Rocky Point, Mexico

Happy 60th Mimi Elise

"She stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails."

- Elizabeth Edwards

We really wanted Elise's 60th birthday celebration to be a reflection of who she is and what she loves so we spent a lot of time brainstorming around those two ideas - what makes Elise who she is and what does she love most. It was actually pretty easy to come to the conclusion that one of the strongest characteristics of Elise is how greatly she loves her family. She has given so much to her children over the years and she loves each of her grandchildren dearly. After some continued discussion, we decided that the best way to celebrate Elise was to spend a weekend all together as a family at one of her most favorite places - Rocky Point.

We spent one afternoon shopping at the local fish market and found some pretty great treasures. Heron and a few of the boys found their "lucha libre" masks and instantly went into character. Our girls were more interested in the beautiful traditional Mexican dresses and brightly colored bracelets. 

It was fun to watch Kylan have a chance to use his Spanish again, although neither of us felt very inclined to barter and pretty much paid what the merchants were asking. There's just something about  coming straight from Stanford to visiting a small town in Mexico that puts "getting a deal" into perspective.

We tried valiantly to get a picture of Mimi with all of her grandkids, but this was the best we could do. We're missing Captain, a couple aren't looking, and only one is really smiling. It's not great, but it's the thought that counts...right?!

So now they all look and smile...

Just one of our little family drives, crammed into the back of the truck. It may not look safe, but I promise we drove very, very slowly!

 Oh no...the whale ate all the kids!

They had a life-size display of a whale skeleton just down the street from where we stayed so we took an evening field trip to go check out the whale bones. Of course the kids loved it and we had lots of conversations about what whales really eat.

The house we rented was really amazing. It was right on the beach and because we were up at the Northern tip of the Gulf of California, the tidal changes were incredibly drastic. When the tide was high the water came almost to our back porch. When the tide was low we had almost 300 yards of tide pools to explore. On the very last morning of our trip, we spent the entire morning out exploring the tide pools. We found lots of crabs, sea snails, star fish, etc. It was really amazing to watch the kids explore and discover and be so proud of what they'd found. It was a perfect way to end the trip.