{Travel Diaries} Puerto Vallarta 2016 (and Ellie's first fight)

Y'all...can you tell it's summer break over here? Thomas has been home for two weeks and us girls are loving having him home with us ALL. Day. Long!!

To kick off Summer Break, we headed to Puerto Vallarta with Thomas' parents and younger brother and his family for his Dad's 60th birthday! Sorry Robert, just announced your age to the world (well the 5 people who read this blog at least).

I'll try to keep the commentary to the minimum (yeah right) but be warned this post will cover all 6 days of our trip - with photos!!

Like most of our trips lately we got the earliest flight out of the airport (5:30am) and the hubs family insists on arriving to the airport 2 hours minimum before take off...so we got there just before 3:30, which meant we had to leave the house around 2:30 in the morning.  We decided to shave 30 minutes from our commute and spend the night at his parents house.  Ellie slept with Nanny and pretty much was awake the whole night.  When I woke up and headed downstairs Ellie was already awake (to my surprise) and was chipper as can be telling me all about the airport and Mexico and I am not sure I've ever seen her that happy/excited in the morning.  

We were able to pack all of our stuff into TWO carry on suitcases!!! We also brought a backpack and our diaper bag ... not too bad for a family of four (and a two month old!!) The rest of the crew brought a ton of luggage and had to check most of it!! I was quite proud of us for being so minimal with our packing...and we didn't even wear/use all of the clothes and stuff we brought!!! 

This trip we decided to not bring the carseat for Ellie...and that will be the last tune we don't bring it - for a while.  She mastered the seat belt in about 0.5 seconds and moved around a bit...it was also super hard for her to get into a comfortable position to fall asleep.  Finnley did really well for her first airplane ride and how young she is.  Flying with two is definitely different than flying with one and we found it works best if Ellie sits in the middle.

We had a layover in Orange County and we considered ditching the family to vacay at Disneyland instead...but then Ellie was so obsessed with her cousin that we couldn't separate them prematurely.

Ellie stayed awake pretty much the entire second leg of our trip, we stopped at a "Mexican Walmart" (that's what our taxi driver called it) to get essentials; like diapers, milk, water shoes (faux crocs) for Ellie, and a few other things.  Then about 10 minutes before we got to the resort Ellie fell asleep - HARD!! We were able to move her into the stroller and she remained passed out for a good 35+ minutes.

After we got settled into our room I got Ellie into a swimsuit (myself too) and took her down to the pool to check it out. They had a big party pool and then a little tiny kiddie pool right next to it, so Ellie and I camped out in there for a bit.  Then some other kids showed up, Ellie shared her pool toy that we brought down with us and they were getting along great.  Not too much longer but a little boy showed up and he splashed Ellie, she didn't like that so she splashed him back, that was too much for him and he slapped her in the face!! She screamed at him and splashed water again and then came running/wading over to me to tell me what happened...like I wasn't watching!!  (I was not even 4 feet away) His mom stepped right in and he got in BIG trouble, I told Ellie that it's not nice to retaliate and we need to use our words...so she goes back over to him and gets right in his face and yells "I don't like that!!!!"  Then she went back to playing with the other kids that were nice to her...and the next thing I know that same little boy is pulling another little girls hair!!! It was time to leave so I took Ellie to the beach to check out the sand and the ocean.  She loved it so much, we had a great time...got covered in salty water and sand.  We had been down for a while so I figured we should head up, after we showered off we walked back by the kiddie pool and Ellie insisted on going back in.  I let her stay for another 5 minutes and then we went back up to our room. I didn't bring my phone with me so we didn't get any pictures, but we had some great quality Mama and Ellie time.

 Ellie's cousin is obsessed with a certain kids nursery rhyme video on YouTube (and that one only) it's actually quite comical and the girls had some fun watching it together on the couch. 

Our first morning and breakfast in Mexico, it was already over 80 degrees and I was dying...then someone had the bright idea that we should eat outside! I was a hot mess, Finnley was hot but somehow we survived and had a great meal.

I let Ellie have a sugar packet and she dipped her nose in it...because she is silly like that.

We made our way to the Country Club area of the resort and they had this awesome kids club pool area where it was shallow enough for Ellie to walk around the whole thing and they had some water slides too.  Finnley did what she does best...slept or is is sleep? please correct my grammar!

Ellie had a blast being Miss Independent but kept asking where all her friends were.

Finn's first time in the pool...she was less than impressed...natch

That evening we made our way down to the beach for happy hour, you get two drinks for the price of one and they bring them both out at the same time.  I got a Miami Vice and felt so rushed to drink the first one so the second wouldn't melt.  The rest of the young crew got "Skinny Margaritas" (not the Bethanny Frankle brand) which was basically straight tequila with a squeeze of lime.  We all ordered some fish tacos and were set for the night!! Oh and PS it was still ridiculously hot and all I really wanted to do was dump my frozen drink on my head to cool down!

