Mexico Recap and Goals for a 33 year old

 

 

I’m working on a video/photo montage to recap our trip… we had a wonderful time. And most of the 7 days (total vacation was 9 days, but I’m excluding the two travel days) were pretty much mirror images of each other. Other than the day that I had to ice my knee by the pool… our days looked like this.

 

Sleep in until 8am

Breakfast at Oceana around 9am

Lay by the infinity pool or under a beach hut until sometime mid-day. Laying out, reading, drinking, sleeping.

Maybe workout, maybe don’t (G did much more)

Lunch was usually a ProBar or something from the lobby snacks.

Hang out in the infinity pool, drinking, making friends, sleeping.

Random activities for Gregg (Ping Pong, Beach Soccer, Rock Climbing)

Watch the sunset (From either pool or beach)

Head up to room, soak in hot tub, shower and get ready (we didn’t take any dinner pictures!)

 

Dinner around 930pm (again, failed at any shots of us all dressed up)

All in all, we had a WONDERFUL time.  But, you can see how that would not make for exciting blogging. But it does make for a very relaxing vacation! there were several days at the beginning that I struggled. I wanted to do more than layout. I did try to take several walks on the sand and yoga. And that disabled my knee for a day. My mind is in a different place, this year I longed to participate in more activities. So it took some mental work, but I soon embraced the R&R.

 

Change of topic: Goal Setting Time

Prior to my 34th Birthday (exactly one year from today) I want to be able to:

1. Have 3 Strict, Perfect Form Pull Ups
2. Have 1 Muscle Up

During open gym today, I got started on this goal. I will try to give regular recaps of my progress.  Here’s the beginning baseline:

1. 3 Strict Pull Ups, Blue Band
2. Skill work on Bar MU. Getting chest ‘over’ and not ‘to’ the bar. Using Blue & Red bands.

I have a long ways to go… this will be a fun journey!

Travel day…relax, eat, repeat

Good morning! Buenos Dias!

I’m posting this from my 8th floor balcony, looking out over the Pacific Ocean. This is our fifth time to the Dreams Resort in Puerto Vallarta and I’m easily reminded of why we come back here.

In fact, I noticed something over dinner last night. Back home, people often talk about how they will go to a resort only once. It is not uncommon down here to talk to several couples each day that are on a return trip to this great place.

TRAVEL DAY WEDNESDAY

Wednesday we got up at 3:30 am to catch our early-bird international flight. Boarding was supposed to begin at 5:45. After a few hour layover (time to charge the electronics and eat a good meal) in Houston, we were back in the air.

Arriving in PV by 2:30….through customs, through the “gauntlet” of people trying to sell you trips/time shares/pretending to be affiliated with your hotel….. And onto the van/taxi. Check-in….and to our room by 4pm.

With a few hours left in the day, we unpacked and made ourselves at home. Then we had a meal by the Seaside, trekked out into the ocean (the waves were quite strong) and dipped in the infinity pool. This is our favorite spot on the resort. You will likely see many shots from this locations.

Late (930pm) dinner and then we hit the hay.

FIRST FULL DAY

Waking up to our pitch black hotel room (those curtains are amazing), I rolled over and said good morning ago Gregg. He jumped up up and pulled all the curtains back for a full panoramic view. Wall to wall windows…. Just stunning.

Our morning consisted of an early morning stroll up & down the beach front, an hour of yoga, and breakfast.

After this, I needed to take it easy and ice my knee. I contacted a few friends and family members….trying to unwind from work. I recently got a blackberry for work, and I feel like I “should” check-in with the office. This is my own applied stress….and I need to ignore it.

While Gregg hit up the gym, I lounged on a chair in the sand. Just a few feet from the crashing waves. I didn’t go back into the salty water today… It hurt my knee a little last time (notice the red flag) and made me nervous for my knee. From my cabana I bounced back and forth from sun to shade… Being very diligent with the sunscreen.

Afternoon in the big pool, with the swim up bar, some ping pong action, and then more relaxing sunsets at the infinity pool.

This will be what most of my days consist of… For the next week or so. I’ll post pictures along the way, and comment when we deviate from plan.

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Oh, last night we had dinner at Oceana. Saw a little kitten begging for food. Gregg, the dog cat whisperer snuck some bread out in his pocket and feed the kitty. />

Vacation – Booked!

