Reunited, Birthdays, and Hockey

While DeA and I were in Mexico, the kids were with Mom and Dad visiting MAXAMILIANO!! and Leo baby in Texas. They experienced a massive ice storm and were stuck down there for a few extra days. It made Ryker especially excited to see Leo Puppy.

DeA and Leo had become accustomed to the quiet house. The kids definitely brought energy with them, so DeA and Leo met me in the driveway when I got home form work for a little break.

Cooking is Ryker's new passion, he is trying all sorts of new recipes.

He made his own homemade birthday pizza! DeA is very grateful that he has grandparents close by who don't mind that he comes over and dirties their kitchen.

He made his mom prepare his birthday dessert, you don't want to risk messing up something that important.

DeA felt a little cheated this year, Ryker's 3D printer didn't come until the day after his birthday. The meant that I had to spend time assembling his printer with Dad that should have been spent showering love, attention, and praise on DeA. Attention is all that she really wants on her birthday. Well, attention and Wapato Point Cellars. She at least got one of those things.

It's a great idea to make yourself sick on the spinning thing right before eating. Just the best.

Good thing that Leo didn't need to help with the printer, he was willing and able to give her the attention that she so badly craved.

Our dear leader Inslee finally allowed the kids to play sports. It was a big deal in our house, because Rock and Ryker missed competing. 

They were a little rusty at first, but it came back pretty quickly. They were super excited to play outside in Winthrop. 

Each boy played two games, so it was kind of a long day, but completely worth it.

Ryker almost scored a goal, he tried so very hard. Not because he wanted the satisfaction of scoring, but because he was promised a new video game if he did score.

Mexico!!

DeA and I take a trip, just the two of us, to somewhere warm every winter. It's to help her remember why she married me. We always get all excited and she orders new sunglasses and swimsuits.

We stayed north of Puerto Vallarta just outside of Bucerias. We were pretty jetlagged when we arrived, but the beach and the ocean breeze was a great way to recover quickly.

We ate at the resort the first night, it didn't seem to be close to anywhere else and we weren't up for exploring too far yet. I tried to tackle the lobster challenge, one pound lobster with 15 shrimp. I did not defeat it and I may never be able to eat lobster or shrimp again.

The resort restaurant made us welcome plates of dessert. We felt so welcomed.

The first afternoon and evening were spent decompressing and feeling the jetlag. The next day was awesome, we sat on the beach

DeA took the obligatory "I'm sitting on the beach and here are the top of my knees" pic that every woman takes on vacation. Then they repost it about a month after the trip with the caption "take me back".

We did a lot more exploring (walking) and wandered into Bucerias. We found a great little Italian place with a disinfecting shower to prevent covid from infecting your clothes.

It wouldn't be a vacation for DeA if she didn't get her workout in.

They had a great breakfast buffet that we treated like brunch, we would eat about 11ish so we got two meals worth out of it, or at least I did. She ate a lot of fruits and egg whites, I did chilaquiles and chorizo.

We had baby brontosauruses outside of our resort, at least that's what they looked like to be.

They were launching a parasail right by our spot on the beach. I just couldn't resist.

We wandered into Bucerias again for dinner. We really liked that town, it was toursity enough to have good restaurants that felt safe to DeA, but wasn't touristy like PV.

We took an uber up to Sayulita, a little surfing town about 20 minutes away. It was basically a Mexican surfing version of Portland. It smelled like pot, the people looked like pot, and half the shops were owned by Canadians, US, or English people.

The beach was pretty, but I don't need to go back to Sayulita.

We spent most of our late mornings and early afternoons on the beach.

We ate most meals in Bucerias, DeA has been looking at real estate ever since.

It was usually around sundown when we would walk home. The beauty of DeA with the beauty of the sunset is hard to beat.

The resort fed us a farewell dessert at one of our late brunches. DeA wasn't sure about eating chocolate lava cake for breakfast, so I helped her out.

We spent the last few hours sitting on the beach and waiting for the results of our covid test. DeA was openly hoping that she tested positive so that she could stay in Mexico for another 10 days, but that did not happen.

Alaska Air is stupid strict about masks on the plane, so I spent two hours eating six M&Ms. 

 

Just Stuff

The kids have been on a shooting kick. It has been awesome.

Leo doesn't like shooting that much.

They've also loved getting out in the orchard and hills with Leo.

I received a Far Side calendar for Christmas, and Jens makes sure I don't miss a single day.

A patient made an awesome little bear for our front porch.

Ryk and Jens don't like that Rock doesn't have school on Mondays and that he gets to come to work every week. I made it up to them by letting them skip school and spend a morning with me.

Ryker loves cooking and trying new things lately. He tried his hands on steak. His definition of a "pinch" is different than mine.

The taste test....