SIGH.... I think we all need to take a huge deep breath and exhale all the stress of the past two years.

My multigenerational family of 7 including my mom, 4 kids, and husband had taken our first ever 'traditional' American vacation to the arguably touristy city of Puerto Vallarta at the end of Feb 2020, immediately before Covid shut down …

Today we enjoyed all the beaches of Puerto Vallarta have to offer. The water temperatures and waves are perfect for boogie boarding and I spent much of the day riding the waves again and again. As a mom of 4, I seldom get out of my head and bouncing in the waves was a perfect way to shut down my worries.

Puerto Vallarta is home to a replica of …

Admittedly I was a bit nervous coming in to today. We would be ATVing as a family with 2 brand new drivers- my 74 year old mom and my 18 year old daughter. I wasn't sure of the safety standards in Mexico and worried that my mom might have trouble operating the ATV or negotiating the city streets as I knew we would be departing from the center …

Travel should always include discovery.. discovering other cultures, new foods, new activities or even self discovery. For my two girls and me, this was our favorite day of the trip because we discovered a new activity that we all adored... jet skiing! I tried to impress upon my 12 year old how lucky she was to get to try this exciting sport as a …

Before getting to Puerto Vallarta, my mom said she really wanted to go whale watching while some of the kids wanted to try snorkeling. We found an affordable tour that offered both so set out as a family of 7 with 50 or so of our newest friends on a day trip in the Bay of Banderas.

The snorkeling was admittedly terrible. Perhaps we have unfair …

One of the joys of travel is trying all the great local food and Mexico does not disappoint! There are so many fantastic and affordable places to eat in Puerto Vallarta! Fresh seafood and Mexican specialties obviously abound, but there are also some lovely international restaurants to try.

We got a hotel with a small kitchen so that we could …

As any parent who has traveled with their kids will tell you, it's essential to build some down time into your schedule. Kids need unplanned time to run off extra energy or just splash around in the water and Mexico offers a lot of great locations for doing just that.

Our hotel had a wonderful set of pools and a lazy river.

There was also …