It is official… we finally booked our beach vacation for 2013. We debated going some place new, I had my eye on Costa Rica. We found three resorts that looked “okay” but something just wasn’t quite right with all of them. And once we started pricing them, we noticed that our favorite resort will be opening in Costa Rica next year.

So, we decided to make a return visit to one of our favorite places on the planet.

In just a few weeks, as the weather starts to turn colder here in the STL…. we’ll be laying on the beach, enjoying the sounds of the waves crashing into the pristine sand.

Labor Day Weekend in Colorado

I spent much of the past few days enjoying family time and a little R&R. Relaxing so much that I didn’t blog at all…but I did take lots of pictures! So, let’s document how the rest of my trip to Colorado went…

Friday – Mom and I headed to the southern side of downtown Denver to introduce me to IKEA. It took us nearly three hours to explore the store. That’s including lunch with the Swedish Meatballs! The place was huge and had so many wonderful (favorably priced) items. I decided it was a good thing that I didn’t have much room in my suitcase… so I left empty handed.

Friday night, I was supposed to meet up with my sis for sushi and martinis. In an unfortunate turn of events (medical issues) she and I were unable to meet up. So I had dinner at home with the parents…and we rented the movie MUD. It was pretty good. Oh, and speaking of good… i made “faux-taros” (cali-flower potatoes) and they were a big hit. I added some dried chives to them… *muah – delish!*

 

Saturday was a jam packed day. Mom and I got up “early” to uphold the pedicure tradition. And this time we also got manicures. It was the first time that mom had a professional manicure… I think she liked it 🙂

After nail salon we headed to my 9 yr old nephew’s football game. This is only his second year of playing…and oh my gosh is he good. He plays both offense and defense and just towers over the other kids.

Late Lunch/Early Dinner at Hacienda (everything is made from scratch) was later followed by an energized game of Twisted Farkel. My mom and I have played Spicy Farkel before… I don’t know what it is but something about that game gets us all wound up! A saturday night run to DQ and a dip in the hot tub capped off a wonderful Saturday!

Sunday we headed up into the mountains for some paintball action. Mom and Dad enjoy playing WoodsBall (dressed in camo and shoot each other)… but I am in no shape to do that right now (still recovering from the knee). But it was a lot of fun shooting at the trees and rocks! Although it was cut short by random afternoon showers… we made a couple stops in some good clearings.  

Visiting Moffat Tunnel and watching the trains come & go through a 7mile under-mountain tunnel was pretty impressive. After the trains go through, these huge exhaust fans blow all the fumes out. You can hear the fans through the whole valley.

Sunday night Gregg came home from his adventures. I was awful glad to see him. He was tired, sore, cold, and hungry. But he had a wonderful time.

Monday included a quick trip to REI. The Denver store must be one of it’s flagship stores because it was monstrous. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I normally would.. my knee was really starting to cause me problems. I think all the walking finally catching up with me.

Monday afternoon was family BBQ. My sis was still sick, so her and her son weren’t there. But my brother, his wife, and their three kids were there. Funny, I took pictures of the silliest things every other day, but didn’t do any on Monday. Probably the day I should have taken the most!! Ah well. My dad took some cool pics… when I see them I’ll share.

Tuesday morning we caught a 6am flight and I was home in time to work almost a full day…and then go to PT at night! It’s been 10 weeks since my surgery. I need to do a knee status… maybe tomorrow. … I am tired and going to bed now.

Pike’s Peak and BBQ

Labor Day weekend, ironically the weekend in which few of us labor…

We are spending ours in Colorado! G is up in the mountains on a multi-day backpacking adventure. I am spending much needed and long awaited quality time with my parents.

Blogging from my ipad is convenient, but not terribly easy when it comes to uploading all the cool photos. So I’ll just put up a few teasers from yesterday.

We took the cog train to the top of Pikes Peak. It was about a two hour drive from house to Manitou Springs (train station) and then a one hour ride from 6,000′ elevation to over 14,000′.

We only had 30 minutes or so at the top. We were the last train and a storm was rolling in. But the view was amazing.

On our way home we stopped at Rudy’s. it was a gas station/BBQ joint…. Texas style. Super yummy…and their sign cracked me up!

Today we are off to introduce me to ikea ….and then get our nails done.