Yeah, I Could Get Used To This

Lots of pictures this post because words can't do it justice. Pictures can't really do it justice either, but they get closer.

Today is my birthday, and I've had a long week of pampering. Last weekend, my sister-in-law put together an all girls trip to Mexico. This wasn't for my birthday, but it happened so close to it, that I'm considering it a birthday trip. It included Mary and her three girls, Sheryl, Sarah and Carrie; Carol and her two girls, Kate and Emma; fun sister-in-law, Betty; and me and my two oldest girls, Anna and Sarah. It was so much fun. We left freezing cold, snow covered Utah and went to this:

The gate into the property

This is the upper level where I slept

And these are the three little slobs that I slept with. It's a good thing that I like them.

This is the pool where Sarah finally learned to swim (one of the major highlights of the trip!). It's also where I layed in the sun and got warm all the way through for the first time in a couple of months.

We ran around on little golf carts to get food and to go down to the beach.

For some reason (to be discussed later) I kept waking up at 5:00 every morning and couldn't sleep anymore. But that was okay, because I got to see this right outside my bedroom every morning.

Anna even cheerfully let me drag her out of bed before dawn to see the sunrise.

Sheryl brought fun Sunday crafts for us.

We all enjoyed walking on the beach and collecting lots of coral. The water was too cold to swim in, but we saw lots of wildlife, pelicans and sea urchins among them.

Another major highlight was the special spa treatment we got.

Massages out on the sunny deck. I'm the skinny one on the left ;-).

Anna got her first massage, too, but thought it was kind of weird. I'm sure she'll appreciate it more when her body's old and tired someday.

Sarah enjoyed her first pedicure. She got to pick out little flowers to go on her big toes.

Anna got beautiful toes, too. My pedicure was so overdue that it took two hours, but my feet are so soft and pretty now.

We also loved our catamaran cruise. At first, Sarah didn't want to go because she'd just learned to swim and wanted to stay at the pool to practice. But I made her go, and she was so glad. It turned out to be a really fun trip with all the soda she could drink and lots of guacamole and ceviche. Her favorite part was all the animals we saw.

We traveled out to the arch which took about two hours and saw a lot of whales and manna rays jumping out of the water along the way. There were also a lot of seals right by the arch. You can see them piled all over each other on the rock behind me and Sarah.

You can just see the whale's black hump peeking out of the water.

We had a beautiful full moon on the way back that lit a path for us to follow.

Thank you, Mary, for putting together such a wonderful trip. We enjoyed the trip, but especially enjoyed getting to spend four days with family we don't get to see nearly enough of! We got home last Tuesday night, and it was very painful to return to the snow and cold. But Steve made it easier by taking me on a little overnight trip last night for some more pampering, this time for both of our birthdays. I'm getting very spoiled. But that'll be my next post.