This is the only picture I got...but seriously how cute?!!

On our second day there we had a beach day and now Ellie's adorable flamingo swimsuit is ruined.  I'm pretty sure that the sand is permanently embedded into the suit  - unless someone has a trick to get it out??  Regardless, girlfriend had the best time!  She loved digging in the sand...but we had to keep reminding her to please stay in the shade.  Thomas took her down to the ocean and they had fun in the water.  Finnley tried to stay cool in the shade and slept on the lounger.

Even though we were on vacation I couldn't skip a weekly update, this one was extra special because the girls got to be in swimsuits and in Mexico for this one!!

We went out to dinner at the Italian restaurant for Rob's birthday and snapped a picture of these cuties.

Rob and his girls! (minus the other two back home...) The food was a tad disappointing but Thomas got the best meal at the table (as per usual). Also I put Finnley into my carrier while we were eating and when I was just about done my belly got really warm....she peed on me and my dress was soaked with pee!!  So I took her to the bathroom to change her and then we were all done with dinner so we headed back up to our room to change...

The next day we headed back to the Country Club to the "water park" as Ellie called it. We brought the little princess blow up boat that Deanna brought and Ellie was in heaven and so was I because I wasn't fearful of her drowning!!!  She loved the boat and it was her preferred mode of water activity.

Riding on the shuttle back to our room for naps...that braid!

That evening we went out to dinner at the best restaurant and when we saw that the cousin was wearing a neon pink striped romper we knew that Finnley had to wear hers!  She was super cooperative with taking the twinning photo...

and through dinner..

I mean, how are you supposed to eat?? ha!

and then back in the room.  We had a Penthouse with three bedrooms, three bathrooms, two dining rooms, a living room, two private decks/terraces, and a private hot tub.  It was perfect for all of us and it had real air conditioning...so it was my favorite ;)

The next day we went back to the beach 

Finnley's Swim Suit

While Finnley slept, Ellie played in the sand and I tried to lay out in the sun to tan...but it was HOT!!

That night we headed off the resort to a restaurant that Thomas parents love to go to.  We had to sit outside, it was hot and humid, they did have fans that "helped" and it wasn't my favorite.  Despite that we had a good time, Finnley was able to lay down on one of the chairs, Ellie was a wild animal and the portion sizes were enough to feed about 25 people!

just outside of the restaurant we were able to snap some family photos...

it was hard to pick a favorite but when I saw one of Ellie holding Finnley's arm I knew it was the winner!

When we got back Ellie was having too much fun with her cousin on the bed that we all had to join in and I got a lot of photos...this one was the best because Ellie was all over the place and I was afraid she was going to send Finn off the bed!!

The following day we made our way to the Water Park again and Ellie wore her new Mexican dress that Nanny got for her.  It was so cute and dyed her armpits green!! haha 

she had fun entertaining her cousin

and the sister love was on all the time.  I don't think I will ever get over Ellie stating "I love my sister so much"!!

I remembered that I packed this super cute navy blue butterfly dress for Finnley, and then when I was looking back at Ellie's first vacay I realized that she wore this dress then too!!! So I had to make sure to put it on Finnley and snap a picture!

Our last day Ellie had some fun laying on the couch with her sis and Finnley seriously already comes up to Ellie's armpits (maybe even higher!!) so she is a pretty tall girl - slow down I have so many of Ellie's clothes for you to still wear!!!

We had a brunch buffet and Ellie enjoyed almost all of it.  She is the master at getting seeds out of watermelon, loves bacon, and did really well without a high chair!

On the way to the airport, Ellie had to make sure that she was still being a big sis...so she held on to Finnley's foot nearly the whole time.

meanwhile Finnley was...sleeping...

Family Selfie!

The airport was so hot, they had no a/c in there and Ellie was a bit wild, thankfully she passed out in the plane but again had trouble getting comfortable that she didn't sleep too long...but she sure looked cute!

Once Ellie was up and wanted to visit with Nanny we layed Finnley down in her seat and it was nice to have some extra space ;)

Ellie also found a comfortable spot on Dada to watch some DisneyJr on the airplane wifi

It was a long day for our nugget but she was in good spirits.  We had to wait an abnormally long time for our shuttle to take us to the parking lot we had our car at (because there were 9 of us and a TON of luggage) and we decided to wait at the last pick up spot so every shuttle was already full by the time it got to us!!

DIdn't seem to bother Ellie any.  

And once we finally got to our car and got her strapped in to her car seat...she was passed out!  We had a great time with family, "relaxing" and even though it was ridiculously hot for me it was a blast!

♥ Ashley