What He Doesn't Know Won't Hurt Him. Or Me.

So, we are in Puerto Vallarta!!!!!

Or, maybe not.

It depends on when you are reading this. If it is between 6:30 A.M. (Central time) and 1:00 P.M (Pacific Time), then we are probably still flying. After that, barring any unforeseen circumstances like a blizzard in Chicago (unlikely) or a bird in the airplane engine (much more likely) we should be in Puerto Vallarta getting ready to gorge ourselves at the lunch buffet.

Hopefully, at that point, my husband has not had a serious Aneurysm about the teeny, tiny little bits of information I kept from him about the trip until the very last minute.

1. When my family went on vacation, we left at the crack of dawn. Sometimes even before it cracked. It was always pitch black. My dad always wanted to get a couple of hours on the road before we stopped for breakfast. So, I am ready to go EARLY when we leave on trips. Tom. Not so much. He would really prefer to get up about 10:00, have some coffee and read the paper and then, very LEISURELY make his way to the airport.



Our flight leaves at 6:30 A.M.



2. We have a very, very, very comfortable bed. It has a pillow top mattress, soft comforter and high thread count sheets.



All the reviews of this resort talk about how incredibly, indescribably hard the beds are. Some may, just possibly, have even mentioned plywood.


3. Tom loves cold weather. He hates and despises hot weather. When we went to Cancun in January a few years ago, the weather was perfect. Slightly cool but warm in the sun and very cool in the evenings. I blithely assumed Puerto Vallarta would be like that in October. I checked the weather the other day to plan what clothes to pack.



It was 91. The weather report said it felt like 104.



These items are precisely why I am setting this to post on Thursday. After we are already in Puerto Vallarta. When it's too late for him to...shall we say...express his displeasure. After he has seen our fabulous resort and our fabulous room and had several fabulous Coronas.



And after he sees this when we get back...Hi, baby! Love you. Really. I do. And didn't we have a GREAT time?

Vacation Brain

I read a blog post a while back that made me think about my vacation plans for Puerto Vallarta in October. (like I need a reminder) But I can so relate when she talked about "Marathon Brain". I TOTALLY have "Vacation Brain". I think about it all the time. When I am driving to school, it's like "At this time in so many weeks I will ordering an omelet at the buffet overlooking the ocean."

And sometimes? When I am reading aloud to my students? I will drift off into a daydream about the jacuzzi on my balcony at the resort and realize I have just read aloud 3-4 pages and have absolutely no memory of it. Hopefully, I was reading the story and not just muttering "Jacuzzi. Jacuzzi. Jacuzzi." I'll never know, since bless their little hearts, they would probably just think it's part of the story.

I'll be talking to someone and they will be talking about their lives and I'm thinking "Will you just hurry up and finish because I MUST tell you what I just found out about the shops on the boardwalk in Puerto Vallarta". Or I am having lunch with some people and someone might say something like "Next fall we can do thus-and-such with the students." And instead of processing this and thinking about a plan for changing my curriculum to correlate more, I am thinking "Next fall I will be in Puerto Vallarta."

It's a little distracting. I try to turn off my brain. To put it on the back burner since, after all, that is several months away. Actually, it's about 5 months. 24 weeks. I don't know how many days. I almost counted, but then I realized I had my planner in my hand counting the time for an event that is ALMOST half a year away. And realized maybe I need to calm down a little. I'm trying. But you know how you lie awake at night sometimes thinking about things, thinking, thinking, thinking and you think "I need to stop thinking. I need to go to sleep. This is silly. GO TO SLEEP." But it doesn't work? You just keep on thinking? It's like that. Only all the time.

So, I will try. Honestly. I will. I just formulated the plan and made our reservations, so I think the concept will fade a little before it swells and gets huge again in about September. But these words are seared into my brain. Seared. Into. My brain. As we count down to the end of the school year. As we go through testing. As we deal with students who would much rather be out in the sunshine than listening to us teach. Wouldn't they be seared into yours as well?

In a lush tropical paradise, Dreams Puerto Vallarta Resort & Spa is a luxury resort secluded in its own private beach cove. Luxurious accommodations include spacious ocean-view rooms and suites overlooking the hypnotic blue-green water and large private beach. Several suites and penthouses even have twin floors and private swimming pools. To unwind there are three pools, four gourmet restaurants and friendly lounges.

Three. Pools. Four. Gourmet. Restaurants. Wait. Did I say that out loud?

I Have a Little Problem

Yes. I do.

