from cabo with love

we usually try to take at least one big trip at some point during summer break.  and since we'd just been to hawaii in february for the old lady's wedding we decided that it was a good time to try going somewhere we'd never been before - which we'd attempted to do a couple of years ago, but got derailed by...well, you can guess.

the newlyweds had delayed their honeymoon till july, because the groom's job restricts him from taking too many days off at one time.  they spent a good amount of time checking out a whole bunch of different destinations and resorts to book.  the hub found an all-inclusive resort in cabo san lucas that looked pretty nice, and they liked it enough to book it for a week.  

after looking at our calendars and coordinating our schedules for the summer, it turned out that the best window we had available for a trip fell on the week before the kids' honeymoon.  and then we ended up booking a resort in cabo that was happened to be right next door to the one they were going to stay at.  heh.

the nice thing about traveling to cabo is that it's only a 2-hour flight from LAX, which is really nice.  

the hub has access to the admirals club, so once we got ourselves checked in and dropped off our luggage we went inside to relax and grab something to eat.

i started out with a latte, some eggs and bacon and a cup of yogurt.

the hub grabbed himself an avocado toast:

and then i found the cereal bar around the corner, while he went to the bar and grabbed a mimosa for me.  never too early for a mimosa, right?  i mean, it's ORANGE JUICE.

when the bean and i hit the restroom for a potty stop, i fell in love with the scent of the hand soap and lotion at the counter.  i took this so that i could hit the google and hopefully grab a bottle for myself:

(i still have yet to find it, btw. it figures that i find another fragrance that's freaking impossible to buy)

and then it was time to head to the gate and board the plane.

it was such a short flight that i didn't even have time to finish the movie i started watching after takeoff.  it was "the lost city" with channing tatum and sandra bullock, if you were wondering.  super cheesetastic but still entertaining...at least for me because i'm not turning down a chance to watch channing in a movie.

since we hadn't booked the shuttle that would take us to the resort, we ended up getting roped into listening to a sales pitch that was disguised as a taxi stand.  it was pretty annoying once we figured out what had happened, but luckily we got through it and finally made our way to a taxi.

the drive took about half an hour, and then we were pulling into the resort.

of course, we arrived at the same time as a shitton of other people, so checking in took a hot minute.  the lobby was pretty nice, though.

after dodging two different salespeople who were trying to get us to attend a timeshare presentation (free breakfast isn't exactly a big draw when you're already on an all-inclusive plan), we finally had keys and found a driver to take us to our room.  this resort is really big and very hilly, and this was only the first of many, many golf cart rides that week.

we dropped our bags off in our room - which was really nice, with a full kitchen and separate living room and a pretty big balcony.  i know i took pictures of it...somewhere.  anyway, we were pretty hungry by then and so we called for another golf cart to take us to the marketplace, which was back up the hill near the lobby.

the market was set up kind of like a food court, with a bunch of stands that offered everything from sushi rolls to fresh pasta to made-to-order crepes and housemade ice cream.  this ended up being our favorite place to eat in the whole resort.

although i definitely felt judged by my coke can:

we explored a little after we were done eating, checking out the gift shops and other restaurants on property.

the hub had already scoped out a cigar shop to visit, and so our next activity was hopping into another taxi that took us into town.

we wandered around on foot after that, ending up at a pretty nice mall near the marina not too far away.

it was a pretty nice, laid back way to start off our vacation.  we missed being with the kids, but we'd promised to scope things out and report back to them so that they'd be able to plan out their own vacations the following week.

plus, i guess we need to get used to not having them with us all the time.  you know, since they're like grownup married people now.  sigh.