Final vacation of summer; cruising on down to Mexico!

"So much fun last week, and I want a 'do-over'!" 

Matt's mom, Dawn, texted this to Shulamith and me Friday morning, talking about the week-long cruise several of us took last week to three Mexican cities: Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta. We can't have a "do over" just yet, but maybe one day! For now, memories in a blog post will have to do. 

This year, Dawn and Todd joined us, along with Seth's girlfriend, Kylee. We missed Eli, Amanda, and Jane terribly, but Amanda is due to have her baby in just a couple months and Eli is up to his eyeballs in grad school (along with his regular full-time job), so the timing did not align for them. I would say we missed Isaiah, but I don't think he'd ever do a cruise. He travels everywhere for his job, but cruisin' is not his style. Not sure if Gerald or Luke would like it either? 

The 10 of us!

Me? I enjoy cruises, but I like traveling in other modes too. Mostly, I just love to experience new places, people, language and culture. This was Kylee's first time standing on foreign soil, and I think she loved it too!

Here they are relaxing by the beach in Mazatlan

...and playing Jenga in the hotel in L.A. before our flight

...and lounging with me on the ship's deck!

Okay, my blog = my personal favorites:

1. Meal - Shrimp tacos in Cabo. Hands down the best tacos I've ever eaten. With each bite, I sat in amazement that anything could taste that good; I'm still dreaming about those tacos. Our time in Cabo was short, so while Seth, Kylee, and I feasted on that delicious meal, others were in the ocean.

The Webster-Monsons livin' their best ocean lives!

2. Show - Ice skating performance. All the skaters were talented, but one guy used to compete on the Russian Olympic team, and that explains everything. Wow! The rink was smaller than Olympic size, providing less room for a skater to gain the speed needed to perform challenging jumps, but this guy still managed to land a triple lutz, a triple salchow, and a double axel. Impressive!

3. Port - Mazatlan. We had no plans ahead of time, so when we arrived, Shulamith talked to one of many locals offering to take us places. "Come to my restaurant right on the beach. Great food, lounge chairs, hammocks, all for you to enjoy if you eat there," he urged. Without hesitation, Shulamith replied, "Sounds good!" We walked a short distance to be picked up by a "taxi" (truck, with benches on both sides of the bed) and taken to exactly what the guy described. It was the loveliest, most relaxing day.

4. Ship activity - Massage. This was the first time I treated myself to a massage on a cruise ship, and well, now it will need to be Every. Single. Time. Thanks, Dawn. This is all your fault. :-)

5. 2nd place ship activity - Ice skating. I was a figure skater as a kid, so when anyone says ice skating, I'm in! Just Shulamith, Kennedy and I skated, with others cheering us on from the sidelines. You can see Kennedy in the pink hoodie in the background. So fun and all the nostalgia for me.

6. 3rd place ship activity - The nightly dinners in the formal dining room. The food is meh (it's hard to feed 4,000 people every night), but the service is spectacular, and it's so fun to gather each evening and talk about our day.

7. 4th place ship activity - The gym. Yep, when you're kinda addicted to working out, it's pretty convenient to have a gym right there on the ship. Shulamith and I got up each morning before anyone else, filled our Diet Coke cups, and headed up to the gym on floor 12. (Okay, Matt was already up and outside doing hundreds of pushups on the deck, but other than him, everyone else was still asleep.) The gym was super crowded the first day, but attendance decreased daily, which was great for us! We missed Orange Theory, but this was still good.

8. Favorite non-ship activity - Snorkeling in Puerto Vallarta. Kylee was feeling seasick this day (very sad!), but the rest of us went snorkeling. Everyone looks exactly the same in a snorkeling mask, so I lost everyone pretty quickly, but I was super grateful to have Seth with me the whole time, and we had so much fun watching the fish in the clear, blue water below us.

It's been a summer of travel, which is exactly the way I like it! It began in May with the fulfillment of a 3-decade dream to go to Germany Then in June, several of us drove over to Oregon to visit my family. Rounding out summer was this cruise to Mexico. As I write, I am once again in Portland for the weekend, helping my brother and his kids transition my mom out of rehab and back home, but here's one last memory of the cruise: