I cannot believe it's almost May. May 15th marks ONE WHOLE YEAR since driving away from Seattle in our dorky mini van with our dorky pup and trekking the 2,800 miles to La Cruz. I can't friggen believe it's been that long already. It's gone by so fast because time and seasons and months just all kinda blend in together and become a big, hot, sunny blur here...
I usually mask my feelings with sarcasm and smart-assery (who, me??) but the first several months in Mexico were actually really hard on me... Moving is stressful enough, but throw in a new language, new culture, new currency, new climate, new everything....and it can create one little, anxiety-filled, homesick turtle. (That was me last summer.) But I can honestly say that I don't regret moving here...and I'm pretty happy now, in general. I'm getting better at speaking and understanding Spanish (notice I didn't say "we"), I'm not afraid of driving like a Mexican anymore, I haven't had to (ask Ty to) evict any giant spiders lately, we've made a lot of friends and met tons of cool people, we've finally adapted to the heat enough that we can exercise regularly and not DIE, Bloo and Luna are the happiest nerds you ever did see...and our new gig as property managers at Jardin del Mar couldn't be going smoother.
Things have been going really well at Jardin since we took over the business/property in December. For reopening the hotel as late as we did in high season, we're happy with the amount of bookings we've been able to generate so far. April has been our busiest month to date, with 26 people checking in or out! And we already have several bookings for next winter/spring, so we're feeling optimistic about this gig being something we can enjoy doing for a while. And, duh, we get to live HERE. So, life definitely does not suck south of the border...
It's funny...whenever we're doing like the least worky-things, we get the best reservations. The last time we were shoving pizza in our faces on the way home from the hot springs, we got a reservation for 13 people who rented out the entire Estate for the week of Christmas. While we were out kayaking once, we came back to a 6-week reservation for February/March, and then we got another month-long reservation while having dinner at a friend's... It's like as soon as we give ourselves a break and get out of the house, my phone buzzes with a reservation notification. So, that means we should just be kicking our feet up all the time, right??? I can get behind that logic.
We have our last round of guests this week, checking out next Monday, and then we have zero bookings for six straight weeks...and to be honest, I'm looking forward to the break. Our guests have all been totally awesome and fun to host, but our living quarters are essentially split in half by the "hotel lobby"....a big courtyard that guests use to come and go out the front door, walking by our bedroom on one side and our kitchen on the other.
It's a really weird thing to have to get used to always having people around "your house." Between having 1-4 staff members here every day (gardener, housekeeper, pool guy and maintenance guy) and guests coming and going at all hours, we're very rarely "home alone." (Marco even comes in on Sundays for a couple hours when we have guests, despite me insisting that he works too damn much.)
I wake up to the sound of Marco sweeping the lobby or watering flowers (or the damn bird squawking his head off at sunrise every single morning... Oh, did I mention we got a parrot? Did I mention I hate him?) ...and I'm pretty sure Marco has seen me with sleepy bed head schlepping my way to the kitchen for coffee in my pajamas waaaaaaay more often than he's seen me put together early in the morning. Poor man.
Meet Macho... Don't be fooled by his cuteness, he's evil.
It's the only down side to living at a "hotel"... I miss the feeling of home being the place where you're most relaxed and unapologetically yourself. Where you can rock the same pair of paint-stained sweats all weekend and binge on Netflix. Where you don't have to put pants on as soon as you get out of bed because the pool boy has a habit of walking right past your open bedroom windows. Where you don't have to be "on" all the time. Where you don't feel obligated to wash the dishes right away because the housekeeper will see how big of a slob you really are. (I'm sure you feel really sorry for us, right? Yeah, I thought so...)
This past Sunday was the first time in months that we've had the place to ourselves, so instead of staying indoors on our laptops as per usual, I forced us outside and we spent the afternoon goofing off in the pool and listening to music. It was fabulous.
I'm looking forward to low season, but I am NOT looking forward to another Mexican summer. When I think about the humidity and the never-ending sweat and the torrential downpours and being unable to sleep and the blasted mosquitoes, I feel my blood pressure start to rise. So, if we could just fast forward from June to October that would be grrreeeeeat.
We're headed up to the states to visit friends and family in Portland and Seattle for a few weeks in late July (and to see Bruno Mars in concert for my birthday... NBD) so that'll be a nice break from the thunderstorms. However, Bloo has to stay here (because he's too friggen big and no airline will take him) and I regularly lose sleep over the thought of being away from him for that long and whether he'll get any snuggles from the staff (he won't) or if he's gonna be sleeping outside at night (he will be) or if he'll get fed on his usual schedule (I'm not counting on it)... So, aside from constantly worrying about being away from my perfect angel boy, I'm looking forward to going home in a few months.
We had originally planned to stay in Seattle for two whole months this summer just because it's so miserable here, but once we found out that it would be a huge pain to get Bloo there and back, we shortened our trip to 3 weeks. We're flying into Portland, taking the train to Seattle, driving to Vancouver, B.C., spending back-to-back weekends on Anderson Island and then flying back to Puerto Vallarta out of Seattle the first week of August. It's going to be a crazy busy trip!!!
Welp, I should probably go do something with my bed head before our guests are up and about, so....hasta pronto y tenga un buen dia!
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