I have a little addiction problem. What? Drugs, alcohol? Pshaw. You can have those silly little things. Oh, and then perhaps it occurred to you - clothes, shoes, earrings? No, no, no. Although...those might be considered MINOR addictions. But, no. I'm talking about...my beach addiction.

I need it. I must have it regularly. Otherwise I get jittery. Nervous. Unhappy. Moody. When Tom announced that we really shouldn't (in other words, couldn't...and, in all fairness, he is right) take big vacations for the next couple of years until we retire, I felt a little twinge of withdrawal. No beach for a couple of years. But it wasn't until just lately that really became real and I realized...two or three years with no beach. NOOOOOOOO.

So, we had a discussion the other night, out on a terrace at a local seafood restaurant overlooking a lagoon with ducks and geese. It was cool and lovely and we were just enjoying ourselves so much. So, I thought it an opportune time to broach the subject of couldn't we just take a mini, teeny-tiny long weekend vacation to the beach? If I work and slave on EBay and pay for it all by myself. (and do ya have any extra chores, like milking or mucking out the stalls for me, Ma?) And, even though he really thinks we should save our money and even though he really doesn't even LIKE the beach and much prefers cold weather, because he loves me SO MUCH, he agreed.

So, now I begin what I consider ALMOST as much fun as the vacation itself - the planning. And you get to help me! What lucky, lucky Internet readers are you! I think we will stay at an all-inclusive resort somewhere in Mexico. Mainly because we can get there in just a few hours and because we really like all-inclusive resorts. We have stayed at the Moon Palace in Cancun and Liz and I have stayed at the Punta Cana Princess (site of the infamous topless bathing incident) and we just really like the whole idea of paying one price and having your room and all the food and drink you can cram in your mouth for four days.
I'm choosing Mexico over the Dominican Republic, which both have lovely beaches and are within easy travelling distance, because I was a little careless while at the Punta Cana Princess and BRUSHED MY TEETH WITH THE TAP WATER. Luckily, the bacteria didn't really blossom until I got home or we would have had to get a hotel room in Florida on our way home so I could have died peacefully. They provided us with plenty of bottled water, but I forgot one time and paid the price. I just don't like staying somewhere that I will suffer agonizing pain if I forget and brush my teeth with tap water. Just doesn't seem right to punish me like that.

We also really like Vacation Express because we have been very impressed with their service and their professionalism. Liz and I were all alone in a strange country and I liked the way the Vacation Express employees were always accessible to us. So I will probably book with them again for our getaway in October.

So, the planning begins. I have just begun looking at the various locations and resorts but I'm leaning towards Puerto Vallarta. We have been there before, but just for a day on one of our cruises, and it was beautiful. We toured the rain forest and had lunch on a patio overlooking the jungle with monkeys screeching and rainbow parrots flying overhead. So, we would like to do some other things while we are there.

I would love input and suggestions from ya'll. Has anyone else been to Punta Cana? Where did you stay? What did you do? Thanks. I knew I could count on you.

I'd Rather Be In Mexico

It's Monday morning. With the time change, it's pitch black when I go to school. I did not want to get up this morning. I did not want to come to school. I want to be in Mexico.

A few years ago, we went to Cancun in February. We had never travelled to someplace warm when it was cold in Kentucky. The last time I travelled into summer was when I went to Florida for spring break in college. We drove over the state line into the luscious smelling orange groves and into summer. This time, we flew from winter into summer. Strange. But lovely.

The second day we were there, we took a ferry over to the gorgeous tropical island of Isla Mujeres. Tom still swears that I only wanted to go there because I liked saying the name so much. It does fall trippingly from the tongue, doesn't it? (That's from Hamlet. Heh.) Isla Mujeres (oh, yeah) is famous for it's turquoise clear waters and wonderful snorkeling. But, first we wanted to have lunch. We found a little, rustic, wooden restaurant right on the main street. When we walked in, we realized the entire back of the restaurant was, actually, non-existent. The back wall of the restaurant was...the beach. At this point, we had not travelled in the tropics enough to know that many restaurants and hotels are completely open-air. The airport in Punta Cana has no walls! It's a concept that's hard to grasp when you live someplace that has seasons.

We sat down at a table...right by the beach. We could have literally reached our toes out and touched the sand. The breeze was cool and salty in our faces. The sand was shimmeringly, sparklingly gold in the sun. The clear water glinted in shades of turquoise to jade green to cobalt blue. We ordered a local fish specialty we had heard about and Tom had a Corona with lime for the first time. We ate. We drank. We smiled at each other lazily. We soaked in the atmosphere.

I wish I was there RIGHT NOW.