April was much more eventful than March! Here is Paradise Village Beach Resort in Nueva Vallarta, Nayarit, Mexico.
We started off with a trip to Mexico with Grandma Linda. Another Spring Break trip to surprise the girls, although they did find out about a week ahead so that they could pack for themselves. We decided a bit of time to lie on the beach was a fabulous idea. No big plans were made for anything except reading in the sun, playing in the pools, building sand castles and boogie boarding.
This is the first sunset we saw when we got to Paradise Village. It was a huge sigh of contentment!
One of the first things to do on the beach is say "Yes" to one of the ladies that braid hair. Abby and Jess always want it, but don't always enjoy the process.
The girls were quick to hit the boogie boards on our first beach day...and many after that!
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| Abby and Jessica head out into the water with their boards. |
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| Jessica spent a morning building a sweet little sand castle. |
A surprise for the girls was a trip to a local waterpark that has a dolphin swimming program. All four of us took part and had a great time. Jess was a bit scared, but finally did the board ride (the two dolphins push the bottoms of your feet to send you quickly across the pool) which was more difficult than holding the belly fins.
The waterpark was really cool, although some of the slides were soooo fast. I have never been on any like that here in the states. It felt like we had the run of the place too, almost no one else was there.
These last 2 photos are just Abby and Jessica playing at the resort pool. They have the coolest alligator slides.
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| Jess can levitate! |
April also brought Thrivent Club. Chris and I headed to Dallas to spend the week at the Gaylord Texan. That is one amazing hotel. We saw some fabulous speakers, toured the JFK assassination site and dressed up for some fancy dinners.
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This was the view from our room's inside balcony. I will also insert a video clip that gives the full picture. Amazing!
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| This is one of the evening events. They did an amazing job of reinventing the place each night, and it was massive in size! |
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| The Grassy Knoll near where Kennedy was shot. Much smaller than we expected it to be. |
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| The most formal night. Chris had to rent a tux and looked pretty awesome in it:) |
On our return home we arrived just before Easter weekend. It was a somber one for us, as we got a late night phone call Saturday night that Uncle David had unexpectedly passed away. It was devastating news to all of us and we made plans to head west to be with family and say goodbye to a wonderful man. He will be forever missed!
This is one of my favorites, a shot of David, Megan and Jessica on the beach in Gig Harbor on one of our trips over in the years past.
While in Gig Harbor we reconnected with lots of family that we hadn't seen in a long while. The girls had the opportunity to make connections that they wouldn't have had otherwise. How sad that it takes an occasion like that to get all of us together.
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| Jamie and Abby hang out on the same beach we'd visited with Dave 3 years before. |
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| Abby, Jamie and Jordan take a spin! |
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| A little family shot on the ferry to Seattle. |
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| A rare shot of Chris and I. |
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| A loving shot of Paul and Chris. |
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| My family and that of my brother Mike. |
April was a busy month for traveling, not all for the best of reasons. It ended on a very sad note for us, but I will be forever grateful that God chose to share David with us for a time.
