Puerto Vallarta

Hola!

Well I'm sitting in our dim living room, beside our one baseboard heater, watching the rain whip down from a cold, windy winters sky. It's hard to believe that around 26 hrs ago I was sweltering in a Puerto Vallarta pool in my bikini! Nevertheless, it is December, and if we're going to celebrate the holidays this year, I'd prefer the weather would cooperate with something winter-like!

We had a great 8 days in sunny PV. For years I have feared Puerto Vallarta as an endless wall of high rise resorts and timeshare sharks. We were greeted instead by a beautiful mid-size town nestled against lush, jagged hills, set on a beautiful half-moon bay.

We started out with three nights at a little local hotel in the old town of PV, set amidst cobble stone streets and overrun with bougainvillea.

Our friends Sean, Michelle, Booy and Mike all flew in the same day we did, so the 6 of us caught up over dinner on the beach and wandering the

streets of PV, watching the festival of the Lady of Guadeloupe celebrations until the wee hours. The next day Sean and Michelle moved to the resort where the wedding was to be held, but

Mike and Booy (who were staying at a place down the road from us in PV) took to the fantastic restaurant attached to our hotel, so breakfast chez nous became a daily ritual.

While three days wasn't nearly enough time to explore all PV and the surrounding area has to offer, we did manage to get in a whale watching/dolphin/snorkeling boat trip, discover a fabulous vegetarian buffet and buy some souvenirs - including a sink! (Brent's folks just remodeled their kitchen with tiles bought 30 years ago in Mexico when Diane was pregnant with Brent, so we figure we have some time to find a house for our sink ;-)

I even got to practice my Spanish more than I expected - cab drivers, servers and shop keepers were all very obliging.

Then on Tuesday we moved to the Playa Fiesta resort, 5km south of PV. It was great to see 20 of my longtime friends who are now scattered between Victoria, Toronto, San Fran, London and Cairo. And the resort was beautiful - a 42 room boutique hotel on the ocean with very attentive, friendly staff. The only downside of the 5 days was that nearly 75% of the wedding guests (including the bride) fell victim to vicious tummy trouble. We later learned that some of the staff at the all-day open bar were rinsing used glasses in tap water and promptly refilling them for further consumption! Brent and I thought we escaped it (thanking our built-up immunity from countless G.I. bugs in the past), but he has been feeling under the weather since our flight home last night. Hopefully it's only a cold!

Some of the highlights of the 5-days at Playa Fiesta included a boat trip with the girls to a private island for Michelle's bachelorette party (and a snorkeling boat trip and night out for the boys for Sean's bachelor party), S&M's beautiful wedding ceremony and celebration on Friday,

and a Karaoke finale on our last night!

Another hit of the week was the wedding's youngest guest - Erika and Tim's little guy, Aiden. He's nearly 7 months old and a very playful and easy-going baby. Even the guys in the group had caught baby fever by the end of the week! Hopefully over the next few years we may have more little ones in the group ;-)

Speaking of which, I also received a lot of comments on my belly. At first they concerned how "not pregnant" it looked for how far along I was and then later, people were commenting on how much it had grown by the end of the week! I hope that was due to a fetal growth spurt rather than all the buffet food we had! (According to the baby sites, she is now the size of a large banana!)

Brent and I also took the hours we spent by the pool to make great progress with the colossal job of naming! We managed to get through the entire girls' section of the Baby Name Bible (around 27,000 names) to come up with a final "shortlist" of only around 40! Then on the plane home last night we each wrote private lists of our top 10, then compared them for overlaps in the car ride home. We're now down to our top half dozen, which to us seems like great progress!

However, despite a fantastic holiday, it does feel good to get "home." I was sad to not be joining many of our friends as they migrated from Mexico to celebrate Christmas with their families in Victoria. But NEXT WEEK we have Diane and Elliott coming for Christmas here on the night of the 25th! We are very excited and are looking around for fun Christmas-y things to do with them over the holidays.

I also looked into flights to Victoria this morning while I was on the phone with Lindsay, Mom and Dad in England. To my surprise I found a cheap fare from Jan 8-20, so now I am trying to see whether or not I will have a job in January that will allow me to run away for 2 weeks! Look out Victoria, my big belly and I may be looking to couch-surf after all!

I hope all of your holidays have started well :-)

xox Jen, Brent and the banana

p.s. It turns out my green card actually works too! Crossing the border back to the US was FINALLY a simple process!!! YAY!