Well, we’re here in Cabo San Lucas for a 1 week vacation. We got here last Saturday (7/14/07). Wow! .. it sure is hot here! Very dry and dusty but at least, the beach and the pool is just a few steps away.

We’re staying at Hotel Melia in Cabo. The place is much nicer than I expected. I really like the way they designed the place and the service has been very good. The tile work is awesome! The pool area is also very good and of course, lots of eye candy.

Everything is so expensive though but I heard that Cabo is an expensive place (i didn’t know that …). There’s also a lot of people here trying to sell you some thing, so you just have to be careful.

So far, we’ve signed up for the following activities: tour to the Arch/Lover’s Beach, ATV, parasailing and use of the warerunner. I’m nervous about the parasailing, since I’m scared of heights!. So, we’ll see! We got discounts for all the activities that we signed up for but we had to sit through a timeshare presentation. We did not buy but we saw the units that they were selling. It looked very nice but too expensive for me.

So far, we’ve played in the beach and hanged out in the pool, walked around town and went to the mall. It’s quite a contrast walking around the “not so developed part of town” and then going back to the hotel. We’ve gone and done some grocery at this place called the City Club which is very similar to Costco (warehouse style and members only .. ie, you need a membership to shop but you can buy a 1 day membership card for shopping).

The beach is just a few steps away from the hotel and it’s nice. They have this cushions in the beach where you can hang out. The beach itself is OK. I think the beaches in Hawaii are much nicer. The beach gets crowded later during the day and a lot of locals walk up and down the beach trying to sell you something (ie. clothes, jewelry, plates, etc).

Saturday:
Check in to the hotel @ around 5pm (our flight was 2 hours late). Went to our room and looked around. We were very hungy (no food in the flight) so we ate at the restaurant in the hotel (Tiki Beach). The food was very good but also $$$. Our favorite was the salmon. While eating, we were watching the activity in the pool … Lots of very young and good looking men/women hanging around and partying in the pool.

Sunday:
We went to the gym and worked out, then just hanged out in the beach and pool. For dinner, we went to a restaurant on the beach called “The Office”. The food was very good but also $$$. The place is very colorful and the tables are right there on the beach/sand.

Monday:
We tried the breakfast buffet in the “Passion” restaurant. It was very good! We then walked to the mall and looked around. The Haagen Daz place there is very nice and I ended up buying a couple of swim clothes. In the afternoon, Nick, Jen, Alexa and Nathaniel arrived. We met up with them and talked about schedule and things to do. They are staying at Pueblo Bonita Rose. We had dinner at La Golondrina restaurant. The food was really good and we liked it a lot! Definitely worth coming back too!

Tuesday:
Tuesday was a fun day. In the morning, we went to the The Arch via a glass bottom boat. It’s not really a “full” glass bottom boat. What it has are 2 rectangle glass openings in the floor in the middle boat enclosed in a wooden box with a cover on top. You take out the cover if you want to see the water. Overall, it was a “rough” ride but it was fun. We saw a lot of fish. It was great to see “The Arch” up close and the beautiful rock formations. We were told that this was the a very unique place in which the Sea of Cortez meet up with the Pacific Ocean. The Sea of Cortez side was much calmer as opposed to the Pacific Ocean side which was very rough. We wanted to spend some time in the “Lover’s Beach” which was on the Sea of Cortez side. The beach was very nice and the kids had fun playing. We met a couple from New Orleans who kayak’ed to the beach … They are brave esp. since the water was getting rough! When we left, the beach was getting crowded.

In the afternoon, we went ATV’ing. This was a lot of fun but also very dusty. I managed to hit the vehicle behind me (Romy and Gabby) as we were going up (for some reason, my ATV wasn’t moving … wrong gear!). On the way home, I hit the ATV infront of me (sudden brake and I didn’t press my brake in time - Nick and Nathaniel). I also got stuck on the way home and hit a ditch (which was probably good since I would fallen over a fairly steep ravine if I didn’t hit the ditch)! Needless to say, it was an adventure for me. No one was hurt of course! I think I need to drive better next time . Our ATV guide was very nice and was very patient with me! The drive to the beach was pretty rough and bumpy but once we were in the beach, it was very flat and we had fun driving around. I even let Gabby drive the ATV. Everyone agreed that the ATV activity was loads of fun!
For dinner, we went to Mariscos Mazatlan for some Mexican seafood. The food was really good and we celebrated Grant’s birthday there. July 17 is his 15th birthday!

Wednesday:
We went to a place called Lenny’s for late breakfast/early dinner. The food was pretty good and the prices were very reasonable. After that, we hit the gym! Even Gabby is working out . At around 2:50pm, we met up for parasailing. We boarded that boat but when we got to the designated area for parasailing, we had to cancel out because it was windy. It’s not good to parasail when it is windy, so we had to reschedule.

