Friday, October 3rd Erin and I walked to Wal-mart (they have Home Depot too now) and picked up a disposable underwater camera and then took a taxi downtown, where we learned that we had missed the last water taxi to Yelapa. Erin was really excited about going out on the water that day, so we decided to spend the extra money and hire a private boat.

Here’s a short video of our adventure:

Normally, Los Arcos and Yelapa would be two independent destinations. Since we had our own boat, we were able to go both places on the same trip. At Los Arcos, which is a Mexican National Park, we were able to snorkel around the boat and through the caves. The water was a little too murky to see very far.



We arrived at Yelapa around 3pm where we layed on the beach for awhile to catch some rays and have a snack.

Yelapa is a small fishing village that is accessible only by boat. Everyone we talked to told us how there was no electricity and it was a very laid back place. It was nice, but we saw electricity everywhere. People were watching TV in most of the huts we walked by. We also were greeted immediately after stepping off the boat by the same pan-handlers we found in Puerto Vallarta. I bought Erin a shell necklace and earings, and also paid a guy $5US to get the picture with an Iguana.

We tried hiking up to a waterfall we’d heard about, but we had to be back at the boat by 5:00 and we ran out of time. I’m sure we were very close when we turned around.

After a tiring day at sea, we spent the night in our room watching TV and eating room-service pizza. Yummy!

Thursday, October 2nd was our 2nd day in Puerto Vallarta. We got up and took a taxi to town (Marriott is located in Marina Vallarta, about 10 minutes from downtown). After breakfast we explored downtown on foot and tried our best to avoid the timeshare and jewelry sales that are found on every corner.

We got to see the famous Our Lady of Guadalupe Church.

Our afternoon was spent relaxing in the hotel pool.

And for dinner we walked over to the Marina and had some great food at an Argentinean restaurant.

Wednesday, October 1st Erin and I flew from San Francisco (SFO) to Puerto Vallarta, MX for the start of our honeymoon. It was a nice short flight (3hrs 20mins). A quick taxi ride to the Marriott CasaMagna Hotel and we were settled into our great room on the 7th floor overlooking the pool area and the ocean. We arrived late in the afternoon and we were pretty exhausted from the wedding and all the travel, so dinner was in the hotel sports bar.

We had the most fabulous wedding weekend! Thanks to everyone who traveled with us to the Bethel Inn for a weekend full of fun. We have many great memories that will be with us forever. Many people are continuing to share their weekend photographs with us at our photobucket website. Use “darling” (without quotes) as the password to view photos or to upload your own. I will try to have all uploads approved quickly. We’ll also be posting the professional photos once we receive them. I’ll add an updated link when available.

Thanks to Jason, Raphael, Paul, Chris, and Arnie for a great unexpected bachelor party! Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I’d be taking the Blue Bird of Happiness to Portland for that celebration. But it was fun and it was a surprise. Raphael somehow got a license plate for the bus and sent it to Paul. He flew to Maine on an early flight before the wedding and helped get things set up. I though Jason and I were just going out for a beer in Lewiston. After about an hour of drinking beers at the Blue Goose Bar, up drives the Blue Bird full of partiers. That’s the first time I’ve been out until 4am in a long, long time 🙂

Erin and I have been hard at work these last few months, trying to do as much ourselves at possible. It’s been a fun challenge learning how to use all the software on my computer to come up with creative products. My mom helped out immensely be sketching and painting a variety of maple and oak leaves in fall colors, which I’ve been adding to almost all our projects. So far we’ve made our own candles, CDs, ceremony programs and table cards. Here’s Erin hard at work adding the binding to our ceremony programs:

Click on the photo for a larger view:

This is a famous alley in San Luis Obispo called Bubble Gum Alley. It’s actually really disgusting. People stick their chewing gum on the walls. Some places have inches of stuck gum, and people get very creative with writing and drawing in chewed gum. I took this picture with my cell phone so it’s not the highest quality. Click on the photo for a larger view.

Here’s a picture collage of Erin’s first 30 years, created by of her mom Judy: