Overdue Ixtapa pics/trip summary

Like most good vacations to far off places, this one began on a plane. The kids did quite well, everything was smooth, and relaxation was off to a great start
We landed in Zihuatanejo early afternoonish and headed for the hotel. The first thing you notice of course is that there's an ocean nearby and you have to start chewing your air before you swallow it. Damn humidity. Heat is so much worse by the beach! (But there is water there for cooling off obviously...we'll get to that.) Steph had booked us through Apple vacations so the taxi was all paid for and waiting to take us to the Dorado Pacifico over in Ixtapa. It's on the beach and we had a beautiful view from our 15th floor balcony (the numbering went Lobby, Mezzanine, 5, and then skipped 13, so I'm not sure what you should really call it...but I digress)
Beautiful, no? You almost felt like you could jump off and land in the pool and it'd be just fine
That triangle sticking out over the pool on the left had a swim-up bar on one side and a restaurant on the other. This is the inside of that restaurant (and also the 1st non-horrible pic take of Steph and I together. 2nd time the 2 of us have ever been captured on film/memory stick that we know of :-P )
Other than eating and walking on the beach, relaxation was the goal for the week and we made that happen with a vengeance! The kids quickly found their favorite hangout for the week...the pool. Water wings are great btw, for you non-kid-havers out there.
Of course the girls made the most of the sunny skies and refreshing waters.
It wasn't *all* hotel time. On Tuesday we went out to Ixtapa Island, which is basically an excursion you canNOT avoid if you're in Ixtapa for a day of more. Every 100 yards or less on the street you'll pass someone trying to sell you a boat ride over to the island, with promises of wonderful things once you're there. We ended up going for free, since Steph's parents fell into many time-share presentation traps. (They got free cabs, free meals, and this trip out of it, saving us $100+, but by the end they swore to never listen to another pitch again.) Included in the trip they got us was Free Lunch! Due to something of a language barrier we had a hard time getting it ordered and figuring out what was involved, but we all ended up fed.
Of course the real reason to go to the island is that the beaches are on the non-wavey side of things. This is good for kayaking, which we did for an hour, Steph in the front, me in the back, kids between (without the camera, oddly enough). Also possible is snorkelling, which you can't do over by the hotel
Back at the hotel another favorite past-time were the 2 waterslides (visible up above). We were shown many different "forms" over the course of the week, most of them seeming to involve going headfirst on your stomach with differences only a 5 year old could identify, but it was an endless source of entertainment so why knock it?There must also be time for pictures, and my new camera came in quite handy for photo ops (thanks parents!) These are outside the restaurant mentioned earlier A huuuge highlight of the trip was parasailing. Steph had done it before, so K1 and I took a turn this time around. I never stopped to think twice about it...somehow trying to keep a kid from freaking out keeps you from thinking about your own safety. At least until you're 200 feet in the air. Getting ready to go:
And then you take off, pulled by a boat, and pop up and suddenly you're flying waaay up in the air. The way it was set up K1 was in a separate harness in front of me, kind of sitting in my lap but 2 feet away. We enjoyed the whole thing immensely, took in the views from way up high, spit in the ocean from up there like guys do...it was great. Obviously the camera stayed on the ground.
All of this fun leads to some tired kids. After throwing a fit about not wanting to go to bed one night, K2 did this and passed out immediately:
Another highlight of the trip (we think?) was the coconut milk. From the minute we landed K1 had been begging and pleading to go get a coconut and take it back to the hotel and/or back to the U.S. I tried to explain the difficulties with just picking up a coconut, not having packed a machete or anything, but he could not be dissuaded. So on the last day I got the location of a little beach vendor who had drinks served in actual coconuts. The directions were "the yellow umbrella by the massage place outside of Carlos n' Charlies over there." We went searching our last evening in town and found the guy as he was ready to leave for the evening. He agreed to get his stuff back out and we got our coconut milk. (The adult versions had a choice of rum or tequila in them. The one being consumed here was unadulterated coconut milk, like K1 wanted.)

And my photo op after that excitement had abated a bitAfter the coconuts we headed over to Senor Frog's for our last night in Ixtapa. It was Friday night and the place was totally dead, so we got up on the dance floor with the kids and had a blast.We even got them up in the cage. They're going to hate us for these pics some day :-P
Before we left we had to get a picture of K1's girlfriend. This girl worked at the local grocery store we went to almost daily and thought K1 was about the greated thing ever. He talked to her in all the Spanish he knew from school and she ate it up. We got to the grocery store as they were locking the doors for the evening, continuing the string of good luck in Mexico.
As mentioned before, all of that activity makes you tiiiired. This is about 10 minutes after the last picture (he's waiting for us to catch up with a room key):
And that's the ever-so-abbreviated version of the Mexico trip. Great fun, nobody died or got injured, and we all came back happy and still liking each other pretty damn well. That's success, eh?