For dinner we went to the Marina and ate at Tiki’s. On the way to Tiki’s, we passed a lot of restaurants. It was interesting to see representatives of some restaurants standing infront of the establishments and “hawking” the menu to the passerby’s and enticing customers to the restaurant. It was kind of noisy.

Thursday:
Went on a bus tour around the city and out to Todos Santos. On the way, we stopped at a place where they make blankets, place where they sell dulces (candies), jewelry place and the final stop was @ Hotel California in Todos Santos.
I bought a nice rug (i liked the color) at the blanket place and we watch how they make rugs the old fashion way. It was interesting! The “dulce” place was a lot smaller than I expected but the sweets were interesting and some I am familiar with esp the coconut and taramind sweets (i know of someting similar when i was growing up in PI). I bought a mirror in the jewelry/artscrafts place. We were a little concerned on how we are going to bring home the mirror but we managed to bring it home in one piece (some minor damage but not much and it still looked nice).

We has lunch at Los Adobes in Todos Santos and walked around the place to see all the cactus plants they had in the garden. It was very nice! I think I’m going to create a cactus garden in the backyard! . The food was good too and after that we walked around town and everyone met up in Hotel California.

Overall, it was a very educational tour and gave me an insight into the way of life in Cabo. Our tour guide was very informative.

Friday:
We mostly hanged out at the beach and I tried to get some tan. I am darker now and got sunburned a little bit. The guys rented a waverunner and checked out the water and the coastline. For dinner, we went to Mi Casa for some authentic Mexicon food! I love this place .. The food was awesome!

Saturday:
This was our last day at Cabo. We had parasailing in the morning, so we had to wake up early, had coffee at the Sandbar (on the beach). We were the only ones there and met up Nick/Jen/Alexa and Nathaniel to do parasailing. Parasailing was fun … and was not scary as I expected (i dont like heights). It was really nice and calm up there and the view was spectacular. The kids wanted more action but they enjoyed it too! We all did double parasailing to shorten the time spent doing the activity since our flight back to California was at 2:55pm.

After parasailing, we went back to the Sandbar for late breakfast/early lunch.

Checkout at Hotel Melia was @10am (kind of early), so we took a shower at the Spa and got ready for the flight back home.
We left the hotel @ around 1pm, i think to go to the airport and this time, our flight home was on time. Checking in was not too bad either. We flew United.

So, overall the Cabo trip was fun and educational and I totally enjoyed myself!

Well, the remodeling project is in full swing. The contractors are hard at work digging, pouring cement and banging on walls. Right now, they’ve poured concrete and put in the flooring area. They’ve also taken out the stucco in that section of the house, ready for the walls to be taken down. They’ve also taken out a portion of the roof because they are going to extend it 5ft in one section. They’ve also connected the plumbing in the area where the sink will be.

So far, it’s been interesting watching them work - ie. it’s hard work being in the construction business. This got me wondering about a lot of things - immigration, the US labor force, minimum wage and a lot of others things.

Anyway, we’ve packed allmost all the stuff in the kitchen in boxes, ready for the wall/cabinet teardown. We’ve sort of figured out what we’re going to do for cooking/food while the kitchen is being worked on. I’m not looking forward to that - probably lots of microwave food, take-out or use the bbq grill more. Oh well, we’ll just have to take it one day at a time. I’m more worried about the kids. At least, they’re older and can handle this better.

We’ve also ordered the new windows and started looking into purchasing the kitchen appliances. It’s burning a hole in my pocket .

On another front, we’re also fixing up Gabby’s room. We fixed up Grant’s room, so now it’s Gabby’s turn. Grant ripped out the carpet in Gabby’s room and we’re going to put hardwood floors in her room. I’m painting her room right now. She’s picked out the colors that she want for her room (green/blue). It looks nice - pretty colorful! Gabby’s room remodel is Grant’s summer job. He’s going to lay down the hardwood floors and we’re going to pay him for doing it, so he’s motivated.

So, the house is a mess right now. Oh well. At least, I have an excuse for it being so messy!

I never thought we’d do this again .. but here we go again!

We’re doing another house remodel. We’re redoing the kitchen and adding more square footage to the area. We’re basically tearing down the entire kitchen and redoing everything! So, we’re putting on all new kitchen appliances, cabinets, etc … I’m kind of excited and looking forward to the new kitchen. I’m a little nervous about the budget too. So far, we’ve looked at kitchen appliances - there’s so much selection. The Subzero refrigerators are awesome but the price is awesome too!
We’re also looking into extending the front entrance to the house and redoing the stairs. Hopefully, there’s still some money
left for these 2 items!

We worked with an architect (recommended by a friend) to get the plans drawn. He’s pretty good and he gave us some really good ideas. The permit has been approved by the City of Fremont and we’ve decided to work with a contractor who’s a very good friend of the family (he helped us when we remodeled our previous house in Milpitas).
Work started last week and so far, it’s been good. They are only working in the outside area right now so the inside of the house is still OK …