I’ll admit it—we are pretty spoiled
when it comes to our travel opportunities. Billy’s parents love to travel and
they fly for free, so they are always planning vacations that we get to tag
along on. I don’t know if they ever formally invite us—they just tell us where
they’re going and we say, “Oh that sounds fun, we can’t wait!” We missed out on
the family Lake Powell trip for two years in a row, so we were determined to
make it to the Cabo trip in December. Some might ask, ”Why would you travel all
that way just to go to some more beaches with rougher sand?” To which I would
respond, “tacos”. Oh, and family of course. Everyone from the Strong family
came except the littlest littles, and there was no way we were missing it. It
was my first family vacation with Stephanie being in the family, and it did not disappoint.
I ate so much guacamole and so many
tacos, and it was so fun to be in Cabo with Steph. It was her first time, so
that always makes a trip much more exciting. We’ve been there so many times
that it gets easy to feel like we’ve been everywhere and just stay at the
resort and play volleyball and stuff our faces all day. But since it was
Steph’s first time, I wanted to be with her to see everything and so I
smothered her all week long. This is a picture I took while keeping an eye on
her from the hot tub:
This trip was our only time with Billy’s
family during the break since we spent Christmas with my family in Virginia.
One week of staying in the same condo is the perfect amount of time to be with
everyone and then peace out before you get too sick of any of them.
We all decided (or maybe I just
kept whining that I wanted to go and they all appeased me) to go whale
watching, which is easily one of my favorite activities IN THE WORLD. When we
first went whale watching in Cabo, I think Billy and I were only dating at the
time. We got in a tiny little dinghy and went on the hunt for whales. We got
right up next to them, and it was terrifyingly wonderful. That’s where I fell
in love with whales. Going whale watching this time was a little different
because I think they started figuring out that they shouldn’t get right on top
of the whales like that. We didn’t get as close, but we saw a lot more from a
distance and we even saw one humpback jump into the air. The guides this time
knew a lot more about whales. Especially compared to the first time where the
guy would just say “si, senorita” to all my questions. “Have you ever seen a
whale do a backflip?” “si, senorita”.
This time, the guides even put a
hydrophone into the water so we could listen to the whales sing to each other. I
may have shed a tear. And I know what I want for Christmas next year. Why is it
that I feel so spiritual being around sea creatures? But when I go to church
all I do is get offended and get my blood boiling? OK, maybe only in Relief
Society and Sunday school. Maybe I like
that the whales can’t tell me what they’re really thinking so I can pretend
they say whatever I want. Even if their whole song was a long stream of
F-you’s, it was beautiful. Which, now that I think about it, Billy was going on
and on to me about how incredible it would be to have to hunt a whale to
survive (in the days before they were endangered), so the whales probably were
singing swear words at us.
We also took Razors out into the
desert and then drove them on the beach. It was actually way more fun than I
thought. Even if our razor kept overheating whenever I drove it. What can I
say? I have a need for speed. The highlight of that excursion was Mac and Jet
dressed in their Razor garb. They were decked out with helmets, bandanas over
their nose and mouth and goggles. They looked like the little sand people on
Star Wars.
Billy got to go golfing and his
brothers and dad all joined him. No on else really wanted to go because it was
so expensive, but just like me with the whales, he said, “I’m going, even if
it’s by myself.” In his defense, he hadn’t been golfing since last Chrismas in
St. George, and his family played year long. Even I played in the spring and fall
a little bit. We can be a little high maintenance when it comes to whales and
golfing, but the whole family goes along with it and doesn’t talk crap—to our
faces at least.
Although, after all these fun excursions, Billy's highlight was getting to play ping-pong with an 86-year old woman from Taiwan. She was tiny--probably 4'10, with a hunched back and she was watching him play with Mac and Jet. She came over to him and asked, "Would you mind coming back to play with me later?" And my sweet husband said, "Sure, let's play now". He started playing her, going pretty easy on her. Then, she's full on holding the paddle like a pro and jumping around to get to the ball. She even slammed it on him a few times. He said she was like Yoda--walking up to the table all slow and then pulling out some crazy moves. The best player he's ever played! She even gave him some pointers. I wasn't there, but I got to meet this girlfriend of his later in the week. I made them take a picture together. The brothers all used to/still pick out a girlfriend for the week and call them their Cabo Wabo, and this woman was definitely Billy's Cabo Wabo. He would start talking about her out of nowhere with a big smile on his face.
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| Billy with his Cabo Wabo |
This is an awful segue, but you know what really pisses me off?
Everywhere we went, Mexicans on the street would whisper to Billy and offer him
weed, or “mota”. One time, they even offered him “weed, cocaine, molly?” He
even claimed that the Santa Claus at the mall offered him some when he took Mac
and Jet to meet sit on Santa’s lap. And no one ever offered me any! Is weed not
a girl drug? Drugs shouldn’t discriminate. Or are women seen as too uptight
that they would never buy any off the streets of Mexico? Or maybe Billy just
looks like a textbook pothead. I hate being stereotyped, so, I spent my
vacation asking all of the people on the street for some ganja. Hopefully I
made a difference in their perceptions of women. Except I never bought any, so
they probably just hate women more now.
On one of the last nights, we all
went on a sunset dinner cruise and stuffed our faces with Miami vices and
fajitas and guacamole. Then there was a dance party, and you know I was all
over that. My dance style is best described as “clearing the floor”, in that I
make such large movements that no one wants to get too close to me out of fear
of being elbowed or kneed or something. So, I always have a large circle around
me and then everyone watches me trying to decide if I’m having a seizure or if
I meant to do that with my body. It was a blast. Jet fell asleep halfway
through dinner, so he was soooo grumpy all night. This is, until we went to request
the “Whip and Nae Nae” and he came alive dancing his little heart out. He still
wouldn’t smile halfway through the song, so he looked so serious while whipping
and breaking his legs. He kills me.
When we got back to Utah, it had
snowed like 2 feet, so Billy went up skiing with his brothers—his only snow all
winter break. It was a perfect last day in Utah before we went to balmy 70
degree Virginia.
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| Straight outta Mad Max. Razor-ers |
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| The best in-laws/grandparents. |
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