los cabos, mexico

the rhodes/bland familia’s.

this was one of our annual family trips with the Bland clan.
We have been traveling together for about 6 years now.

Susan a.k.a. Spicy {a nickname I gave her because this girl does not mess around when it comes to HOT food, she can eat more jalapenos in one bite than anyone I know, also I think it’s pretty ironic since her last name is BLAND} and I became good friends about 10 years ago when our husbands worked together.

Our trips are always fun, we have some fabulous & crazy memories, and the kids love having buddies to play with. The parents love taking a babysitter and enjoying family time all day and adult time at night. Although this trip we only left the kids one evening. The older our kids get, the more fun it is to just play with them all day and all night! I hear my friends did in their Cabo villas. They had a fantastic time so I hear.

When we travel in Mexico, all the kids love to use their Spanish whenever possible, this trip KJ made us laugh when he was a wee bit confused…

KJ: “Mom, I can spell uno.”
Momma: “OK KJ, lets hear it.”
KJ: “o-n-e.”

After a day of traveling and hanging out in our rooms, the kids were up and ready to hit the pool with their buddies.

Myla, Cason, and Brevin had a poolside fort- Kiana was lounging next to them-
scott & spicy
the momma’s-
we had this awesome life-size checkers board next to the pool, over-looking the ocean.
we just might be one of the only families in america that travels EVERYWHERE with a football…even at the airport en route to come home Kiana and Myla were playing catch and the football hit a guy sitting with his back to use {GEESH!}

Brevin has quite the arm!
after spending most the day around the pool, we headed into town and rode a glass bottom water taxi out to see “the arches” and “lovers beach”
playing in the sand and ocean at “lovers beach”

our water taxi gave us a tour of “the arches”


Afterwards we walked around town, did some shopping in the markets, and had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe’.

We crossed paths with this dog-
then at the end of our evening when we headed back to our resort, they have rows and rows of rocking chairs around the fountains and shops at the resort – the kids lined up, and it was a total coincidence that they did so by age order-

Sela/KJ/Brevin/Myla/Cason/Kiana/McKenna

Our resort has 4 different pools to use. So each day we hung-out at a different pool. This day we were at the main pool where the kids all painted ceramics-We spent the entire day swimming and ordering food poolside, that sums it up… a perfect day.

The Blands took a friend/babysitter this trip so this evening we headed to the resort right next to ours which is the “Pacifica.” To me, this is personally mine and Dusty’s own little vacation spot. It is an adults only hollistic spa retreat, and we have stayed here on two different occasions for vacations. Dusty, Scott, Suz, and I had dinner at their restaurant. It is always incredible-

This is a picture of our resort, “Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach,” and we own a timeshare here and at the “Pueblo Bonito Emerald Bay” in Mazatlan. If anyone is looking to invest in something like this, let me give you one tip- buy on Ebay! We purchased our first timeshare with Pueblo Bonito a few years ago in Mazatlan and spent a lot, then a few months later we discovered them being sold online at Ebay or other equally respectable timeshare resale sites for the lowest price around $2K. {depending on the size of room you want this gives you one week per year for around 30 years} A few of our friends have purchased since we did and it’s so fun to travel in groups. And, the Pueblo Bonito resorts are gorgeous. Plus, we LOVE Mexico.


The next morning, we woke up and walked out on the patios and saw such a sweet message in the sand that Scott had secretly written for Susan the afternoon before-

scotty, way to be such an amazing husband! {wink, wink}

We hung out by a pool again for half the day then headed down to the beach for more time in the sand. Is there anything more wonderful than playing at the beach in hot weather with your kids?!? oh my gosh, it is the funnest thing EVER!
There were these sand cliffs that the kids were jumping off of –
kiana & myla
kiana & mckenna
suz and I decided to try too, it took a few attempts and us laughing our heads off to get a decent picture. 🙂
we cleaned up from playing at the beach and headed into town to go
SWIMMING WITH DOLPHINS!
{scott and I opted to sit out, someone had to hang-out with sela!}

let me inject a little note here –
the pictures may fool you, the rhodes kids were not keen on the idea of swimming with dolphins. This was our 2nd family attempt, we did this a few years ago with the Blands in hawaii and I pretty much held my panicked children CLINGING to me the entire time. which actually surprises me. especially for my Myla. I would think she would love this. She’s even been known to say that she is going to grow up and train killer whales and dolphins at sea world one day. hmmm. This time around Suz bribed her to do the activities with future sleepovers. So, if Myla is interacting with a dolphin it’s only because she was bribed to do so…and Susan owes her SIX sleepovers with Cason!














Even though our kids were not excited about swimming with the dolphins, the Bland family LOVED it, and Dusty said it was so much fun to be in there with the kids we will for sure do it again next time!

After the Dolphins we headed down to a restaurant on the beach called,
“The Office,” and it turned out to be SO much fun! If you’re headed to Los Cabos, for sure stop in and eat at this place!

Sela was exhausted and slept through half of our meal/party at the Office. The waiters made her an awesome bed with two chairs and a bunch of warm blankets, she rolled over and snuggled right into them-

How bright, cute, and festive is this place!?!



two great guitar players stopped by our table and let us choose a song for them to play. We chose “Feliz Navidad” and we all sang along, it put me in a fun Christmas spirit right in the middle of a beach. I loved it!

Then LIVE entertainment started that was SO much fun, and they were fabulous!

Our next morning we went into the “Pueblo Bonito Rose'” which is right in town and hung-out on the beach there for most the day-

Kiana loved every minute of getting a massage on the beach, we did some souvenir shopping. Everyone had lots of fun in the sand. We bought a couple of kites the kids were flying. And Dusty took the kids on a jet ski ride!





Then… we went to the mall and went BOWLING!
There was a bet…
The Rhodes family vs. the Bland family.
whoever lost had to pay for dinner…
kiana and myla trying to give sela a little help
The Rhodes family lost, but that’s OK, because it’s a really rare occasion for us to lose. 🙂

We paid up and treated the Blands to dinner at one of the restaurants at our resort.

Sela started to not feel well while we were bowling and the next night morning had a fever/upset stomach. Luckily, it did not last long. Once she started to feel a little better she hung out by the pool in her nightgown the next day.

She’s really workin’ her pouty face here-

She sipped on her sprite till her stomach was settled
and then didn’t waste any time at all making up for the yummy food she’d missed –
OREO’S!
kiana and mckenna are both reading the twilight series book number 2 “new moon” right now, and they spent as much time as possible reading together poolside-

After our day at the “sky pool” everyone cleaned up and we headed to be beach in the early evening for family pictures. This was mostly the Bland family pictures because most of my family did not want anymore pictures to be taken! I just snapped a few of them whenever I could.

mckenna
kiana
cason
myla
brevin
kj
sela {totally not interested in having her picture taken}
It is a tradition that on each of our family trips together we take a few pictures of the kids lined up by age.

Sela {2}; KJ {5}; Brevin {7}; Myla {8}; Cason {9}; Kiana {10}; McKenna {11}



Our resort is pretty large so they have these little “carts” that cruise around everywhere giving everyone rides. The nice thing is, there’s so many of them you hardly have to wait more than 10 seconds for one to show up and drive you to where you’re going. It makes the resort really functoinable, quaint, and cute too with all these cart trails going everywhere, landscaped just beautifully.
After picture time, we went to another really fun restaurant for dinner called, “the trailer park.” It’s designed after {or probably was} a run-down Mexican trailer park and now it’s cleaned up and decorated as a restaurant. The food was incredible but had HUGE servings. We probably ordered enough food for about 50 people, not 12.




Our last day was a very lazy day. We hung out at the Children’s pool, Dusty went to the Spa, we had a family dinner at one of our favorite places, “Ruth’s Chris.”

By the pool, KJ and Sela were snuggling on my pool chair with me.
KJ said: “I am smashed in a girl sandwich!”


Sela on occasion will have the best table manners. This was one of those times. I wouldn’t normally take pictures during a meal, but I had to snap a couple of her buttering her roll and eating her salad. Such a little lady…

That sums up our Cabo trip in, lets see, 83 pictures!
Feliz Navidad!