Zihuatanejo

Where to begin. When we arrived in Zihuatanejo (aka Zihua) we were loving the hot, humid weather. We arrived at our hotel, Casa Cuitlateca we were memorized how cool it was. It houses only 5 rooms. We were able to get to know the other guests and became each other’s recommendations on where to go, what not to do, etc. We had two waiters, Armador and Alfredo, that pretty much catered to our needs. We had drinks and food whenever we wanted. Will even started becoming daring with his espanol and started asking waiters, “Donde es cerveza?” What he really wanted to know what kind of beer do they have. The locals were super nice and friendly.

This is a breakdown of what we did:

Friday – get into Zihuatanejo. We sat by the infinity pool, had a couple of drinks, and enjoyed the warmth of Mexico.

Saturday – we laid out by our hotel for several hours and then walked into town. We had lunch, did a little bit of touristy shopping, and did what we could not to get lost.

Sunday – I ate something bad at the hotel during dinner. FOOD POISONING.

Monday – Will – laid out by the pool. Casey – stayed in bed and recovered.

Tuesday – we went snorkeling with Hector (the old Mexican guy in the pics). He went into the ocean with us leading us around. Throughout the snorkeling adventure, Hector dove and picked up three different kinds of blowfish, brought them to the surface, and let Will and me hold them. It was amazing.

Wednesday – we went to Ixtapa (a 3-5 minute drive). Ixtapa was a town created by the government 20 years ago specifically for tourism. As soon as Will and I arrived, we hated it. We missed the authenticity of Zihuatanejo. Ixtapa had major high rise hotels, chain shopping, and Senor Frogs (bluck). The reason why we went was because it was the first day of the 7th annual Guitar Festival. It was definitely worth going to Ixtapa. Of course, I wished my nephew, Steven, was there to watch the incredible talent on stage. Will even found time to show off his flip flop bottle opener to our table neighbors.

Thursday – we went deep sea fishing. Hector, once again, took us. During snorkeling he mentioned how we would be going to fish for sailfish, I thought he said shellfish. I was thinking, “cool…lobster, shrimp, etc.” We left at 7:00 am (not very vacation-like) and off we went. Carlos, Hector’s nephew, came with us. Carlos put 5 stationary rods anchored to the boat. While we were waiting we saw many turtles, dolphins, random birds chilling out in the ocean. Carlos saw one rod moving and Will was on top of it. I jumped up taking pictures, especially of his facial expressions…hilarious. Then the novelty ended, I ended up sitting back down. It took Will 30 minutes to reel in the fish. Then when Carlos brought him on board he told me to get in the picture. As you can tell with my facial expressions, all I wanted was to not have my hands touch that fish. We did release him back in the ocean. The red flag was displayed on our boat because we were successful in our fishing venture.

Thursday evening we went down the street to day 2 of the Guitar Festival. We ate dinner afterwards at one of our favorite restaurants, Il Mare. It was funny because of the only light being candlelit, you had to use flashlights to read the menu or sign the check.

Friday – we had to leave. We were so sad. The worst feeling was when we had to put our jeans back on. My stomach was in knots because we were leaving. However, the adventure didn’t end there. We arrived in Seattle at 11:00 p.m. The Admirals Club was closed from 10:30-5:00 a.m. (Will had bought 2 day passes for us to crash there until our 5:30 a.m. flight). After a few attempts to sleep, Will and I decided to get some coffee/tea and just stay up (hence the tired pics at the end).

Saturday morning – we remembered how beautiful Alaska was on the flight home and were able to capture a few of the breathtaking moments. When we got home our heater was broke and we walked in to a 43 degree’d home. Needless to say, when it finally got fixed Sunday night we really truly missed Mexico.

I would highly recommend vacationing in Zihuatanejo. It is mildly touristy, but you still feel that authenticity and have a wonderful Mexican experience.

I’m still trying to pin Will down for an Ireland vacation one of these days…

Up and coming… Angela will be visiting us in May.
Until next time…

Ice Sculptures

Our days are almost as normal as the lower 48...a very exciting event! I wanted to include some pictures of our sunsets.

There are two competitions in ice sculpting: single block and multiblock. The multiblock is still underway so we went to go visit the single block. It was beautiful. On the downside, it was freezing. It was around -2, but even with two pairs of socks, hand warmers in my boots, long underwear, gloves, t-shirt, sweater, and down jacket I was still freezing. Will didn't prepare as well as I did and was ready to leave within 20 minutes. We went through the displays fast and took lots of pictures (to enjoy later). I ended up taking a 109 pics, but picked some of the cooler (no pun intended) ones.

There is a complete kids ice park. There was an ice maze which Will was too kind in not running away from me (he was frozen at this point).

There were some groups of people busily working on the multiblock competition. You definitely would not want to mess with a woman and a chainsaw.

This is a neat ice basket. Kids can climb in and get spun like crazy. Will, unfortunately, didn't want to partake in this fun.

Will was so ready to leave. I told him we had to get a quick picture. After a few cuss words, I said make an angry face. Obviously, I didn't have to ask twice.

Will finally was able to use his grill for the first time. Chicken, veggies, and cornbread...yummy!

Up and coming: Will will be traveling to Washington state this week for work and in a two weeks we will be heading out to Mexico!

V-Day Weekend in Anchorage

 

Moose. Oh, our dear sweet Moose. I had to include pics of him enjoying the Olympics, helping us out in the fridge, as well as friendly fun with the dogs. At this point we can’t imagine our life without him.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I was able to capture a quick family picture of everyone on the couch.





Will and I needed to get out of dodge. We planned for Anchorage during Valentine’s Day. Neither will nor myself are big Valentine’s Day people. **However, Dad please keep sending the chocolates.**

Mom, I promise this is not where we live.

On the six-hour drive to Anchorage we saw and heard lots of snow-machiners. One day, Will and I will rent some and become that much more Alaskan. We laughed at the tractor randomly getting gas at Chevron. In In Anchorage there were tons of icicles and an ice sculpture display. There is part of the display where it is intentionally iced and you can slide on it. I tried to get an action shot of Will, but it looks like he’s just walking around. Interestingly enough, the temperature in Anchorage was around 35 degrees. Will and I were walking around in our pea coats. Have we become acclimated? Who knows!

As you can see, the drive back to Fairbanks was spectacular. It was beautiful.

The last pictures include moose that were chillin’ (no pun intended) in our yard and Will actually remembering what a vacuum was. I was so excited to see Will vacuum, I had to take a picture. Yup, it is sad!

Sorry for all the technical difficulties. The powers that be changed the format and it makes it difficult to see what happens until after I publish the post.