headed down onto their beach, thinking....we came all this way, we might as well get some good pics of us on this beautiful beach with the Pacific Ocean in the background.



As we get to the end of the beach - we notice a guy on the rocks sweeping them with a broom. Yes........very weird but that's what he was doing. So we went over to him and asked him: "Is this the way to the trail head leading to the top of that mounting (once again pointing)." He motioned for us to follow him and assured us this was a normal thing to do.

I knew right away this guy wasn't doing this for free, so I warned Jim to have some cash ready.

He led us over several rock piles and we finally landed on a completely private beach. GORGEOUS!! It was then we saw what resembled somewhat of a trail head. There was a sign mentioning Government Reserve Land and a "fee use" area. But there was not box to leave donations/fees so we just kept going.

Our "guide" led us up to the top of the ridge where we came across a fence. There were very large signs stating "PRIVATE PROPERTY - NO TRESPASSING" in all sorts of languages, however, the fence had been flattened and it was obvious that people are crossing this on a regular basis.

We question our guide asking him if we were supposed to be on this private property....asking him if there were any mean patrol dogs around. He waved his hand and said nothing was wrong - people do this all the time. Maybe we were dehydrated and not thinking straight........but we actually trusted this dude.

So, there we are........on the ridge.......on private property. The peak that we REALLY wanted to climb was to our left, and there was a smaller peak to our right. So we went ahead and climbed the smaller peak thinking let's just start off there and feel this whole thing out.



Here we are BEFORE crossing over into private land.

To be honest, the smaller peak was PERFECT. The views were to die for and we were able to get some great shots of the beaches below we wouldn't have gotten at the top of the larger peak.

Jim and I being silly

There is our resort in the distance

A top view of Lover's Beach

Bill and Kim venturing out to the edge

Scuba divers enjoying that awesome water

Jim giving me a heart attack!!!!

Jim's signature pose.......with the help of a little cable iron. What a wussie, right? HA!

Kim's making me look bad. Time to start increasing those push-ups (amongst many other things)!!

This is my favorite shot of the entire trip!!!!

Kim practicing her yoga poses. Thank goodness it wasn't 110 degrees outside, right Kim? Talk about Bikram flashbacks!

T

This pic turned out really great too!

So now what? We have to figure out how we're going to get back down. Do we go the way we came? Do we attempt the private property and see if we can get down the marina. It's so close......you can see it.......it's RIGHT THERE!!!! Going the way we came would have taken 2 to 3 times as long.

So what did we do????? Only what 4 responsible and intelligent adults would do.

Screw the fact that we're in a different country and have no idea what we're doing. Forget about the fact that we already paid off our SPANISH SPEAKING guide as he was told "We've got it from here". And who cares that we have no means of protecting ourselves, much less, really know where we're going!!

Oh yeah.....this was a very well laid out plan.

As we kept hiking through this desert type land....the only thing on MY mind was snakes.

PLEASE GOD don't let me see any snakes. Otherwise, Jim was going to have a companion riding on his back!!! Meanwhile, Kim is over there sweating out the whole "vicious dog" concept. And what is Bill and Jim doing??? Meandering along, chit chatting about life, work, yadda yadda!!!! BOYS!

Not to mention the constant signs we kept seeing stating private property and no trespassing. There were signs that read other things as well, but I have no idea what. Are we blind???? Obviously, we were not very welcome here!!!

As we came across the final ridge before descending into the marina.....Jim stated every so effortlessly: "Wouldn't it be funny if we get up here and there's a big locked gate we can't get past." Seconds later - what do we see? You got it..........a big locked gate. REAL FUNNY JIM! And to top it off........do you know what happened next????? We heard crazy barking and growling of some very ticked off dogs.

It was at this point - Kim and I needed to be wearing diapers. We turned around and hightailed it back into the ravine.......heading straight for the fence line. By this time, we were too far away from the flattened part we originally crossed so we were headed to main fence line. There was barbed wire on top, but we were prepared to take our chances.

Luckily, Jim kept his coolness and focused more on where the dogs were. Much to our happy excitement, they were locked in kennels about 200 yards away. Granted, all it takes is one unhappy land owner to release them so we weren't completely off the hook yet.

Then Bill see's another sign with a pawprint on it and the word "Spot". Nice.

We all 4 realized it was in our best interest to find a spot to get on the other side of that fence and get off this forsaken property. Why it took this long to realize this is beyond me.

Fortunately, this was a small break in the barbed wire on the fence line and it was there we reached "the promised land". WHEW!!!

Granted - it wasn't an "easy" crossing. HA!

Bill and Kim standing on the "better" side of the fence. Those warning signs just aren't big enough!!!! :-) And the sign over the left shoulders "No Cagarse Aqui" means "No Sh#t". HA HA!!!

Finally in safe and sound in the Marina, we had one goal.............FOOD!!! No, we didn't eat at Hooters, but we did take advantage of their sign for some good photo ops. But truly, Kim and I don't really NEED the props!!! :-)

Lucky Jim

Only Jim

We found a great Mexican restaurant and had it all to ourselves. Here we celebrated life and the fact that we still have ours!!!

Reggae street performers

Because we hadn't really hiked enough today (this IS vacation, right?), we decided to walk the beach home.

A new furry friend I made. He/She was so cute I just wanted to pack him/her in my bags. Chase and X would have LOVED that!

We're almost to our resort when we see things just flying out of the water. Originally we thought they were just big fish......but as we focused, we realized they were sting rays. It was SOOO cool and hopefully you can see it in this pic.