Puerto Vallarta

Cody and I were able to go on a "work-cation" last week to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. We thought it would be fun to take his office staff on a trip. Cody has an awesome business credit card that accrues points and we were able to stay in a 5 star hotel for free! It's the Starwood Preferred Business Card if anyone is interested. We flew out early Tuesday morning and were able to swim in the ocean and this awesome pool that afternoon!

This a view looking south out our window. We had amazing weather the whole time and had to laugh that it was snowing and raining in Midway the whole week we were gone. : )

We saw gorgeous sunsets each night. We haven't seen a sunset in a long time so it was fun to take it all in.

We took a tour to San Sebastian up in the mountains. Cody's hygienist is pregnant so we thought this would be the best one for us all to go on. We learned about the history and were able to tour a hacienda. We had always thought a hacienda was a house - not so.
Only Spanish born individuals were allowed to own the factories and businesses in Mexico before the late 1800's, and those Spanish born families would enslave the natives to work the mines and refine the ore.  The people mined silver here (and were very, very wealthy from it) and the hacienda was the building where the slaves had to work, etc. So instead of being some cool house or ranch, haciendas were actually factories.  The Spanish families lived in lavish houses away from the haciendas.

 

There were amazing flowers all over the place though. I would love to have this tree growing in my yard.

This is the place where the slaves actually had to purify the silver.  These pits were filled with about 1-2 feet of mercury and the slaves would have to get in the pits with their bare hands and feet and purify the silver. The slaves would only last about 6 months before their hands and feet would start to fall off, they'd go crazy and then the hacienda owners would shoot them because they couldn't work anymore and were useless.  It was so sad the oppression that the Spanish families subjected the natives to.

We also toured an organic coffee and citrus farm and later a tequila distillery. Cody is sitting by the oven that they use to cook the agave plant.  After the agave is cooked, they pulverize it and stick it in a barrel with some yeast to ferment for a few days.  Then they boil off the alcohol and distill it into tequila.  Very simple process.  It was cool to see.

 

Cody and I walked down to the Malecon one day and shopped, saw the sites and ate lunch.

We ate dinner down the street from our hotel and Cody had this seafood dish that came out in this lava rock pig (mol cajete). The food was so hot, it literally bubbled for 20 minutes after it had been brought out.

We spent a day lounging at the pool. Cody and Jason participated in the afternoon volleyball game. Poor Cody, he lathered himself up with sunscreen before he played, even waited the 30 minutes to get in the water and he got fried. He was only out for an hour. We don't have much luck in the tanning department. I tan better than Cody and I'm a redhead. I burned as well - now we are experiencing the itchiness and peeling that comes after.

The whole gang went out to dinner at Senor Frogs one night.

Cody and I went on a snorkeling adventure trip one day and saw this giant monstrosity in the marina. That is a helicopter on the back of that boat. Crazy!

We were taken out to 3 islands, Las Marietas, on a sailboat with our tour group. Normally they have over 20 people on a tour, but we lucked out and there were only 8, so it was kind of a VIP tour. We snorkeled and were able to see and hold sea cucumbers, a blow fish, puffer fish and starfish. It was really cool.  We also some some colorful King Angel Fish everywhere. They then took us to an isolated, very secluded beach that was gorgeous!

We also saw a sea turtle, manta ray and a ton of dolphins. This one was swimming by the front of the boat.

This is our boat that we went out on. They used the motor going out to the islands and put the sails up for the trip back.  Sailing back was so relaxing.

We flew home Sunday night. It was such a nice getaway and we are sooo grateful for parents that took care of our kids the whole time. It wouldn't have been possible without them.