A much needed vacation

What a great combined birthday present, totally recommend it. Zach was the brains of this vacation. Yes, I have the best husband EVER! He is so creative with his gifts no matter what the occasion may be. I want to make it clear that is not the only reason why he is the best...although it is an added bonus. We left early Saturday morning on March 5th. We flew into San Diego where we made our way to the port. You could see the boat from the airport, but we were able to catch the shuttle by Holland America so we didn't have to worry about our luggage. We went on a seven day Mexican Riviera Cruise, where we stopped in Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas.

View of downtown San Diego from our balcony.

First two days of our cruise we were at sea. We went to shows, tried to get some sun, walked around the ship, ate, and caught up on some sleep.

Zach playing a little old man's game of shuffle board.

On board they had several activities to choose from, we did the kitchen tour. They have pictures of each meal and how it should look before sending it out to eat.

Zach LOVES cheese. Every night after dessert he would order a cheese plate. They have a separate menu of 14 different kinds, but you could ONLY choose 4-they will cut you off. We figured from the pictures of presentation it would ruin the look. We had room service as well all the time and he again ordered the cheese plate.

Appetizers ready to be served for dinner. Not sure what it is now, but Zach thought it deserved a thumbs up.

This talented guy made all kinds of animals out of dough for decorations. It was pretty impressive what he could do.

Amazing!!!

FIRST STOP - PUERTO VALLARTA

We would have gone diving at some point during our cruise, but since I was pregnant that was not an option. In fact, it was kind of hard finding something we could do since the things that interested us I couldn't do. So at our first stop we just walked around the city. We went into the Sam's club and Wal*Mart to see the differences.

Now if that doesn't make you hungry I don't know what will?!?

Every night we would come in and find such cool animals.

NEXT STOP - MAZATLAN

We didn't have anything planned here. Apparently when our ship pulled up here, they had their military and police in helicopters and trucks all decked out in gear with guns. This was their way of letting all people on board know they had everything under control. A lot of people got scared by this, our room was facing the other direction so we didn't see the warm welcome. Through out the town they had people who moved to Mazatlan from the US dressed in blue volunteer shirts directing tourists and answering any questions. Zach being able to speak Spanish came in handy not just for us, but two other couples followed along.

Beautiful Catholic Church. Felt kind of weird taking pictures inside a church. It happened to be Ash Wednesday when we were there and interesting thing to see. We opted out of participating. After walking around the town we had heard of this beach (we can't remember the name of it) that was across from Mazatlan that was a boat ride away. After paying an arm and a leg to a taxi who took us on a tour, we got on a boat and made it to the beach. We went to a restaurant on the beach and ordered water and layed out for a few hours. We decided to take a different way back to the ship that was much faster and like $2 for the both of us.

After the beach we headed back to the ship for the day. Here was the nightly towel animal.

LAST STOP: CABO SAN LUCAS

Cabo is such a pretty place. This is where our ship was docked and you took boats to the main land. Here, we finally did an excursion. We went on a Rhino tour. Once on land we took a 45 minute bus ride to the ranch where our Rhino tour began.

These Rhino's were great because I got to be the passenger while Zach had the time of his life driving. We drove on the beach, up and down mountains and saw some amazing views. We looked like bank robbers with the get up we had to sport. I decided against having a picture taken of me.

Cabo was a happening tourist place. The water as you can tell was so pretty. Once we got back on the ship and were heading out the big rock with boats by it was sea lion island. They were pretty loud.

Good bye Cabo San Lucas!

The Disney Cruise Ship also made a stop in Cabo. That is a future family vacation!

Penguins by the pool.

A swan ice sculpture carved out in minutes.

Final night on board we went to a show, had a nice dinner and then packed and got ready to head home. We had such a nice, relaxing trip. Too bad it only took me months to do this post. Better late than never. Ready for our next cruise-Alaska next summer for our 10 year!!!